Earth atmosphere had 95% CO2 in the beginning. What happened to it? – Data Matters from Clidemy
𝑫𝒂𝒕𝒂 𝑴𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒔 from CliDemy – the Climate Academy is a series that provides actionable insights for stakeholders based on high impact data & facts around climate, climate action and decarbonization.
Studies suggest that earth’s atmosphere would have been predominantly CO2 – as much 95% by volume – when the planet was first formed about 4.5 billion years back.
Even a couple of billion years later (about 2.7 billion years back), the CO2 concentrations were about 25-50% of the atmosphere.
Now, it is just above 0.04%.
How did this happen? Where did all the CO2 go?
Into all the places you and I know well – plants, oceans, rocks….
Is it any wonder that most of what we are seeing all around us has carbon in it – including us, of course!
Now, what does all these mean from a practical standpoint?
If CO2 levels came down from 95% to 0.04% through its conversions to diverse forms on earth, similar processes should provide avenues to reduce it from 0.04% to say 0.02%?
What do you think?
BTW, the above perspective is hardly original, though I fancy my articulation and context setting possibly are 🙂
See my LinkedIn post on this topic.