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Carbon Dioxide at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Observatory Tops 400 ppm

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Post by Consumer Alert Sat May 11, 2013 12:35 pm

Carbon Dioxide at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Observatory reaches new milestone: Tops 400 ppm
May 10, 2013
John Ewald
Courtesy of NOAA: http://researchmatters.noaa.gov/news/Pages/CarbonDioxideatMaunaLoareaches400ppm.aspx




Carbon Dioxide at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Observatory Tops 400 ppm Mlo111

On May 9, the daily mean concentration of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere of Mauna Loa, Hawaii, surpassed 400 parts per
million (ppm) for the first time since measurements began in 1958.
Independent measurements made by both NOAA and the Scripps Institution
of Oceanography have been approaching this level during the past week.
It marks an important milestone because Mauna Loa,
as the oldest continuous carbon dioxide (CO2) measurement station in
the world, is the primary global benchmark site for monitoring the
increase of this potent heat-trapping gas.

Carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere by fossil
fuel burning and other human activities is the most significant
greenhouse gas (GHG) contributing to climate change. Its concentration
has increased every year since scientists started making measurements on
the slopes of the Mauna Loa volcano more than five decades ago. The
rate of increase has accelerated since the measurements started, from
about 0.7 ppm per year in the late 1950s to 2.1 ppm per year during the
last 10 years.

“That increase is not a surprise to scientists,”
said NOAA senior scientist Pieter Tans, with the Global Monitoring
Division of NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in
Boulder, Colo. “The evidence is conclusive that the strong growth of
global CO2 emissions from the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas is
driving the acceleration.”

Before the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, global average CO2 was about 280 ppm.
During the last 800,000 years, CO2 fluctuated between about 180 ppm
during ice ages and 280 ppm during interglacial warm periods. Today’s
rate of increase is more than 100 times faster than the increase that
occurred when the last ice age ended.

It was researcher Charles David Keeling of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, who began measuring carbon dioxide at Mauna Loa in 1958, initiating now what is known as the “Keeling Curve.”
His son, Ralph Keeling, also a geochemist at Scripps, has continued the
Scripps measurement record since his father’s death in 2005.

“There’s no stopping CO2 from reaching 400 ppm,”
said Ralph Keeling. “That’s now a done deal. But what happens from here
on still matters to climate, and it’s still under our control. It mainly
comes down to how much we continue to rely on fossil fuels for energy.”

NOAA scientists with the Global Monitoring Division
have made around-the-clock measurements there since 1974. Having two
programs independently measure the greenhouse gas provides confidence
that the measurements are correct.

Moreover, similar increases of CO2 are seen all
over the world by many international scientists. NOAA, for example,
which runs a global, cooperative air sampling network, reported last year that
all Arctic sites in its network reached 400 ppm for the first time.
These high values were a prelude to what is now being observed at Mauna
Loa, a site in the subtropics, this year. Sites in the Southern
Hemisphere will follow during the next few years. The increase in the
Northern Hemisphere is always a little ahead of the Southern Hemisphere
because most of the emissions driving the CO2 increase take place in the
north.

Once emitted, CO2 added to the atmosphere and
oceans remains for thousands of years. Thus, climate changes forced by
CO2 depend primarily on cumulative emissions, making it progressively
more and more difficult to avoid further substantial climate change.
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