Ok... working through the numbers.
If 28.96 is the current molecular weight of air, then there is no
increase from CO2 - instead, you would subtract from that weight to
find the molecular weight of air in 1960.
If currently, CO2 represents 410ppm of air, then I would expect that
the total molecular weight of air has a g/mol contribution of
44*410%1e6
0.01804
Note however that when I read up on the molecular weight of air,
people make pains to mention that their numbers represent the dry
weight of air, and sometimes talk about how this changes due to H2O.
It would probably be worth understanding the details they provide as
there's some subtle things going on here.
Anyways, we don't just add the weight of the CO2 molecules - they are,
roughly speaking, replacing other averaged molecules. So it's roughly
the difference between the previous average weight and the CO2 average
weight that's going to give us the increase in weight.
So the change in atmospheric molecular weight would be less than the
values currently listed on {4} and {5}. Still... your lines {4} and
{5} look to be roughly within an order of magnitude or two for the
change in average molecular atmosphere weight due to increased CO2
since 1960.
But then we get to the mass of the atmosphere, and I think you've
oversimplified: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth
describes the structure of the atmosphere. Since CO2 is heavier than
some other components (oxygen, nitrogen), it's not going to rise as
much as the lighter gasses. Still, we could use the number on line
{7} as an upper bound...
I don't understand your lines {8} and {9} so I'll stop here.
Thanks,
--
Raul
On Fri, Jun 7, 2019 at 12:18 PM Ian Clark <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> The addons math/tabula and its parent addons math/cal and math/uu have been
> largely rewritten and are now far stabler than they were.
>
> The main way to get to grips with TABULA is via studying the built-in
> t-tables ("TABULA-tables") SAMPLE0--SAMPLE9…
>
> https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/TABULA/samples
>
> The last one, SAMPLE9, is particularly noteworthy. See this page for
> details…
>
> https://code.jsoftware.com/wiki/TABULA/samples/cost_to_capture_atmospheric_CO2
>
> Atmospheric CO2 concentration has been rising steadily since 1960, when it
> first began to be measured regularly at Mauna Loa, HI. At that time it
> stood at <320 ppm (parts-per-million). Now it stands at >400 ppm, an
> increase of over 80 ppm.
>
> This observed level of atmospheric carbon is gaining wider acceptance as
> having a damaging effect on the world's climate. Whether it does or not, a
> British Columbia-based firm called Carbon Engineering has built a plant to
> capture CO2 from the atmosphere, at a cost of <$100 per metric ton (100
> USD/t). They have attracted $68 million investments from Chevron,
> Occidental and coal giant BHP.
>
> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47638586
>
> I don't want to take sides over this. Nor to invite the taking of sides in
> this thread. Rather it's my aim to develop tools to help the rest of us
> explore the figures for ourselves, whatever side we're on. Relying on
> specialists to do the calculations is simply to promote a new world
> religion, with applied mathematicians as its priesthood.
>
> So I thought I'd take Carbon Engineering's current price and use TABULA to
> calculate what it would cost to restore atmospheric concentration to 1960
> levels.
>
> The cost comes out rather high: around 57 times the projected USA budget
> deficit for FY2020, would you believe?
>
> This raises vital questions for me:
>
> ++ are the input figures reliable? I used Google to track them down, but
> have I copied them over correctly?
>
> ++ is TABULA doing it right? I'm terrified of orders-of-magnitude errors,
> which can so easily arise with a misplaced prefix 'k' (kilo-) or 'G'
> (giga-).
>
> Would anyone fancy checking my calculations?
>
> Ian Clark
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