Do you know how much carbon dioxide is stored in the atmosphere as CO2? ... I always thought that carbon dioxide and CO2 were the same thing ...

Explanation:When carbon and oxygen bond together, they form a colorless, odorless gas called carbon dioxide, which is a heat-trapping greenhouse gas ... But right now, by burning fossil fuels, people are adding carbon to the atmosphere (in the form of carbon dioxide) faster than natural processes can remove it.

They are the same thing, but there's also carbon dioxide in the ocean, dissolved as carbonic acid. Carbon dioxide literally means one carbon, two oxygens. CO2.