evidence: In fact, as shown here, the reality is that, if molecules have a residence time in the atmosphere of 5 years, surplus CO remains in the atmosphere less than 5 years, albeit not much less if the residence time in the sink is much longer. Since that seems to be the case, for all purposes, we can take the residence time as the adjustment time. In fact, we suspect the residence times of [...] The residence time in the atmosphere can be estimated quite well from the above-ground atomic bomb tests [ 1], which makes us happy that these at least served the purpose of advancing atmospheric science, if nothing else. The best estimate is about = 5 years [ 9]. Other references mention different times, with the IPCC mentioning the shortest (4 years) in their 5th Assessment Report (p. 1457 of Ref. [ 4]), showing that this value is not settled yet; we will use 5 years in this work. The equilibrium amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is open for debate, but, for this purpose, we might use the consensus value of 280 ppm ( = 2250 Gt). To estimate the amount of CO in the sink is very difficult. However, there seems to be a general view that it is fifty times more than in the atmosphere,