Climate Change - A Review of the Mass Balance of Biogenic and Fossil Carbon

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to address, often, contradictory perspectives, regarding the growing concentration of carbon gases (primarily as CO2 and CH4) in Earth’s atmosphere, and the global warming that results. There are two primary sources of these gases: biogenic carbon sources, and fossil based carbon sources. Some will say that increased world (human) population, improved living standards, and the resulting expansion of modern agriculture, are all primary contributors to the rising carbon gases that are driving climate change. Others will suggest that the increased use of fossil fuels is the most significant generation of carbon gases and climate change. Could it be that both of these sources are contributing equally, or at least, significantly? To answer this dilemma, a “mass balance” study of these two, competing effects is offered in this paper. During this study, it was discovered that all the necessary data needed for this evaluation, can actually be found online, and all in the public domain. The core data include: 1) Current and historical atmospheric composition data, and total mass of Earth’s atmosphere (available from the NASA Earth-Fact-Sheet); 2) The “Keeling Curve”, which is now available from NOAA (United States - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) which presents the rising concentration of CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere; 3) International fossil fuel emission data which are available from the Global Carbon Project and from the “Ourworldindata.org” website. After careful evaluation, the available data appear to show that the emissions from burning fossil fuels more than account for all of the rise of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere during the past 60 years. In comparison, the biogenic carbon cycle is a massive global phenomenon, which occurs year after years, having minimal impact on the rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations. What initially appears confusing, is that the annual biogenic data are huge in scale, compared to the much smaller, annual fossil emission data. An independent review of carbon isotopes (12C, 13C, 14C) used as trace elements, indicates a similar conclusion as this mass balance evaluation.