Record-Breaking Increase in CO2 Levels in World's Atmosphere (theguardian.com) 89
The largest ever recorded leap in the amount of carbon dioxide laden in the world's atmosphere has just occurred, according to researchers who monitor the relentless accumulation of the primary gas that is heating the planet. From a report: The global average concentration of carbon dioxide in March this year was 4.7 parts per million (or ppm) higher than it it was in March last year, which is a record-breaking increase in CO2 levels over a 12-month period. The increase has been spurred, scientists say, by the periodic El Nino climate event, which has now waned, as well as the ongoing and increasing amounts of greenhouse gases expelled into the atmosphere due to the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
"It's really significant to see the pace of the increase over the first four months of this year, which is also a record," said Ralph Keeling, director of the CO2 Program at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography. "We aren't just breaking records in CO2 concentrations, but also the record in how fast it is rising." The global CO2 readings have been taken from a station perched upon the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii since the measurements began in 1958 under Keeling's father, Charles. The concentrations of CO2 have increased each year since, as the heat-trapping gas continues to progressively accumulate due to rampant emissions from power plants, cars, trucks and other sources, with last year hitting a new global record in annual emissions.
"It's really significant to see the pace of the increase over the first four months of this year, which is also a record," said Ralph Keeling, director of the CO2 Program at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography. "We aren't just breaking records in CO2 concentrations, but also the record in how fast it is rising." The global CO2 readings have been taken from a station perched upon the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii since the measurements began in 1958 under Keeling's father, Charles. The concentrations of CO2 have increased each year since, as the heat-trapping gas continues to progressively accumulate due to rampant emissions from power plants, cars, trucks and other sources, with last year hitting a new global record in annual emissions.
OMG (Score:1, Funny)
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Sadly, some people will only do the right thing if it hurts their wallets to do the wrong thing.
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Sadly, some people will only do the right thing if it hurts their wallets to do the wrong thing.
The right thing for who? Kind of subjective that.
Re: OMG (Score:3)
For people who want to exist in the future, also known as humanity.
Re: OMG (Score:2)
We should if we don't want Putler to eventually rampage across Europe
Not news. This happens every year (Score:1)
Not news. EVERY year is a new record in carbon dioxide. That's how a rising curve works.
Data here: https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/ [ucsd.edu]
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Which is also (generally) true for an exponential curve (omitting noise).
That atmospheric CO2 is increasing exponentially should certainly not be comforting.
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It's not just higher than 12 months ago, it's higher by an unprecedented amount.
Meh. In the noise.
Here's the graph for the last year: https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/ [ucsd.edu] Yes, the average on the right side of the graph is higher than the average on the left side of the graph (= 1 year ago), but the noise is nearly equal to the change. For comparison, here's the full curve: https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/ [ucsd.edu] The steady rise is very clear.
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4 parts, per million? (Score:2)
That sounds like it could almost be a rounding error.
Re:4 parts, per million? (Score:4, Informative)
It was 421 ppm in May 2022 (0.04%), so it's a 1% increase.
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It's about a 1.1% increase in a year. Roughly speaking the atmospheric reaction formulas were boosted by 1.1%. They are already about doubled from before industrialization, what comes to the CO2. That much more there is CO2 to capture the sun's radiation at the moment.
Re: 4 parts, per million? (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, co2 is transparent to sunlight, like other greenhouse gasses. What makes them greenhouse gasses is that they are opaque to infrared light. That ensures the energy gets in, but doesn't get out.
Infrared is what warmer things radiate more, like things warmed up by visible light.
Re: 4 parts, per million? (Score:2)
Also, the CO2 molecule re-emits the energy (and warms the air around it) and does not get inundated by photons. Molecular collisions distribute their energy too. I just add this because some believe the warming effect will be saturated, when in fact the more there is CO2 the more capacity to capture and distribute heat there is in the atmosphere.
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Good greenhouse gases are not used for improving the insulating value of double-pane windows, since they easily emit as radiation any heat they absorb, and the thickness of the gap between panes is not sufficient to have a big effect at absorbing infrared radiation, anyway. If a reduction in radiant heat transfer is the desire, low-emittance and reflective materials can be applied to the glass to effect that
Monatomic gas
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Well it's not called "double pane glass gas". It may interest you that CO2 is in fact used in greenhouses. On an unrelated note, which are you -- an idiot or an asshole?
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> That ensures the energy gets in, but doesn't get out.
If it cant get out, it couldnt get in either. It's not a one way mirror.
Re: 4 parts, per million? (Score:2)
Actually, it quite is. Hence the name, greenhouse gasses: the glass panes in a greenhouse are transparent to visible light. That heats up materials inside the greenhouse which then re-emit it as IR. The panes do reflect that IR back in, where, yet again, it warms up whatever is in the greenhouse.
At best, the panels do get warmed up, too, and then radiate 50% back in, and 50% back out. But they are nearly 100% transparent to the incoming visible light.
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Actually, co2 is transparent to sunlight, like other greenhouse gasses. What makes them greenhouse gasses is that they are opaque to infrared light. That ensures the energy gets in, but doesn't get out.
Hm. Not quite. Stars radiate electromagnetic energy in ALL bands, including infrared. The "opaqueness to infrared" works on infrared coming in and going out. The reason why there is more infrared leaving than what is passed through is because higher frequencies are "slowed down" with interaction with normal matter. (matter heats up from visible light with the energy being reradiated as infrared)
Re: 4 parts, per million? (Score:2)
Well, yea. That's entropy at work: higher energy photons are transformed through interactions with for that freq opaque materials in a bunch of lower energy photons. Here, from visible to IR.
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fix the link (Score:2)
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/09/carbon-dioxide-atmosphere-record#:~:text=The%20global%20average%20concentration%20of,over%20a%2012%2Dmonth%20period.
Who's idea was it ... (Score:3)
Who's idea was it to extrapolate average gas concentration in the atmosphere from a station on a volcano?
Re: Who's idea was it ... (Score:5, Informative)
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Uh Oh, the winds shifted across the one measuring point for the entire world, the sky is now falling faster.
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Re:Who's idea was it ... (Score:5, Informative)
What makes you so confident that this is the only location on the planet where CO2 levels are measured? Would it hurt you so terribly to spend even a few moments to look it up?
https://gml.noaa.gov/dv/site/i... [noaa.gov]
And that's just ground stations that are part of NOAA's global monitoring program. Doesn't include satellites, other stations operated by other countries not affiliated with NOAA, sampling done by universities, etc...
The problem is people don't take a little time to find out if what they're about to say is embarrassingly ignorant before saying it.
=Smidge=
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I read the Summary?
-and yes I am going to die alone on this hill.
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This is some powerful "Global warming isn't real because I had to wear a jacket today" energy. That kind of critically under-informed opinion framed as a gotcha observation much like the one liners that stand-up comics use to pad their routines.
The scientists who chose that location clearly considered the fact that there's a volcano somewhat nearby (if you consider 4 miles to be "nearby"), and they take necessary consideration to avoid it having an impact on their measurements.
https://science.nasa.gov/earth [nasa.gov]
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Who's idea was it to extrapolate average gas concentration in the atmosphere from a station on a volcano?
Turns out that the observatory is sampling the wind blowing in from across the Pacific, not local emissions. That's why Mauna Loa is such a good site; it's up on a mountaintop and the sampling comes from the Pacific, where there are no local sources upwind.
If the prevailing winds calm down, they can see local emissions, but they know when that happens.
Some sources with more info:
https://science.nasa.gov/earth... [nasa.gov]
https://earthobservatory.nasa.... [nasa.gov]
Link broke (Score:1)
SOLUBILITY !! (Score:2)
... ever open a warm beer? What happens? CO2 comes foaming out. Chill that brew and less foam until it warms in the mug.
The Earth is big, and scale hard to grasp. The atmosphere contains a total CO2 layer of about 4mm (as solid). And it is rain-scrubbed by about 1200mm rain (global annual average). Cause-vs-effect -- CO2 would rise by reduced solubility from warming however caused.
Nevermind spectrographic saturation of absorbtion at 667/cm.
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Should we throw some dust up into the atmosphere to chill the planet? I think that'd improve things temporarily. And maybe we'd buy enough time to get our shit together in order to reduced carbon output of our civilization.
But planning ahead is contrary to millennia of human history. We like to ride things out and then react when things get bad enough that we can't tolerate it any more. Then when things are humming along good we backslide and fuck it up again.
I get that Musk and Bezos want to colonize Mars
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Listening to Musk talk about going to Mars is quite interesting. Musk has an education in economics and physics so many of the problems of living on Mars should be something he understands. Solar power on Mars has problems because Mars is so much more distant from the sun than Earth. Mars has dust storms that can block out the sun which makes solar power a bigger problem. The Martian atmosphere is quite thin so wind power is a problem. The wind can pick up a fine dust but not do well in spinning the bl
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Perhaps his best way out is to keep making money on rockets and electric cars while leaving the parts he can't say to others, such as have NASA talk about nuclear fission reactors and hydrocarbon synthesis.
Bingo, since NASA is already doing this. Same as with the Dragon capsule in that having a NASA contract didn't just mean money it also meant access to decades of NASA experience on things like life support systems. And this is fine if he does in fact manage to get Starship working as a launch vehichle that will be enough to get everyone on board to the mission.
I do 100% agree though, nuclear reactors and space exploration just makes sense, especially on a platform like Starship which will make the mass p
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Nuclear power for mars or a lunar base absolutely make sense, as does synthesising fuel for a rocket using it - since chemical rockets are the only type of thrust engine we currently have that is capable of escaping the gravity well of Mars, and are actually relatively efficient in terms of turning chemical energy into kinetic energy - about 60% for the best ones.
. For powering a ground vehicle though, it is very inefficient compared to using that power to recharge a battery - you are throwing away roughly
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Great post, my only quibble is that space-based solar power is great for any space-based habitat. Beaming it down to Earth today is a non-starter mostly because of the improvements in panels and storage. When originally proposed in the 1970s it would have been a very good solution if corporate executives had been able to concentrate on something besides bumping up next quarter's stock price (the same reason building new nuclear power plants was abandoned).
Re: SOLUBILITY !! (Score:2)
The CO2 effect does not saturate. The molecules are not inundated by photons, but they re-emit the energy. Molecules also collide with each other and distribute the energy. This means that the more CO2 there is in the atmosphere the bigger is the capacity to capture heat (radiation). The saturation is reached when the atmosphere cannot contain more CO2 molecules, if anything. A big chunk of the CO2 is dissolved into oceans too.
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The Earth is big(ish), but the atmosphere is **NOT**. The best example that I've seen was my meteorology instructor who took a basketball and told us, "You see the bumps? If the Earth were that size they'd be larger than Mount Everest. The cracks would be deeper than the Mariana's Trench." Then he dunked it in water, held it up, and said, "That sheen of water right now? That's thicker than the breathable atmosphere."
Many portions of the oceans and some lakes are already near their CO2 saturation point.
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The B.ball analogy (1:42million) reminds me of the Eiffel tower only weighing a nickel if reduced to 1ft. And that is only 1:1000 scaling. I don't have that ball, but I doubt the bumps were 0.2mm nor the water film. Small wonder weather-persons are wrong 50+%!
This would explain things (Score:4, Interesting)
We know that as CO2 increases people lose their ability to think clearly. I mean, look around.
Re:This would explain things (Score:4, Funny)
look around.
Leaves are brown
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter
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We're still OK outdoors, but indoors lowers CO2 by mixing with outdoors - we breathe the stuff out constantly. Mixing means inside CO2 levels will always be higher than outside levels.
There will come a day where we need to significantly increase air exchange rates to keep from experiencing CO2-induced cognitive impairment. We may even want CO2 scrubbers.
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The leaks are still occurring because there's no financial incentive to stop them. It would cost far more to fix leaking methane pipelines than the value of the gas that's lost, and abandoned wells mostly are shuffled off to shell companies that are allowed to go bankrupt to remove the original owner's future liability. Capitalism is working as designed, loot the 'Commons' for all its worth and dump the liabilities back into it. Put that money in, to use the words of Bush the Not Stupid, "righter, tighte
Stil nuclear fission poses greater risks. (Score:4, Insightful)
Global warming from CO2 emissions is supposed to be some huge threat to human civilization and yet should there be a mention of nuclear fission for energy to replace fossil fuels there's all kinds of opposition. Therefore nuclear power must be a greater risk to civilization than global warming. How much of a threat does nuclear power actually pose? There's been a few notable accidents from nuclear power plants built in the 1960s and 1970s but nothing notable from anything built after 1980. Is the problem nuclear power? Or nuclear power from before 1980?
Because of how little of a threat nuclear power poses I feel very little threat from global warming. For me to take seriously these people screaming like banshees about global warming would require them to accept nuclear power as part of the solution. People opposed to nuclear power while screaming about global warming have a very skewed sense of what poses the greater risk. I can understand opposition to nuclear power if there's also an expectation that global warming is a minimal threat. I can understand supporting nuclear power while not seeing global warming as a threat, this is because there's benefits to nuclear power beyond just lower CO2 emissions. Wanting no more CO2 emissions while opposing nuclear power to get there does not compute, one of these two must be of a greater risk than the other. If the belief is that nuclear power is the greater risk, and global warming threatens us all, then that just doesn't compute.
You want to tell me that nuclear power poses a greater risk than global warming? Okay then, don't expect me to lift a finger on lowering my CO2 emissions. I can read what risks come from nuclear power and if global warming is preferable to that then global warming must not be so bad at all.
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What are you talking about? Just because there is disagreement about the best way to de-carbonize the world economy doesn't mean that we can't or shouldn't strive to make a difference.
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What are you talking about? Just because there is disagreement about the best way to de-carbonize the world economy doesn't mean that we can't or shouldn't strive to make a difference.
We have data from our options to lower CO2 emissions. This data shows real world costs, be that measured in money, materials, labor, land use, or CO2 emissions. This data also shows benefits, such as EROEI, profits, or any of a number of metrics. If we are to believe those that scream "follow the science" on global warming from CO2 then we should "follow the science" on solutions. There should not be any disagreement on how to lower CO2 emissions, not any of any significance, if everyone is taking a sci
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>>>"We can't get to anything close to a net zero CO2 economy without nuclear fission. Those that tried have failed. There's been studies done by government agencies, and private research entities, that show us there's no getting away from fossil fuels without nuclear power or a severe energy shortage."
Over 99% of the electricity production in mainland Norway is from 31 GW hydropower plants (86 TWh reservoir capacity, storing water from summer to winter.
We want to export more electricity, and build
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Look at the terrain, geology, and population distribution of Norway, and compare it to the rest of the world. Norway's solution works in Norway and could not possibly work anywhere else except parts of neighboring Sweden. Even the Alaska Panhandle, which has similar terrain and population distribution, won't work because of earthquakes and unstable/fractured bedrock. You can't get there from here.
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> Therefore nuclear power must be a greater risk to civilization than global warming
YES!
It means that there is a risk oil barons cant buy their kids islands for their birthdays.
Duh (Score:2)
Record-Breaking Increase in CO2 Levels in World's Atmosphere
It's election season.
Also, increases in methane are probably from thawing Arctic permafrost, refinery flaring, or perhaps a NY courtroom [snopes.com] ... :-)
Yeah, but... (Score:2)
Affect on the Rainforest and Crops (Score:1)
An unpopular way to look at it, but aren't there any pros to rising CO2 emissions (I understand the Cons) but isn't another affect is higher crop yields, higher plant growth (possibly in the rainforests), NASA published an article that basically said it's making the earth greener for now. [nasa.gov]
From the article:
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Increasing crop yields will be minuscule until you get to the levels that they pump into greenhouses. The desertification of existing cropland in Africa alone has already far outstripped any possible benefit from the higher levels of carbon dioxide, and we're starting to see the same pattern appearing in the grain belts of North America and Central Asia.
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Does it penetrate your thought process that **ALL** of the record-sized changes now are just since the turn of the century? We're not just making changes, but the changes that we're making are accelerating.
More money scams (Score:1)
Meanwhile, back in the war(s) (Score:2)
It might be worth contemplating that most war destruction is also accomplished by chemical reactions that release CO2. So we have Ukraine vs Russia, Israel vs pretty much all their neighbors, and scads of little wars all over the place. These are not green activities. Giving peace a chance might just be a save the planet activity?
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Unfortunately hardly anyone working to save civilization is making any money on it. Far more is being made in the short term destroying than building, and "short term" is now in fashion among the movers and shakers of civilization.
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Not only that, but all the bodies release methane when they rot.
It would have been better if the title was (Score:2)
"Breathtaking Increase in CO2 Levels in World's Atmosphere"
Nice! (Score:2)
The tomatoes will grow even better this year
laws of nature (Score:2)
The rate of CO_2 increase is directly proportional to the rate of development of the countries formerly known as the third world.