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A New Look at Physico-Chemical Causes of Changing Climate: Is Strong Acid Production Lowering the Surface pH Value a Main Cause for Increasing pCO2 in the Earth’s Atmosphere?
Version 1
: Received: 26 March 2024 / Approved: 26 March 2024 / Online: 26 March 2024 (12:30:46 CET)
How to cite:
Kennedy, I.R.; Crossan, A.N.; Runcie, J.; Ritchie, R.J. A New Look at Physico-Chemical Causes of Changing Climate: Is Strong Acid Production Lowering the Surface pH Value a Main Cause for Increasing pCO2 in the Earth’s Atmosphere?. Preprints2024, 2024031601. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202403.1601.v1
Kennedy, I.R.; Crossan, A.N.; Runcie, J.; Ritchie, R.J. A New Look at Physico-Chemical Causes of Changing Climate: Is Strong Acid Production Lowering the Surface pH Value a Main Cause for Increasing pCO2 in the Earth’s Atmosphere?. Preprints 2024, 2024031601. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202403.1601.v1
Kennedy, I.R.; Crossan, A.N.; Runcie, J.; Ritchie, R.J. A New Look at Physico-Chemical Causes of Changing Climate: Is Strong Acid Production Lowering the Surface pH Value a Main Cause for Increasing pCO2 in the Earth’s Atmosphere?. Preprints2024, 2024031601. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202403.1601.v1
APA Style
Kennedy, I.R., Crossan, A.N., Runcie, J., & Ritchie, R.J. (2024). A New Look at Physico-Chemical Causes of Changing Climate: Is Strong Acid Production Lowering the Surface pH Value a Main Cause for Increasing pCO2 in the Earth’s Atmosphere?. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202403.1601.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Kennedy, I.R., John Runcie and Raymond James Ritchie. 2024 "A New Look at Physico-Chemical Causes of Changing Climate: Is Strong Acid Production Lowering the Surface pH Value a Main Cause for Increasing pCO2 in the Earth’s Atmosphere?" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202403.1601.v1
Abstract
A testable hypothesis with quantitative predictions is put forward, proposing that strong acids produced on land are a major cause of increasing atmospheric pCO2. Our modelling analysis of reactions by dissolved inorganic carbon shows that increasing atmospheric CO2 could be caused thermodynamically by falling land surface pH values. This hypothesis challenges the imbalance assumed between the global uptake of CO2 by photosynthesis and emissions of CO2 from all sources, including the combustion of fossil fuels. Strong acids generated by oxygen from reduced nitrogen and sulphur emits CO2 almost stoichiometrically from dissolved bicarbonate in the pH range of most global soils from pH 6.5 to above 8. Each general decrease of aqueous pH value of 0.01 units from acidification of surface water potentially increases the pCO2 in the atmosphere by about 7 ppmv. Contrary to prevailing assumptions that CO2 emissions from combusting fossil fuels can remain in the atmosphere for more than a millennium, such emissions may be partly nullified by global greening from enhanced rates of photosynthesis as well as oceanic absorption. The surface pH value of the ocean has been shown to decrease as atmospheric pCO2 rises. Therefore, our qualitative estimates of increasing atmospheric CO2 driven by irreversible acidification on land are critical and need broad scale validation. To the extent that significant acidification of the land is occurring, through export of alkaline produce, the use of artificial nitrogen fertilisation and possible other causes, the prevailing methods of reducing CO2 emissions will fail. However, these acidifying processes on land have not been considered by previous biogeochemical reviews. Despite counter measures, including carbon capture and geological storage, the increasing Keeling curve for pCO2 may continue to rise because zero carbon policies do not address such a major cause. This hypothesis can be tested by in situ experiments in neutral soils and water, designed to compare CO2 emissions under the acidifying conditions described in this article with those when corrective counter measures are applied.
Keywords
CO2 emissions; climate change; soil pH; alkalinity of plant produce; export from rural to urban environments; bicarbonate and carbonate; limestone as soil ameliorant; Keeling curve
Subject
Environmental and Earth Sciences, Environmental Science
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
