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	Carbon dioxide was one of the good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones Date Process Result December 10, 2005 Good article nominee Listed July 30, 2006 Peer review Reviewed April 24, 2007 Good article reassessment Delisted This article was on the Article Collaboration and Improvement Drive for the week of July 11, 2007. Current status: Delisted good article

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The "In the Ocean" section says "Generally, gas solubility decreases as water temperature increases. Accordingly the ability of the oceans to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere decreases as ocean temperatures rise."

I don't know if that's even generally true, but it doesn't seem true for carbon dioxide as per http://jcbmac.chem.brown.edu/myl/hen/CO2Water.gif http://www.kgs.ku.edu/PRS/publication/2003/ofr2003-33/P1-05.html ("The solubility of CO2 in fresh water increases with increasing pressure, decreasing temperature") etc. It looks a lot like ad hoc research.

Generally solid forms of matter are more dense than their liquid forms. Accordingly, ice sinks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.188.114.26 (talk) 20:42, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(1) Open a cold can of Coke(TM). Then heat another can of Coke by soaking in boiling water for 5 minutes, and open it. Compare. (2) Add ice cubes to a glass of water. Wait for the ice cubes to sink to the bottom and report how long it takes. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 20:51, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify you'll be waiting an eternity for the ice to sink - remember Titanic? It hit a floating iceberg! Smartse (talk) 19:29, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

At the introduction at top the CO2 in atmosphere is stated as currently "approximately" a global average of 383. Later in the article in the CO2 in atmosphere section it is stated as 385 ppm. I understand this number is fluctuating as it trends upwards but it seems that these numbers are the same and should be stated as the same value with a citation to the source. 70.110.62.8 (talk) 00:17, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is indeed constantly changing. There is a secular trend, and annual variation too, and geographical variation William M. Connolley (talk) 22:20, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In addition, the diurnal temperature variations, local volcanic emmisions, photosythesis activity, humidity, air pressure, pressence of operational aircraft, etc. can all have significant impact on atmospheric CO2. It is believed that the sampeling procedure is sufficient to account for these mechanisms of variation. The mole ratio is determined only after extracting the water vapour, for instance. Expressing this as a level of CO2 in atmosphere is incorrect and the source authors state this clearly. ^[1] These approximations perhaps could be supplemented by the percentage of CO2 in atmposheric air when including water vapour, along with the rate of variability i.e. 0.00383% ± 0.00025%(not the actual numbers, just an example of form)

IanKDavis (talk) 13:32, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

An axient that killed a CO² worker. -ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkWeZ1YPI88&feature=related

I'm trying to find out how much volume is made by liquid co2. If I open up a standard 12 gram c02 cartridge, how much volumetric air will be made? say in a balloon.

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.164.65.21 (talk) 16:06, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, for back-of-the-envelope computation you can assume that CO2 is an ideal gas. In that case, it will take up 22.4 l per mol under standard conditions (which again is close enough). The molar mass of CO2 is 12 (Carbon)+2*16(Oxygen)=44g/mol. So the volume of gas from a 12g cartridge is 12/44*22.4l, or a bit more than 6l. I would say that is one fairly large balloon full of it. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:48, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Environmentalists, policy makers and people in the media always refer to carbon dioxide as just "Carbon." It needs to be noted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.117.145.109 (talk) 19:45, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Seriously, guy. Stop undoing my edits. Read anything dealing with CO2 emissions and watch them use the terms carbon dioxide, carbon and CO2 interchangeably. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.117.145.109 (talk) 19:50, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A section mentioning that might be useful, but Carbon in that context could also include Carbon Monoxide. "Carbon footprint" refers to the amount of Carbon released into the atmosphere in whatever form. I will not revert it again only because I might violate the three rv rule. Please revert it yourself. VMS Mosaic (talk) 19:57, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that most people who refer to carbon dioxide as "carbon" do it just for the brevity of the name, and therefore, I am afraid that it will have to stay. However, I personally don't like it. There are some people out there (and perhaps an awful lot of them) that don't understand that carbon dioxide is at the bottom of a chemical potential energy well compared to carbon and therefore it isn't energetically favorable to just take it out the the atmosphere, turn it into a solid and bury it in the ground like the coal (or whatever) from which it was derived. I believe that calling carbon dioxide "carbon" further confuses this issue, and I wrote a somewhat whimsical letter to the editor of my local paper bemoaning this situation, ^[2]. As a result, I have been heckled by a few at work, but have been encouraged by many others to pursue this campaign, and by one to introduce my proposed brief name for carbon dioxide, "carba" on Wikipedia. I would like some peer opinion on how widespread the use of a name has to be to include it in the other names section before I dare add it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.222.183.220 (talk) 02:37, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's just plain laziness, just like calling lysergic acid diethylamide "acid". People just pick the shorter or more pronounceable word and ignore the rest. --Itub (talk) 11:29, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the lysergic acid diethylamide article is a good example. It mentions "acid" in the text, but the infobox gives only the various actual chemical names. "Carbon" is not considered to be a chemical name for CO2. VMS Mosaic (talk) 17:53, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's more technical illiteracy (aka stupidity) than laziness. If someone calls both carbon dioxide and carbon "carbon", what are they talking about when they speak of removing so many tons of "carbon" from the atmosphere? Calling carbon dioxide "carbon" is just illiteracy. Some people call whales "fish" and chimpanzees "monkeys"; should the relevant wikipedia articles use the terms interchangeably? Qemist (talk) 22:51, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

They call it Carbon because that name sounds dirty like soot and they don't want you to know they are talking about carbon dioxide. Don't fool yourself they are not doing it by mistake. Thats why you will see objections if you try to clear it up. The latest pro cap and trade ads show it as charcoal brickets. --Sattmaster (talk) 03:39, 7 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, in the scientific literature they usually use the term carbon to talk about all emissions that will in a reasonably short term degenerate into CO2. CO2 is, more or less, the lowest energy form of carbon in the atmosphere. CO, methane, unburned fuel, etc., i.e. nearly any emission of stuff that contains any carbon, will fairly quickly (minutes to years) be oxidized into CO2 (and often some water and possibly some other stuff). Since all this eventually ends up as CO2, the convenient way to discuss it is to just talk about the carbon in it. If you look at reliable statistics, you will see that "carbon emissions" will typically be much lower than "CO2" emissions - by a factor that is a bit smaller than 11/3 (the molecular weight of CO2 is 44, that of pure C is 12, 44/12=11/3, but "Carbon" includes the non-CO2 Carbon emissions). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 05:50, 7 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If CO2 causes Earth to heat up, why is Mars so cold with most of it’s atmosphere being made up of CO2? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.89.59.10 (talk) 01:52, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The greenhouse effect is driven by the absolute amount of greenhouse gases. Mars has less than one percent of Earth's atmospheric pressure. It has nearly no water vapor, which is a major greenhouse gas on Earth. And it receives less than half of the energy per surface area from the sun, just by being farther out. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:13, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mars' ice caps are shrinking, too. Apparently, the warming is not caused entirely by "greenhouse gases." http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html Captqrunch (talk) 14:55, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please read page two of that article, at [1]. "His views are completely at odds with the mainstream scientific opinion" and "the idea just isn't supported by the theory or by the observations" should give you some idea about then reception of Abdussamatov's nonsense. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:07, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In addition, Mars is also much further from the sun. The concentration of the sun's infrared energy (heat) is thus much less (This is the primary reason why Venus is much hotter than Earth as well) Keep in mind that CO2 is NOT the primary Greenhouse Gas on Earth...that would be water vapor. If the entire atmosphere of Earth were represented by $1000.00, then CO2 would only comprise $0.40 of that. And human generated CO2 would be less than $0.01 Redwood Elf (talk) 15:13, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the reference to CO2 in Mars's atmosphere from the introductory paragraphs of the article. It was out of context and seemed irrelevant. CO2 has been detected on several planets and in interstellar clouds. It's presence on Mars is nothing remarkable or informative about CO2 per se. Perhaps a section on extraterrestrial CO2 could be added.Qemist (talk) 00:23, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with this discussion is that it falls over at the first hurdle, by specifying an unsubstantiated figure for carbon uptake by a 25-y tree that, I submit, is out by several factors of ten. Think about it. An Aspidistra could fix more carbon than that per annum. At 1.15 kg per annum, in 100 years your twenty five year old maple will have increased in mass by the equivalent of a young girl. Not credible, as you would discover it fell on your car. I don't care whose web site states that figure, it is not a peer-reviewed source, and the figure is not credible. Consequently, nor is the result. This sort of wild discussion brings WP into disrepute. It should be removed from the main page and carried out on the talk page by experts in the subject until a stable consensus is reached. Plantsurfer (talk) 08:20, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The factor is off by 25 is my guess (judging by this) - its figure is 1,300 pounds of carbon per acre per year - and my guess is that the tufts website got the "per year" part wrong (they say 1,200 pounds of carbon as well - but over the lifetime of 25 years). So i'd say the tuft reference is wrong - and the figures are off by 25 (just as your rough calculations indicate). --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 13:53, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Physiology section of this article notes that CO2 blood gas level is a "trigger" for breathing reflex, which is correct. However, it also states this is the only trigger, which isn't so. Cheyne-Stokes breathing (often a form of agonal breathing) depends on PPO2, not PPCO2.

My first contribution --- appologies if this isn't to spec. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.115.175.25 (talk) 22:38, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How about someone create a link to the "hypercapnia" page? either in the toxicity, human physiology, or the links at the bottom of the page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.72.23.142 (talk) 08:50, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So, PL wants to add:

There is some concern that as a result of increased CO₂ in the atmosphere the acidity of seawater may increase and adversely affect organisms living in the water. In particular, with increasing acidity, the availability of carbonates for forming shells may decrease. No explanation for the mechanism has been suggested however

(the bit in bold is what he wants to add). I don't think that is defensible William M. Connolley (talk) 21:56, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nope, it's not defensible. The mechanism is very well known and in fact is quite obvious when you look at the basic chemistry. See e.g., here. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 22:32, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Bop him then :-) William M. Connolley (talk) 22:51, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The current sentence does not refer to the buffering action of bicarbonate at all, and the discussion does not mention the data from our geological past when CO2 levels were higher and stimulated plankton growth. The amount of CO2 locked into limestone and chalk during the Jurassic and Cretaceous is evidence of how organisms in the sea were absorbing vast quantities of atmospheric CO2. So the topic ought to be treated with some balance. Peterlewis (talk) 06:52, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at the "Basic Chemistry" laughable as there is nothing basic about the chemistry in the environment. If we keep in mind that the ocean is buffered by silicates then looking at that reaction the acid level should remain constant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.172.194.93 (talk) 12:26, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I find one part of this article needlessly confusing:

"However, emissions of CO2 by human activities are currently more than 130 times greater than the quantity emitted by volcanoes, amounting to about 27 billion tonnes per year.[25] Human CO2 emissions amount to 2-3% of the natural emissions, including ocean outgassing. [26]"

I think a simple chart, ranking all sources of atmospheric CO2 by percentage, from highest to lowest, would make it much easier to understand these two statistics. No percentage figure for oceanic outgassing is currently given, for instance. The reader is left to guess that outgassing is probably the biggest single source of atmospheric CO2. But it's all abit vague.

Presumably the number and size of active volcanoes emitting CO2 changes all the time. Or do they balance out, to give a more or less constant figure? Please clarify. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Georgesdelatour (talk • contribs) 08:04, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I took out Human CO2 emissions amount to 2-3% of the natural emissions, including ocean outgassing. [26] because it is septic FUD and needs to be stomped on. Volcanoes are episodic, I suppose. Don't understand The reader is left to guess that outgassing is probably the biggest single source of atmospheric CO2. But it's all abit vague - it sez that anthro CO2 is 130x outgassing William M. Connolley (talk) 10:24, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

William M. Connolley, please explain why it is so called 'septic FUD that needs to be stomped on'? If we're going to add volcanoes as a CO₂ source, all other natural CO₂ sources should be added too. It can easily be argued that nearly all natural CO₂ sources are episodic or variable. For example, wildfires are highly episodic and the decaying of plant life and such (due to drought, disease or otherwise) is highly episodic as well. Also, if we're going to compare human CO₂ emissions with volcanic CO₂ emissions, we should compare human CO₂ emissions to all natural CO₂ emissions. Lastly, I'd argue that it doesn't even matter if a natural CO₂ source is stable or variable, it's irrelevant in my opinion, since the CO₂ isn't immediately absorbed when emitted. Virtually all CO₂ is released into the atmosphere and only at a later time absorbed. Source -> atmosphere -> sink.

As stated by multiple sources [2][3][4], the vast majority of all CO₂ emissions are from natural sources; overall, anthropogenic CO₂ emissions are in comparison very small. Adding this information to the article has nothing to do with understating the human impact on our climate or environment, it's just a fact that should be mentioned in an article about carbon dioxide, and especially in the section about carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere. It's as if the current data about volcanic CO₂ emissions was cherry picked to make it look like natural sources of CO₂ are insignificant compared to human CO₂ emissions. Especially since the volcanic emissions are compared to human emissions.

I'm therefore still confused why you've reverted my contribution to the article twice. I hope you can clear that up. --85.145.30.119 (talk) 15:34, 22 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It is POV by omission. You are forgetting to tell the full story. It is a carbon cycle, which means that for each source, there is a corresponding sink (the oceans suck up around 50% though). Fossil fuel burning isn't offset by a sink, so while human emissions are small in the net total of emissions, it is the reason for the increase in atmospheric CO2. --Kim D. Petersen (talk) 16:57, 22 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On the contrary, the current article doesn't tell the whole story, that's exactly my point. If we're mentioning volcanoes as a natural CO₂ source, we should mention all other natural CO₂ sources as well. I've already pointed out that many, if not all, natural CO₂ sources are variable, just like volcanoes. Take these Indonesian wildfires for example.[5] These fires emitted enormous amounts of CO₂ into the atmosphere:

Wildfires that scorched parts of Indonesia in 1997 spewed as much carbon into the atmosphere as the entire planet's biosphere removes from it in a year...

The article is inconsistent, for completeness all natural CO₂ sources should be mentioned. 85.145.30.119 (talk) 18:57, 22 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry. But that particular part (Volcanoes) of the text is about the long-term carbon-cycle. And your assertion about Indonesian wild-fires is wrong. According to the paper it released 130 Tg (tera grams) of CO (it says nothing about CO2), which is the same as 0,13 Gt (giga-tonnes). To compare, fossil fuel emissions per anno is 5.5 Gt of carbon (more in CO2)[6]. The (land) vegetation sink alone is 121.3 Gt of carbon, or around 3 orders of magnitude larger than what was released by those fires.

Every natural CO₂ source is part of the (long-term) carbon cycle, not just volcanoes. And about the amount of CO₂ emitted, it's not my assertion, it's in this source.[7] But even if the amount of CO₂ emitted by these wildfires was less, my point remains: most, if not all, natural CO₂ sources are variable and should be added to the article, just like volcanoes. You're arguing semantics. 85.145.30.119 (talk) 12:41, 23 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've added some info about the effects of increased Co2 on plants. It's quite a controversial topic so please feel free to add any other views that there might be. Smartse (talk) 16:10, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not my area, but your addition looks reasonable. The source to Bellamy in the Mail is dodgy; someone like the Idso's would be better William M. Connolley (talk) 19:12, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I included the Bellamy story because it used to be (and still is for some) an acceptable idea to suggest that climate change will be averted by plants growing faster. Unfortunately it's not the case. It's a common argument that climate change deniers use so I thought including it wasn't so stupid. Thanks for the comments. What/who is Idso? Smartse (talk) 19:24, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This page really does require an accurate heat capacity. Carbon Dioxide is so common that its page really requires a heat capacity. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.208.248.210 (talk) 13:03, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not too familiar with SHC but this page [8] seems to say that it changes with temperature?! If anyone does find a single figure can you put it on Carbon_dioxide_(data_page)? Thanks Smartse (talk) 13:11, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just like with ash retention ponds from power plants that store heavy metal ash from burning coal, it seems hard to believe that a major leak would not occur. But there seems too much money involved for people to ask questions. 1)I have two questions: what would be a killing zone for each year of storage at 1 million metric tons per year of released CO2? 2) Would bacteria or other micro-organism be able to reduce C02 to CO making it more deadly? 71.127.17.39 (talk) 01:56, 31 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You've mistaken this for an internet newsgroup. It is a page for discussion improvements to this article William M. Connolley (talk) 19:53, 31 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]