Assignment: SCIE211 Phase 3 Lab Report

Sources of CO2 Emissions

Student’s Name

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Environmental lab (phase iii)

· Purpose

To investigate the general amount of CO2 concentration over the years

To investigate the reasons for the increase in CO2 concentration and the environmental effects it causes.

· Introduction

Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring gas that is emitted to the environment by the carbon cycle. The increase in burning of carbon based fuel has also increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The gas is used back by plants during photosynthesis and released by the plant back to the environment during respiration process. It a greenhouse gas whose concentration has increased due to industrialization leading to global warming. It has also led to oceanic acidification since it dissolves in water to form weak carbonic acid (De, Iaquaniello, & Centi, 2013).

· Hypothesis/Predicted Outcome

Due increased industrialization is should be general increase in carbon dioxide level. The increased level leads to increased global warming and oceanic acidification.

· Methods

Sample of air was collected in different parts of the world. The air was then filtered to remove the dust and atmospheric moisture. Then air was the passed over sodium peroxide to absorb oxygen the separation the remaining air was liquefied by passing it over high pressure.

The liquid air was separated by fractional distillation of the liquefied air to get the carbon dioxide. The concentration was the calculated. This procedure was done every year and the data recorded and stored.

Results/Outcome

Location Code	Name of City/Country	CO2 Emissions in 1990	CO2 Emissions in 2005
LLB	Alberta/ Canada	400	420
LEF	Wisconsin/ U.S.A	380	390
MKN	Mt. Kenya/ Kenya	370	376
ASK	Assekrem/ Algeria	360	382
CPT	Cape Point/ South Africa	385	394

· Discussion/Analysis

From the result above it can be verified that the level of carbon dioxide is increasing over the years. In 40 years time they will be increase in carbon dioxide due to increase burning of carbon fuel and consequently increase in global warming. The oceanic acid level would also increase posing danger to aquatic life and agricultural produce that relies on ocean water for irrigation.

Reference

De, F. m., Iaquaniello, G., & Centi, G. (2013). CO2: A valuable Source of Carbon. Dordrecht: Springer.

U.S Department of Commerce. (2013, February, 14). National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Earth System Research Laboratory: Global Monitoring Division. Retrieved from http://www.esrl.noaa/gov/gmd/obop .