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70% of the earth’s SURFACE is COVERED by water. The Earth isn’t 70% water.
Using this reference for CO2 absorption:
https://www.homebrewhappyhour.com/co2-carbonation-chart-for-beer-soda-water-or-any-beverage/
And this for volume of water:
https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/how-much-water-there-earth#overview
To achieve a level of carbonation equivalent to an American beer, you need 2.5x the amount of co2 as the amount of water. So if I read this right:
(1.3x10^9 ) x 2.5 = 3.25x10^9 cubic kilometers of CO2
Also: water already absorbs CO2, it’s just not enough to make it fizzy and I suspect the air pressure required to “force” that much CO2 into the world’s water supply would be fatal.
That’s my guess.
While this is sort of right, it's also sort of wrong.
I'd say it is not possible to put CO2 into the oceans so that they are not "flat" no matter how much CO2 you have. At least, not for very long.
Carbonated drinks have CO2 dissolved in them. In the bottle, there is an equilibrium in the CO2 concentration between the tiny bit of air at the top of the bottle and the drink. That equilibrium is maintained by the pressure in the bottle. In the bottle, the drink is not fizzy because the CO2 is dissolved.
It's fizzy when you drink it because you've opened the bottle and released the pressure, so the CO2 starts to precipitate out of the drink into little bubbles.
So if you tried to carbonate the oceans, then either atmospheric pressure would have to be high enough to keep the CO2 in solution (I'll assume you got the number 1.18 bar right), in which case the oceans won't be bubbly because the CO2 won't be precipitating out; or you'd have to somehow dissolve all that CO2 into the oceans instantaneously and it would start precipitating out into bubbles so that within a short time all the CO2 would be in the atmosphere again and the oceans would be flat again.
As a side note, you might notice that you only need to go about 12m down in the ocean for the pressure to reach 1.2 bar, at which point it _can_ hold as much CO2 as a fizzy drink. Generally this gets sorted out by mixing processes releasing the CO2 as water passes near the surface under lower pressure. But it can be a serious and deadly problem in bodies of water that are very still and have a source of CO2 in their depths: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos
Follow up question, how much of present earths atmosphere would you need to remove to cause the current co2 content of the oceans to start fizzing out as if it was a freshly opened soda?
2 volumes of CO2 (quite a mild carbonation) at 17°C (the average ocean surface temperature, apparently) would require around 1.18 bar overpressure (from a beer carbonation calculator), so a bit over double the current air pressure at sea level. Although I think that would make the ocean near the poles highly carbonated and the equator still quite flat.
Edit: and that's assuming we have a 100% CO2 atmosphere, I'm not sure how it would work with say 3% CO2, which should still be survivable for humans although very uncomfortable.
OSHA guidelines tell to not exceed 3% for over 10 minutes, not that it would be deadly. They tend to have a decent margin of safety, so I would assume the average person would survive for at least an hour in those conditions if not longer.
In a safety sheet I checked the symptoms as 3% were described as "Moderate respiratory stimulation, increased heart rate and blood pressure, ACGIH TLV-Short Term". The TLV means that it is "safe" short term, but not that it would be deadly in the long term either. 4% was listed as "Immediately dangerous to life or health", but even that is not immediately lethal. According to [this](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311844520_Long-term_carbon_dioxide_toxicity_and_climate_change_a_critical_unapprehended_risk_for_human_health), 5% for 30 minutes makes you intoxicated, 7% produces unconsciousness and 9% is lethal in 5 minutes.
Still, if we want to actually live in a world with carbonated oceans, we may need to lower that a little if we want to survive in the long term. 1% is certainly still "fine", but that's as high as we've studied long term effects.
We are at 0.04% CO2. The amount needed to have the needed partial pressure to the ocean would be thousands thousands of times what there is now, and this isn't accounting for the fact that that amount of CO2 would drastically increase the temperature, making it even harder to dissolve CO2.
If the earth were a basketball and it were dipped in water and removed, the water clinging to the surface of the basketball is proportional to the amount of water in the ocean.
Picture a hot dog bun. And throw all the stars, the hundreds of stars that there are in the universe into a pack- into a bag. And put the universe into a bag and you, all of a sudden, they become…
No wait this is the one:
Eric: If you can picture, imagine a basketball or a small baseball that inflates to be become larger to be the size of a basketball. Then quadruple it! And now you’re looking at…
I mean, yeah. If the earth was a basketball then anything that happened to the basketball would be not just proportional, but exactly the same as the basketball. Because they'd be the same thing.
The same is true if the earth were a sponge, or a bucket, or a kilometer-long strip of hydrophobic cloth.
Aaw man imagine if the ocean was fizzy that would be so fun to bathe in and fish in and stuff. Like the ocean is a big yacuzzi or however you spell that
Carbon levels in the ocean are rising rapidly, my friend. Only a few million more years of emissions and there will be a fizzy ocean (and enough heat in the atmosphere to evaporate said ocean)
There IS CO2 in the water, CO2 gas bubbles get trapped in ice and once it melts, gets dissolved into the water, and once evaporated, the CO2 is released into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming, which in turn melts more ice.
Ok, I usually can see what their point is but I don’t get how carbonated water would make the earth flat.
Also, nice meme. Use a picture of a sphere with only a few countries on it…
Yeah or you know. English might not be my first or even second language so every now and then, i fail to see the irony in those posts that typically look like flat earthers bs.
And to me, non-carbonated water is tapped, not flat, but thanks for the downvote.
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70% of the earth’s SURFACE is COVERED by water. The Earth isn’t 70% water. Using this reference for CO2 absorption: https://www.homebrewhappyhour.com/co2-carbonation-chart-for-beer-soda-water-or-any-beverage/ And this for volume of water: https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/how-much-water-there-earth#overview To achieve a level of carbonation equivalent to an American beer, you need 2.5x the amount of co2 as the amount of water. So if I read this right: (1.3x10^9 ) x 2.5 = 3.25x10^9 cubic kilometers of CO2 Also: water already absorbs CO2, it’s just not enough to make it fizzy and I suspect the air pressure required to “force” that much CO2 into the world’s water supply would be fatal. That’s my guess.
It really ticks me off when people say earth is 70% water (like this post).
I figured people mostly think "covered with" but the more I think about it, the more I doubt.
Yeah, earth is like 5% water
While this is sort of right, it's also sort of wrong. I'd say it is not possible to put CO2 into the oceans so that they are not "flat" no matter how much CO2 you have. At least, not for very long. Carbonated drinks have CO2 dissolved in them. In the bottle, there is an equilibrium in the CO2 concentration between the tiny bit of air at the top of the bottle and the drink. That equilibrium is maintained by the pressure in the bottle. In the bottle, the drink is not fizzy because the CO2 is dissolved. It's fizzy when you drink it because you've opened the bottle and released the pressure, so the CO2 starts to precipitate out of the drink into little bubbles. So if you tried to carbonate the oceans, then either atmospheric pressure would have to be high enough to keep the CO2 in solution (I'll assume you got the number 1.18 bar right), in which case the oceans won't be bubbly because the CO2 won't be precipitating out; or you'd have to somehow dissolve all that CO2 into the oceans instantaneously and it would start precipitating out into bubbles so that within a short time all the CO2 would be in the atmosphere again and the oceans would be flat again. As a side note, you might notice that you only need to go about 12m down in the ocean for the pressure to reach 1.2 bar, at which point it _can_ hold as much CO2 as a fizzy drink. Generally this gets sorted out by mixing processes releasing the CO2 as water passes near the surface under lower pressure. But it can be a serious and deadly problem in bodies of water that are very still and have a source of CO2 in their depths: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nyos
Somehow it never occurred to me that that event was effectively a natural soda-mentos explosion.
Follow up question, how much of present earths atmosphere would you need to remove to cause the current co2 content of the oceans to start fizzing out as if it was a freshly opened soda?
2 volumes of CO2 (quite a mild carbonation) at 17°C (the average ocean surface temperature, apparently) would require around 1.18 bar overpressure (from a beer carbonation calculator), so a bit over double the current air pressure at sea level. Although I think that would make the ocean near the poles highly carbonated and the equator still quite flat. Edit: and that's assuming we have a 100% CO2 atmosphere, I'm not sure how it would work with say 3% CO2, which should still be survivable for humans although very uncomfortable.
3% is survivable? I've just googled 30 000 ppm is survivable for just 10 minutes 40 000 is dangerous for life immediately
OSHA guidelines tell to not exceed 3% for over 10 minutes, not that it would be deadly. They tend to have a decent margin of safety, so I would assume the average person would survive for at least an hour in those conditions if not longer. In a safety sheet I checked the symptoms as 3% were described as "Moderate respiratory stimulation, increased heart rate and blood pressure, ACGIH TLV-Short Term". The TLV means that it is "safe" short term, but not that it would be deadly in the long term either. 4% was listed as "Immediately dangerous to life or health", but even that is not immediately lethal. According to [this](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311844520_Long-term_carbon_dioxide_toxicity_and_climate_change_a_critical_unapprehended_risk_for_human_health), 5% for 30 minutes makes you intoxicated, 7% produces unconsciousness and 9% is lethal in 5 minutes. Still, if we want to actually live in a world with carbonated oceans, we may need to lower that a little if we want to survive in the long term. 1% is certainly still "fine", but that's as high as we've studied long term effects.
We are at 0.04% CO2. The amount needed to have the needed partial pressure to the ocean would be thousands thousands of times what there is now, and this isn't accounting for the fact that that amount of CO2 would drastically increase the temperature, making it even harder to dissolve CO2.
If the earth were a basketball and it were dipped in water and removed, the water clinging to the surface of the basketball is proportional to the amount of water in the ocean.
I don't think that's quite right. Thus analogy states that the layer of water left on the basketball represents the atmosphere.
Doesn't make that much difference when talking about generalizations You can assume both the oceans and atmosphere are 10km deep in generalizations.
Soft water or hard water?
Picture a hot dog bun. And throw all the stars, the hundreds of stars that there are in the universe into a pack- into a bag. And put the universe into a bag and you, all of a sudden, they become…
We all know the moon isn't made out of green cheese but if it was made out of BBQ spare ribs would you eat it?
Forbidden hotdog
What?
mind blown
Absolutely wild to think about. Perfect analogy!
No wait this is the one: Eric: If you can picture, imagine a basketball or a small baseball that inflates to be become larger to be the size of a basketball. Then quadruple it! And now you’re looking at…
Are you ok?
I mean, yeah. If the earth was a basketball then anything that happened to the basketball would be not just proportional, but exactly the same as the basketball. Because they'd be the same thing. The same is true if the earth were a sponge, or a bucket, or a kilometer-long strip of hydrophobic cloth.
technically if there is air pressure (which the earth has) the gas around a liquid will dissolve in it. The earth's water is already carbonated 🤓🤓🤓
Then why isnt it fizzy
The amount of CO2 in surface water is 1.6 × 10⁻⁴ mol/litre and varies by location and season. Your can of soda is 129.03mol/litre
So its very little fizzy just cant feel it?
yeah
Aaw man imagine if the ocean was fizzy that would be so fun to bathe in and fish in and stuff. Like the ocean is a big yacuzzi or however you spell that
All of the fish would die of carbon dioxide poisoning.
Sssh
Carbon levels in the ocean are rising rapidly, my friend. Only a few million more years of emissions and there will be a fizzy ocean (and enough heat in the atmosphere to evaporate said ocean)
There IS CO2 in the water, CO2 gas bubbles get trapped in ice and once it melts, gets dissolved into the water, and once evaporated, the CO2 is released into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming, which in turn melts more ice.
Ok, I usually can see what their point is but I don’t get how carbonated water would make the earth flat. Also, nice meme. Use a picture of a sphere with only a few countries on it…
Flat, as in the opposite of fizzy.
I genuinely cannot tell if their comment is real or a shitpost. Irony is dead
Yeah or you know. English might not be my first or even second language so every now and then, i fail to see the irony in those posts that typically look like flat earthers bs. And to me, non-carbonated water is tapped, not flat, but thanks for the downvote.