The title is relatively misleading: the article doesn't say that atmospheric CO2 levels have been the same every year; rather, the percent of year-by-year emissions which are absorbed has not gone down.
Given the charged political content of the subject, and the fact that this is an article intended for non-expert readers, I'd say that it's all but certain that the title is intentionally misleading. It's constructed as link bait to draw exactly this kind of post on news aggregation sites.
But yes, it doesn't say at all what it seems to. The fraction of CO2 in [edit: should have read "entering", apologies] the atmosphere that is due to anthropogenic sources (vs. natural sources) hasn't changed. But overall CO2 has been increasing steadily; that's a very old and very well established result. Type "hawaii co2 measurements" into google image search. The chart is clear as day.
If the fraction of anthropogenic CO2 has not increased in the past 160 years, BUT the amount of atmospheric CO2 has been slowly increasing over said period, what does this have to say about AGW?
My understanding has always been that the theory of AGW has always been contingent upon increasing levels of airborne ACO2. And if that is NOT true, then what exactly is the "A" in "AGW"?
Edit: Not sure why I'm being downvoted, but I am asking an honest question. The theory of AGW has always included this scaling effect, whereby we reach a tipping point beyond which the airborne fraction continues to increase - meaning that more ACO2 increases the airborne fraction, which increases the percentage of ACO2 that remains in the atmosphere. What effect does this study, if true, have on said predicted feedback loop?
Unless am also confused about this whole thread and misreading your comments, your reply seems to have fallen in the precise trap that this thread is talking about.
The percentage of human-emitted CO2 released into the atmosphere has remained steady year-over-year for a long time.
This means that since humans are pumping in more and more CO2 every year, more and more of it ends up in the atmosphere (since percentage is constant and absolutes is increasing).
So this article is a direct refutation of your point.
Please correct me if I'm mistaken on something here.
The comment to which you are replying is incorrect about what the "airborne fraction" means. Your point would be correct if that comment were correct. But, please see my correction to that comment.
I think the answer to your question is that the CO2 has been absorbed by the ocean's carbonate buffer system thus far and it's capacity to do this has either already been compromised in the recent past or is likely to be exceeded soon because the change in ocean pH is killing the sensitive lifeforms that are responsible for fixing CO2 as insoluble carbonates.
I think you're jumping the gun. The wikipedia description -
"Science Daily is a free online news source. It features news and articles on a variety of topics including: computer science, nanotechnology, medicine, psychology, biology, climate, space, physics, mathematics, chemistry, archeology, paleontology, and others.
It has been active since 1995. The articles are selected from news releases submitted by universities and other research institutions."
There's no evidence the site is politically inclined, one way or the other. Confusing titles are hardly uncommon in science reporting.
Edit: The title of the original paper - "Is the airborne fraction of anthropogenic CO2 emissions increasing? "
Glancing at the abstract, you can tell the paper argues 'no'. The title in Science Daily simply reflects the title and findings of the paper.
I didn't say the site was politically inclined. I said they have a clear motivation (inbound page views) to post stories with politically charged headlines.
And Science Daily absolutely is a non-expert publication. Scanning through the headlines on their front page right now, I can't find any that are using jargon definitions of common words in the way that this headline is using "fraction". That's fine in the title of the published paper. But this isn't a link to the paper, is it?
You've misread the wikipedia article. What's remained constant is the fraction of (human) emitted CO2 which remains in the atmosphere and the fraction which is absorbed by oceans and other sinks. For what you've said to hold true would require both anthropogenic and natural sources to be rising in lock-step.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 38.6 ms ] threadhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_fraction
relating to absorption of CO2. But it's easy to misunderstand if you don't know the precise meaning. I doubt the title is intentionally misleading.
But yes, it doesn't say at all what it seems to. The fraction of CO2 in [edit: should have read "entering", apologies] the atmosphere that is due to anthropogenic sources (vs. natural sources) hasn't changed. But overall CO2 has been increasing steadily; that's a very old and very well established result. Type "hawaii co2 measurements" into google image search. The chart is clear as day.
My understanding has always been that the theory of AGW has always been contingent upon increasing levels of airborne ACO2. And if that is NOT true, then what exactly is the "A" in "AGW"?
Edit: Not sure why I'm being downvoted, but I am asking an honest question. The theory of AGW has always included this scaling effect, whereby we reach a tipping point beyond which the airborne fraction continues to increase - meaning that more ACO2 increases the airborne fraction, which increases the percentage of ACO2 that remains in the atmosphere. What effect does this study, if true, have on said predicted feedback loop?
The percentage of human-emitted CO2 released into the atmosphere has remained steady year-over-year for a long time.
This means that since humans are pumping in more and more CO2 every year, more and more of it ends up in the atmosphere (since percentage is constant and absolutes is increasing).
So this article is a direct refutation of your point.
Please correct me if I'm mistaken on something here.
It has been active since 1995. The articles are selected from news releases submitted by universities and other research institutions."
There's no evidence the site is politically inclined, one way or the other. Confusing titles are hardly uncommon in science reporting.
Edit: The title of the original paper - "Is the airborne fraction of anthropogenic CO2 emissions increasing? "
Glancing at the abstract, you can tell the paper argues 'no'. The title in Science Daily simply reflects the title and findings of the paper.
And Science Daily absolutely is a non-expert publication. Scanning through the headlines on their front page right now, I can't find any that are using jargon definitions of common words in the way that this headline is using "fraction". That's fine in the title of the published paper. But this isn't a link to the paper, is it?