According to scientist David Archer, whose research is often featured in the renowned Nature magazine, the C02 that we are emitting from fossil fuels today will still be affecting the climate in many millenia from now. His conclusion is that even though the majority of C02 emitted from burning a single tonne of coal or oil today will be absorbed over a few centuries by the oceans and vegetation, approximately 25% of it will still be lingering in the atmosphere in 1,000 years, and 10% still remaining and impacting the climate in 100,000 years time.
It will then require thousands and thousands more years for its complete absorption through the natural climate cycle. As Archer puts it, “the climatic impacts of releasing fossil fuel C02 to the atmosphere will last longer than Stonehenge, longer than time capsules, longer than nuclear waste”.
Some of this future devastation is briefly discussed in the recently updated Copenhagen Diagnosis — a report authored by 26 leading climate scientists with the aim of updating the world on findings since the publication of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report in 2007. According to this Copenhagen Diagnosis, regardless of when a peak in global emissions finally occurs, the global temperature cannot be expected to stop rising until several centuries later, due to the extremely long life cycle of C02.
The carbon that we are releasing into the atmosphere today is in the process of "programming" a potential 2-5 meters of sea level rise by around the year 2300.
https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/climate-change-what-happens-after-2100
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