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Atmospheric CO2 is not homogeneous globally (no atmospheric constituents are). It may not vary a ton (I haven't looked at CO2 specifically so I can't say) but it does vary.

We think of the atmosphere as this uniform mix that's the same everywhere but the reality is that it's lots of distinct chunks with different conditions throughout. They mix some, but those chunks are remarkably distinct as they move through the atmosphere. The easiest example is a fog bank, you can see a distinct difference between the air in the fog and outside of it and see how they mix at the edges but they don't spread out to mix evenly everywhere and remain fairly distinct.

When you take a sample at a location you are only sampling that one spot. To properly sample the entire globe and comment on the Earth as a whole you need lots of samples (which we use for analysis today).

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Probably not. As in: most of our DNA is (near) identical but our phenotypic traits are determined by more than just the DNA. In a DNA test we don't look at the identical bits, we pinpoint for the more variable regions and repititions.

A funfact, there are animals that look very similar but are genetically extremely far apart. Different genes can result in similar traits in a completely different way. I can't remember the example my prof used in college but it was super interesting.

When we eat the plants, the matter ultimately undergoes cellular respiration, which is the opposite reaction of photosynthesis, so all the water “captured” by the plants is converted back into water by consumers, and is eventually either excreted or released upon the organism’s death so the water cycle continues. The overall reaction is C6H12O6 + 6O2 -> 6H2O + 6CO2, and has water as a product.

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If you were able to identify all the genes which determine their appearance and only compare those genes from both individuals, you would probably find very similar DNA. However, there are many other genes which determine other traits which are not directly visible (bone density, blood pressure, immune system etc.), and all those genes would most likely not be similar, so the overall DNA similarity would probably also be low.

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While not as unique as fingerprints, individual magmatic systems tend to have somewhat individualized geochemical profiles in terms of concentrations of trace elements and isotopic ratios so it's not "guessing" to use similarities of geochemistry to argue that two adjacent volcanoes share a source and/or have intermingling of sources in the shallow crust. Additionally, there are variety of geophysical techniques (seismic tomography, magnetotellurics, resistivity, etc) that allow us to image the magmatic systems of volcanoes which again provide evidence that these are related. The general idea that geology is all "educated guessing" (which underlies many questions and lay answers/comments in this subreddit) is pretty frustrating given the extreme care and detailed analysis many of us put into to understanding the details of natural systems.

>When I think of acceleration, I think of a gradual speeding up like a car.

This is I think the key point of confusion. Acceleration can happen if very short distances and times, and in fact some of the largest acceleration values happen in extremely short distances and times.

For a basic demonstration, take a penny and hold it a meter over the floor, then let it go. It falls to the floor, and stops. (I'm going to ignore air resistance here)

When you let go, it immediately accelerates downwards at 9.8m/s^(2), or 1G. This continues until it hits the floor. It will be traveling downwards at a speed of about 4.4m/s after traveling one meter.

When it hits the floor, it decelerates, or more accurately, it is accelerating upwards. Now, how much it accelerates is going to depend on what your floor is made of, and how long it takes for it to come to a stop. Lets say in takes 0.1s to come to a stop, from initial contact.

For your penny to go from 4.4m/s to 0m/s in 0.1 second is actually a pretty big acceleration. 44m/s^(2), or about 4.5Gs.

If you somehow had a magic floor that could get that penny to stop in .001s, that penny would experience 450Gs!

Another example of extreme acceleration in a short space and time would be a bullet fired out of a gun. Initially, the bullet has a velocity of zero. When the gun is fired, the bullet experiences a very large acceleration, until it exits the barrel of the gun.

In short, you can get some really big Gs in a small space and time. This ride is moving around in a small space, and you can easily get 1.5gs in that space.

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So far as I know, aside from a vanishingly small number of atoms that have escaped Earth's atmosphere, all the atoms that have ver been on Earth are still on Earth. But of course, the atoms may not comprise the same molecule they once did.

But would it have any impact?

I think this XKCD is related to the local/global phenomenon you’re talking about. For a statistically chaotic measure, if you take enough samples, one of them is bound to randomly exhibit the behind you’re looking for (a warming period, say, or heart disease) simply by chance.

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Thank you for taking the time to answer 👌

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You are currently accelerating at 1g towards the Earth’s center of mass. The ground obviously prevents your fall, but you feel the acceleration as your weight.

The ‘g’ in 1.5g refers to acceleration of Earth’s gravity at the Earth’s surface, 9.8 m/s/s. Obviously, if the ride moves you it accelerates you, but slightly less obvious is that changing your direction (like swinging you in a circle, instead of allowing you to follow a straight line), also accelerates you. Consider the “Turkish Twist” ride where you stand in a large cylinder that spins. You experience a force that holds you against the wall. If you were on the outside, the spinning would throw you off in a straight line tangent to the cylinder. Inside, however, the wall is restraining you, pushing you onto the circular trajectory, accelerating towards the center of the circle at a rate proportional to the rotational velocity of the cylinder (you are experiencing acceleration even if the cylinder is rotating at a constant velocity). You are accelerating because your velocity (speed and direction of movement) are changing.

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Not in the sense I think you mean. Most physical characteristics are polygenic meaning different combinations of genes are interacting to give off a phenotype. So there's countless other combinations that can yield the same result. Even genes that are linked in all cases like blue eyes can have DNA changes at many different spots. Also outside of nature there is the just as important nurture.

Plants turn water and carbon dioxide into glucose and oxygen. Forgive me for using superscript instead of subscript as I don't know how to do subscript.

Carbon Dioxide is CO^(2).

Water is H^(2)O.

Glucose is C^(6)H^(12)O^(6).

Oxygen is O^(2).

6CO^(2) + 6H^(2)O -> C^(6)H^(12)O^(6) + 6O^(2)

So, for the moment, the water is 'gone.' It's now a part of a sugar molecule. Plants also make more complicated molecules, various starches and proteins, etc. But the core idea is the same.

Now, when the plant gets eaten by an animal, the reverse happens. The glucose and other molecules get combined with oxygen, and water and carbon dioxide are released.

C^(6)H^(12)O^(6) + 6O^(2) -> 6CO^(2) + 6H^(2)O

The water is now 'back' in the environment. The same chemical reaction occurs not only when the plant is eaten, but also when the plant dies and rots. When a plant rots, it's basically being eaten by bacteria and fungi. The same chemical reaction will also happen when a plant burns, like in a forest fire.

So, generally speaking, the water and carbon dioxide are only bound up temporarily. The only way that the water and carbon dioxide stay locked away is if the biomatter gets buried in a way that it doesn't rot. This is the origin of fossil fuels.

Technically, the amount of water on the surface of the planet went down gradually over millions of years with the gradual deposition of fossil fuels, and up with recent mass burning. However the amount of water in fossil fuels is relatively inconsequential, when compared to the amount of water in the ocean.

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