Gigatonne Carbon Dioxide Removal Can Reverse Global Heating Trend

Abstract

It is a surprising realization to many that a changing temperature tightly correlates with the carbon dioxide (CO2) levels worldwide in a linear, lockstep manner with a reversible but very short temporal feedback loop of only a few decades. A mapping of the past 400,000 years of earth’s climate history by Hansen, based on the Vostok ice core sampling, offers a glimpse into this remarkably tight relationship between CO2 and global temperature levels but also the average sea level over four ice ages that are clearly delineated in his historic depiction of all three quantities. As his Table accompanying the graph is analyzed, an equation linking the three variables has now been generated, yielding a fresh view into how past decades of hundreds of gigatons of atmospheric increase will continue to affect a worldwide temperature rise, also called “global warming.” The implication that is inescapable from such an analysis is that the presently stored CO2 level, far surpassing by over 40% those present in 1950, is the real cause of the physics “heat-trapping effect” seen worldwide. (Note: US tons are 0.907 of metric tonnes and both are used in this article.) Research accomplished in this review point to the heat-trapping property of CO2 as the major contributor to increasing heat worldwide and lead to the prediction of how much higher global temperature will rise if left unchecked, with the level of CO2 over 40% higher than it has ever been in more than 400,000 years. The proposed solution offered in this review is to initiate a 40 gigatonne carbon dioxide removal (CDR) annually in order to stabilize atmospheric CO2, to be followed by an expanded CDR effort toward a goal of 100 gigatonnes/year to begin reversing and lowering global temperature.