Environment & Energy

hatrack

(59,566 posts) Mon Apr 5, 2021, 09:52 PM Apr 2021

Mauna Loa Daily Readings Break 420 ppm Carbon Dioxide; 1st Time In Instrumental Record

For the first time in recorded history, the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, or CO2, was measured at more than 420 parts per million at the Mauna Loa Observatory on the Big Island of Hawaii. It’s a disconcerting milestone in the human-induced warming of the planet, around the halfway point on our path toward doubling preindustrial CO2 levels.

The research station, at an elevation of 11,135 feet on the summit of a picturesque volcano, has been monitoring the weather and chemistry of the atmosphere continuously since the 1950s. Its location allows it to sample some of the purest air available, providing scientists an untainted representation of how humans are irreversibly influencing climate systems.

When the station began collecting CO2 measurements in the late 1950s, atmospheric CO2 concentration sat at around 315 parts per million. On Saturday, the daily average was pegged at 421.21 parts per million — the first time in human history that number has been so high. Previously, it had never exceeded 420 parts per million. “We’re completely certain that the increase in CO2 is warming the planet,” Kate Marvel, an associate research scientist at Columbia University, wrote in an email. “I’m even more certain CO2 causes global heating than I am that smoking causes cancer. The world is already more than 2 [degrees Fahrenheit] warmer than it was before the Industrial Revolution.”

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Carbon dioxide emissions are a product of electricity production, transportation and industry. The United States alone emits more than 5 billion metric tons of CO2 annually — the weight of 13.2 million fully loaded Boeing 747s, or roughly 68,000 Washington Monuments. About half of emitted CO2 remains in the atmosphere and induces warming, while more than a quarter is absorbed into the oceans, where it acidifies the water and disrupts marine ecosystems.

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