Carbon Dioxide is obviously one of the big issues of the day. Normally, trees plants and other vegetation convert it to oxygen. So, we have to little vegetation or, too much CO2? What happens to that which is not converted by the plants?
Does it just hang around forever, overheating the Earth? Does anyone really know? I am not a fan of man-made global warming, but I would like to stay clear of that discussion, and concentrate on the CO2… Anyone with a scientific (truly) answer?
Thanks all!
They don’t convert it to oxygen, so much as they excrete oxygen as a byproduct of taking in CO2. Plants take in CO2 and H2O and use sunlight to create sugars and dump O2 as a byproduct. They store the sugars as various complex molecules, such as cellulose or starch.
The question you’re asking I think is partly: Why don’t the plants just draw down the CO2 out of the atmosphere? Why is there excess CO2 if plants can suck it up? The answer to that is somewhat more complex, partly because there are multiple answers, such as:
-They do. Some theories predict a certain amount of increased plant growth and primary production in a high CO2 environment. Probably not enough to suck down the total CO2.
-It’s not the rate limiting step. For a plant to do its thing, it needs CO2, water, light, as well as various other parameters that effect the equation, such as optimum temperature and not being eaten up by animals. We don’t know what is the thing that limits the speed and total amount of photosynthesis in most cases. There are some areas where we do know that CO2 is in abundance, but some other thing is limiting the amount of total primary production taking place. The most famous is the Iron Hypothesis of John Martin, in which iron availability limits the growth of phytoplankton in the subarctic pacific. Add Iron, get more growth, and CO2 is sucked out of the atmosphere to some degree.
-There must be a top speed and a maximum efficiency to the process by which plants draw CO2 out of the atmosphere and make more plant, just as there is a maximum efficiency and a top speed at which I can draw beer out of the fridge and make urine. I attempt to increase it at my own peril. Even if we had every plant cracking along at top speed, would it be sufficient to bring down the total CO2 in the atmosphere?