Older data? HN #16336309 comment

[titojankowski]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16332595

Maybe you could include a full graph for the last 500 million years. It would show a steady decline of CO2 levels in the last 50-60my, whereas levels were previously ranging 2-5 times higher than in the recent holocene. [1]
The real doomsday would have been a further decline of CO2 levels to the point of global plant starvation. Many plants already died off due to the previously shrinking supply of CO2. [2]
[1] Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels for the last 500 million years (2002). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.022055499
[2] Carbon dioxide starvation, the development of C4 ecosystems, and mammalian evolution (1998). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1692178/

 

[titojankowski]

A different take on the whole "no 0 on the Y-axis" thing. Add full graph of 500 million years of data.

The commenter's interpretation of that data is "hey look at the 500 million year history, this is no big deal", which is one interpretation. I realize that this guy might be dismissed, but it's useful for us to ask ourselves "how much history is ideal?". 500 million years is an extreme example so it's a useful point to discuss how much data we think is ideal. What about 4.54 billion years of data?

At one point carbon dioxide was 0...because the Earth didn't exist lulz. http://planzero.kickoffpages.com/