Carbon emissions from the pre-industrial age are still in the post-industrial atmosphere, painting a grim picture of just how long it will take before atmospheric carbon will stop having detrimental effects to the world's climate.

"Looking into the past illustrates that the relatively large amount of carbon dioxide that we are emitting today will continue to have relatively large impacts on the atmosphere and climate for many centuries into the future," said Julia Pongratz on a report by the Carnegie Institute for Science.

Ms. Pongratz and fellow researcher Ken Caldeira showed that these pre-industrial carbon emissions still have an impact on climate today. Accounting for pre-industrial emissions can shift the attribution of global temperatures from industrialized to developing nations by up to 2 to 3 percent.

Pre-industrial activities such as the clearing of forests and wild areas for agriculture release carbon dioxide into the air, and this remains in the atmosphere over many centuries because ocean and vegetation on land absorb carbon dioxide emissions only slowly over time.

Most accountings of greenhouse gas contributions from different countries generally go back to the start of the Industrial Age, usually put around 1840. Ms. Pongratz and Mr. Caldeira looked at atmospheric emissions that went back further than that.

In some regions, such as North America, preindustrial emissions are only a small part of the total carbon picture. In others, such as China and India, their preindustrial emissions are high, almost close to industrial emissions.

An example of how accounting for preindustrial emissions can change the overall emissions of a region was what they found in South Asia where adding emissions from pre-industrial land-use change increased the amount of total global warming that can then be attributed to the region from 5.1 percent to 7 percent.

While the greater climate impact is still made by modern industrialization, the findings of the study show that atmospheric carbon is truly a long term problem. – EcoSeed Staff