[extropy-chat] No frozen Europe...

[spike]

________________________________________
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Robert Bradbury
...

Oh yes, another article I ran across suggests that the Antarctic Krill are
sucking down more CO2 than had previously been thought so one positive
effect of increased atmospheric CO2 would be to increase food supplies at
the bottom of the oceanic food pyramid. 

Robert


The atmosphere is has gone from a concentration of
about 320 to 380 ppm in my life.  The area of the
earth is about 5e14 square meters and the atmopshere
weighs about ten thousand kg per square meter, so
the atmosphere's mass is about 5e18 kg.  Carbon
dioxide is 12/44ths carbon, then the mass of carbon
in the atmosphere is about 5.3e14 kg, up from 4.5E14kg. 

Seawater is about 28 parts per million carbon according
to this site:

http://www.seafriends.org.nz/oceano/seawater.htm

This carbon must be all the stuff living in that
seawater.  About 70% of the planet's surface is
ocean, and as I recall the average depth is about
4000 meters, so I calculate a total ocean mass
of about 1.4e21 kg.  So the mass of the carbon
in the ocean is about 4e16kg.

Did I goof that calc?  If not, then there is nearly
one hundred times as much carbon in the sea as in
the air.  So if the amount of krill and other ocean
bio-stuff is increased by one percent, that would
devour all the atmospheric carbon dioxide, which
would be bad.  But a quarter of a percent would
compensate for increase in CO2 in my lifetime, which
might also be bad but some would argue is good.

So if we nuke a few whales, each of which devours
a lot of krill and makes a lot of CO2, then we
could take down the CO2 a lot more than that goofy
failed treaty.  Could it really be as easy as slaying
a number of whales?  I bet we could do that.

spike