Interesting article as are some of the comments below it.
I worked on a study years ago related to climate change and one thing I am always interested in is that folks never seem to debate how long CO2 and other GHGs stay in the atmosphere. Copied to the first item below from an EPA web page. Second is an article from the Guardian. Was uncertain 20 years ago and apparently still is--there is a big difference if CO2 dissipates in 20 years vs. 200 years or thousands of years. If it's the latter then we are some deep trouble as it seems there is no doubt we have emitted lots of CO2 since the industrial revolution and continue to do so. Of course, maybe we will get lucky and have another mini ice age to offset the greehouse gases.
"How long do they stay in the atmosphere?
Each of these gases can remain in the atmosphere for different amounts of time, ranging from a few years to thousands of years. All of these gases remain in the atmosphere long enough to become well mixed, meaning that the amount that is measured in the atmosphere is roughly the same all over the world, regardless of the source of the emissions."
"The lifetime in the air of CO2, the most significant man-made greenhouse gas, is probably the most difficult to determine, because there are several processes that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Between 65% and 80% of CO2 released into the air dissolves into the ocean over a period of 20–200 years. The rest is removed by slower processes that take up to several hundreds of thousands of years, including chemical weathering and rock formation. This means that once in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide can continue to affect climate for thousands of years."
