Rising CO2 levels show a climate emergency -- urgent action needed [View all]

[Fast Walker 52]

Last edited Mon Apr 25, 2016, 01:45 PM - Edit history (1)

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2016/04/atmospheric-co2-rising-off-chart-spikes.html

For quite a while, climate scientists have been comforted (if that's the world for a very jittery bunch) by the stability of the CO2 growth rate — "only" 2.11 ppm per year. There is some acceleration, obviously. But for the most part that acceleration hasn't been dramatic, aside from the large one-year spike in 1998 (chart here).

We now have another large one-year spike (see chart at the top of this piece; also here), and we're not done yet. The actual yearly peak in atmospheric CO2 is reached in May, a number not yet available, so the April peak (so far) is still shy of the actual number for 2016. (Note that both 1998 and 2016 are El Niño years, but as you'll read, that should not be comforting.)

Keep in mind, CO2 readings barely touched 400 ppm very recently — as a the daily average, in 2013; as a monthly average, in 2014 — and the monthly readings solidly breached 400 ppm only in 2015 (per-month data table here). The May 2014 highest weekly mean was 401.88 ppm. The May 2015 highest weekly mean was 403.94, for a rise of a little over 2 ppm, the average over the last 10 years. The May 2016 weekly average could peak near 410 ppm, and one of the daily averages could exceed it. (If you look at this chart, you'll see the hourly average has already breached 410 ppm. In the hourly measurements, we're already there.)

This is a problem, this spike in atmospheric CO2, and a more immediate one than this generation is prepared to acknowledge. Robert Scribbler comments (my emphasis):

Hothouse Gas Spikes to Extreme 409.3 Parts Per Million on April 10 — Record Rate of Atmospheric CO2 Increase Likely for 2016