http://blog.oup.com/2007/07/carbon/ Introducing brilliant authors to the blogosphere. Sat, 21 Nov 2009 22:43:07 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 http://blog.oup.com/2007/07/carbon/comment-page-1/#comment-21039 Mark Paris Thu, 26 Jul 2007 16:55:21 +0000 http://blog.oup.com/2007/07/carbon/#comment-21039 As an atmospheric scientist, I do not think of carbon as shorthand for carbon dioxide. It is the carbon itself that is the main issue. Carbon dioxide is just one link in the global carbon cycle. The real problem is where the carbon originates. If it comes from biomass, it is already part of the carbon cycle and so it has no net effect on global warming. If it comes from fossil fuels, it is not part of the global carbon cycle (it has been sequested for millions or hundreds of millions of years), so it is a net contributor to the present-day global carbon cycle. The part of the cycle we're interested in is the CO2 part, but at least as far as atmospheric scientists and geologists are concerned, "carbon" is the most meaningful term to use. As an atmospheric scientist, I do not think of carbon as shorthand for carbon dioxide. It is the carbon itself that is the main issue. Carbon dioxide is just one link in the global carbon cycle. The real problem is where the carbon originates. If it comes from biomass, it is already part of the carbon cycle and so it has no net effect on global warming. If it comes from fossil fuels, it is not part of the global carbon cycle (it has been sequested for millions or hundreds of millions of years), so it is a net contributor to the present-day global carbon cycle. The part of the cycle we’re interested in is the CO2 part, but at least as far as atmospheric scientists and geologists are concerned, “carbon” is the most meaningful term to use.

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