[OPE] It's a gas, gas, gas

Carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels in 2009 dropped 1.3
percent worldwide from the year before to 30.8 billion tons, marking the
first yearly decrease this century, a group of researchers said. The
scientists from Britain, the United States, France and elsewhere attributed
the decline to the global financial crisis and economic downturn.
http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201011220275.html
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v3/n12/pdf/ngeo1022.pdf

According to wikipedia, the atmosphere has a mass of about 5 × 1018 kg,
three quarters of which is within about 11 km of the surface. The total mass
to 11 km would therefore be 3,750,000,000,000,000,000,000 tonnes. The annual
emission would then be an eight billionth of a percent of the total mass, or
have I missed a digit?

J.

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Received on Wed Dec 8 16:51:05 2010