Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Yeah, small amounts of stuff can't actually do anything, right?

Just arguing against the "well only 410 ppm CO2 / 1.8 ppm methane can't cause a problem because it's small numbers" mentality.

It's a small percentage in a VERY big system. http://grisanik.com/blog/how-much-carbon-is-in-the-atmosphere/

I haven't checked the math, but that suggests that there are 3,208 gigatons of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere.

410 ppm of a lot is, well, a lot.

It's not dispersed in some vast expanse.  Its presence is growing denser, not more dispersed.  PPM is a relative measure, not an absolute one. And it's up something like 30% over the timespan we're discussing.

It's really strange that you're arguing against measurable phenomena, here.

my only point is that its a fourth of one percent to total volume and the man made portion of co2 is 4% of that number
you can describe it however you wish but that is a very small number

actually its not 4% but .04% and the man made portion is 4% of that number


https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2019/07/30/co2-drives-global-warming/#:~:text=CO2%20makes%20up%20only%20about,to%20escape%20without%20being%20absorbed.

Both water vapor and CO2 are responsible for global warming, and once we increase the CO2 in the atmosphere, the oceans warm up, which inevitably triggers an increase in water vapor. But while we have no way to control water vapor, we can control CO2. And because we are increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by continuing to burn fossil fuels, even in relatively small amounts compared to the entire mass of the atmosphere, we are disturbing the entire heat balance of the planet.

I stand by the fact that these numbers are really small and raise question marks for me

Total atmosphere is 1,000,000 units

then total co2 would be 400 units

and the man made portion of co2 would be 16 units

if im wrong in my math please feel free to tell me

but 16 out of 1,000,000 aint much

Again, you're talking about annual emissions, not actual percentage of man-made CO2 in the atmosphere.

Your first link is a letter to the editor, by a person of unknown background and credibility. He claims it's 3.2% of CO2 in the atmosphere, citing some DOE 2000 report I can't find via google. However, given the closeness of the number to the estimates of man-made annual emissions, I see no reason to believe that it's not an error that he has made that is identical to the one you have made.

Your second link is to Quora, which is a question-and-answer site not terribly unlike a message board. The first answer by Windell Driskell (retired USAF and not climate scientist) repeats that about 97% is produced by nature. The use of the word "produced" would be consistent with an understanding of annual emissions. He does not claim it's 97% of the atmospheric CO2 level. A second answer by George Dowson (byline says he's a researcher in CCUS, aka carbon capture, utilization, and storage) reiterates the claim I've made that it's about 5% of annual emissons but a major driver of atmospheric CO2 rise. A third response by Cristian Bellafonte (entrepreneur) reiterates the idea that 3.2% is produced or by-produced by man, which again points to annual emissions. He never claims that it is 3.2% or 4% of the current atmosphere. A fourth response by Edward Measure (retired physicist) doesn't use any percentage claim, but says burning fossil fuels, and manufacture of cement and steel is a smaller contribution than natural sources. However he claims that because this additional CO2 is unbalanced, it drives the increase in atmospheric CO2. Beyond that there are some older answers, which range from "less than 10%" to around 33% of atmospheric CO2 is man made. Either way, I'd suggest that Quora is a poor source for, well, anything.

Your third link is again a question and answer site. However, the only posted answer to the question clearly explains that the idea of 3% of emissions (referring to annual emissions) being man-made, it leads to a much higher total atmospheric concentration because the carbon cycle cannot sink the extra emissions.

So your links don't actually prove anything. They're not from reputable sources, and two of the three don't even claim what you say they're claiming.

Have you read any of the links I've provided? If not, I highly recommend these:

https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/01/the-global-co2-rise-the-facts-exxon-and-the-favorite-denial-tricks/
https://history.aip.org/climate/co2.htm