Talk:Airborne fraction
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Surely airborne fraction is what it's name suggests.....simply the Airborne fraction of a gas, and not limited simply to human GHG emissions. Restepc (talk) 20:50, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
- I've never heard it used that way. Have you? William M. Connolley (talk) 21:08, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
I've never heard it used before today at all, it does not appear to be a well known scientific term, so I was interpreting it as if it were straight forward English....which I imagine is how the term originated. I see the term used as 'the airborne fraction of CO2', which I imagine means it could be used for other gases as well....I can't see any reason why it wouldn't be, although obviously it's used most about CO2 because of the sheer amount of attention paid to it recently...Restepc (talk) 21:27, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
- How would you know if it were a commonly used term in climatology? Like most technical terms, it has a technical meaning. Its derivation is obvious: its the fraction of human-emitted CO2 that remains airborne. The concept is needed because CO2 in the atmos is going up by less than we emit; because its being absorbed by the oceans and land. AFAIK, other gases (e.g. methane) don't have natural sinks-by-absoption in the same way (methane sink is by being destroyed) so the concept isn't so interesting there. You can use the methane lifetime instead, since it has one. CO2 has many William M. Connolley (talk) 22:35, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
I am still not convinced, but as the article is so new I'll leave it for a few weeks in the hope that it gathers appropriate sources
