Rene Clement/Polaris/eyevine
Continuing reliance on coal, which fuels this power plant in Germany, is driving carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere ever higher.
Near the moonscape summit of the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii, an infrared analyser will soon make history. Sometime in the next month, it is expected to record a daily concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of more than 400 parts per million (p.p.m.), a value not reached at this key surveillance point for a few million years.
There will be no balloons or noisemakers to celebrate the event. Researchers who monitor greenhouse gases will regard it more as a disturbing marker of humanity’s power to alter the chemistry of the atmosphere and by extension, the climate of the planet. At 400 p.p.m., nations will have a difficult time keeping global warming in check, says Corinne Le Quéré, a climate researcher at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, who says that the impact “is getting very dangerously close to reaching the 2 °C target that governments around the world have pledged not to exceed”.
It will be a while, perhaps a few years, before the global CO2 concentration averaged over an entire year, passes 400 p.p.m.. But topping that value at Mauna Loa is significant because researchers have been monitoring the gas there since 1958, longer than any other spot. “It’s a time to take stock of where we are and where we’re going,” says Ralph Keeling, a geochemist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, who oversees that centre’s CO2 monitoring efforts on Mauna Loa. That gas record, known as the Keeling curve, was started by his father, Charles Keeling.
Source: Scripps Inst. Oceanography/UC San Diego
When monitoring started, the CO2 level stood at 316 p.p.m., not much higher than the 280 p.p.m. that characterized conditions before the industrial revolution. But since the Hawaiian measurements began, the values have followed an upward slope that shows no sign of levelling off (see ‘On the rise’). Emissions of other greenhouse gases are also increasing, pushing the total equivalent concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere to around 478 p.p.m. in April, according to Ronald Prinn, an atmospheric scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.
Data compiled by Le Quéré and other members of the Global Carbon Project suggest that humans contributed around 10.4 billion tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere in 2011. About half of that is taken up each year by carbon ‘sinks’ such as the ocean and vegetation on land; the rest remains in the atmosphere and raises the global concentration of CO2.
“The real question now is: how will the sinks behave in the future?” says Gregg Marland, an environmental scientist at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, who helps to compile the emissions data.
The sinks have grown substantially since Keeling began his measurements, when carbon emissions totalled about 2.5 billion tonnes a year. But climate models suggest that the land and ocean will not keep pace for long.
“At some point the planet can’t keep doing us a favour, particularly the terrestrial biosphere,” says Jim White, a biogeochemist at the University of Colorado Boulder. As the sinks slow down and more emitted CO2 stays in the atmosphere, levels will rise even faster.
Some researchers have suggested that the sinks have already started to clog up, reducing their ability to take up more CO2 (J. G. Canadell et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 104, 18866–18870; 2007). Others disagree.
Ashley Ballantyne, a biogeochemist at the University of Montana in Missoula, worked with White and others to examine records of emissions as well as CO2 measurements made around the globe. They found no signs of sinks slowing down (A. P. Ballantyne et al. Nature 488, 70–72; 2012). But it is difficult to be sure, says Inez Fung, a climate modeller at the University of California, Berkeley. “We don’t have adequate observing networks.” The largest global network, operated by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, had to trim 12 stations in 2012 because of budget cuts.
Some of the most crucial areas, such as the tropics, are also the least monitored, although researchers are seeking to fill in the gaps. Scientists from Germany and Brazil are building a 300-metre tower to keep tabs on the Amazon (see Nature 467, 386–387; 2010). And Europe’s Integrated Carbon Observation System is setting up stations throughout the continent and at some marine sites to measure CO2 and other greenhouse gases.
Satellites, too, could monitor carbon sources and sinks. Two orbiters are already providing some data, and NASA plans to launch the much anticipated Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 next year (see page 5). An earlier version of that satellite failed during its 2009 launch.
Even as new resources come online, however, researchers are struggling to keep the Mauna Loa station going. “The amount of money that I’m able to obtain for the programme has diminished over time,” says Keeling, whose group monitors CO2 concentration at 13 sites around the world.
“It’s kind of silly that we chose to go all ostrich-like,” says White of the funding difficulties. “We don’t want to know how much CO2 is in the atmosphere, when we ought to be monitoring even more.”
- Journal name:
- Nature
- Volume:
- 497,
- Pages:
- 13–14
- Date published:
- ()
- DOI:
- doi:10.1038/497013a
@Arno Arrak
Measuring CO~2~ levels in the atmosphere is a mostly objective measurement, not subjective. The levels are rising; there is no debate. The debate lies in the arguments as to whether rising levels are causing an increase in global temperatures.
@Arno Arrak
I don't believe that I stated my position on global warming. I simply stated a fact. Snow does not fall if the temperature drops too far below the freezing point of water. If a city has a higher snowfall than the previous season, it COULD be because of temperatures not dropping down as low in the winter.
So idiot, if it snows more often, it COULD be from warmer temperatures. If a city's temperature routinely falls significantly below freezing in the winter, increased snowfall could mean warmer winter temperatures. If a city rarely gets below freezing in the winter, increased snowfall could mean colder winter temperatures. It just depends on the location and the amount of precipitation.
I lost all confidence in the global warming scare when I got back from working on dams in Central Asia, and saw Gore's movie shortly thereafter. I knew from the hydrological studies for the dams that the glaciers were not melting. I speak Russian and was familiar with the Vostok ice cores, and the fact that temperature leads CO2 in that climate proxy. I saw Gore's representation of the Aral Sea drying up as being a brazen and willful fraud, since the Aral Sea dried up because of the dams on the Syr Darya, and the diversion of the Amu Darya by the Kara Kum Canal to Ashgabat. This blog is too short to list every fraud in his movie, but those lists are available online.
Temperature records taken at airports and water plants are not representative of climate. Rural and high altitude weather records have been abandoned because the lack of electricity and internet precludes automatic readings, and this cost-driven decision continues to bias temperature records upwards. I recently worked on a major project in the Appalachians, and our test bores struck seven different alternating layers of sandstone, coal and mudstones. Each of those seven sets of layers represented one complete cycle of climate change at that spot. No surprise there; if you look at the Vostok records and numerous other climate proxies you cannot deny the alternating patterns of glaciation and warmer interglacial periods. The recent changes in temperature and CO2 are mere "noise" compared to drastic swings recorded in the geological records.
I warned of this years ago. Actually, I pointed out that the unnatural chemicals chemtrails are spraying into the air seemed to be making the air less and less able to support aircraft. Spates of daily or every other day crashes, separated by a couple of months, were a commonplace only a few years ago. At the same time, cancellations and delays skyrocketed and malfunctions or bizarre 'incidents' on the tarmac or in midair, were epidemic. Some substances being poured into the air seem to hold much more heat than normal air. That's why the National Weather Service had to recalculate wind chill to reflect the fact that the air holds more heat. But, remember, it's recommended not to fly in in air above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Airlines had to find 'reasons' and 'excuses' not to fly into or to 'divert' around patches of particularly debased atmosphere. They aren't admitting the full truth, but they seem to be establishing the basis for 'explaining away' events that I warned of and seem to be becoming so common that they can no longer be denied.
I collected some anonymous sayings from commentators above. They are mini-testimonials to the verity of the article theme. I presume your readership is either scientists or people studying science. They all struggle with the thought that carbon dioxide is doing something even if they don't know what it is or what to do about it. I see no evidence that they know what critical thinking is even if they fell over it.
* ....The climate is changing due to CO2 and still some deny it - on a science site no less. Wow, that takes chutzpah.... YOU ARE A TRUE BELIEVER IN MIRACLES.
* ...only the average values are rising, .... Some regions are even expected to become colder within the next decades... SO YOU HAVE TO EXPLAIN AWAY THE COLD
* ...NATO should monitor the sources of CO2 release and use military action if necessary to enforce the CO2 release from countries such as China.... YOU WOULD GO TO WAR WITH CHINA BECAUSE OF THEIR CO2 RELEASE.
* ....If snowfall has increased in an area it could be due to warmer temperatures keeping the area closer to the freezing point of water.... OK, IF IT SNOWS IT'S WARMING. LOGICAL.
* ...Increased snowfall isn't necessarily a sign of colder weather....If snowfall has increased in an area it could be due to warmer temperatures....HERE IS ANOTHER ONE WHO THINKS THAT SNOW MEANS WARM.
* ...Anecdotal evidence is interesting at best. Let's stick to the hard, empirical evidence, most of which suggests rising CO~2~ levels...SOMEONE OUGHT TO EXPLAIN TO YOU WHAT EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE MEANS.
Richard Monastersky, not Butler & Cyranoski. They did the flu. Sorry.
This article by Butler and Cyranoski is a sad testimony to the unreality of current climate science. They point out that Mauna Loa atmospheric carbon dioxide measurements are on the verge of exceeding 400 ppm and then quote Corinne LeQuere who says that the impact of that is getting very dangerously close to reaching the 2 degrees Celsius target that "governments around the world have pledged not to exceed." More carbon dioxide statistics follow. LeQuere's Global Carbon Project estimates that humans contributed around 10.4 billion tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere in 2011 but there is no way to evaluate this because they don't tell us what fraction of total carbon this represents. Then they worry whether or not carbon sinks can handle it over time. They are not satisfied with Mauna Loa observations alone and pushed for NASA to put up a satellite carbon observatory to monitor carbon sources and sinks. It crashed on takeoff so NASA is now spending another 400 million dollars plus to send up carbon observatory-2. On top of that the activists have gotten governments to sign up for a totally asinine project to change the climate by emission control laws. They have no idea how to predict the future but they warned these people of tipping points and possible runaway greenhouse effect if we keep burning fossil fuels. All of this is crass stupidity because carbon dioxide is not warming up the world. Rothman has examined the history of carbon dioxide within the last 500 million years and come to the conclusion from it that "The resulting CO2 signal exhibits no systematic correspondence with the geologic record of climatic variations at tectonic time scales." <sup>1</sup>. From his work we note that there has not been any runaway greenhouse for all those 500 million years. But Hansen uses runaway greenhouse nevertheless as a scare tactic. He tells us that the atmosphere of Venus shows results of a runaway greenhouse effect and that we too could get it if we don't stop burning fossil fuels.He was an astronomer for the Pioneer Venus project but knows amazingly little about Venusian geology. As it happens, Venus has no plate tectonics. Radioactive heat on earth is constantly vented by plate boundary volcanism. But on Venus it just accumulates beneath the crust and eventually so weakens it that it breaks up into giant slabs that sink into the interior and a new crust is formed. Judging by impact crater counts one such resurfacing cycle on Venus may take from 300 to 600 million years. If it is the same age as the earth there may have been time for as many as ten such cycles in its past. Its atmosphere is entirely a productof these giant eructations and has nothing whatsoever to do with any runaway greenhouse effect. But the greenhouse effect that is supposed to be the cause of anthropogenic global warming on earth simply does not exist. How do I know this? Because Ferenc Miskolczi has proved it, both theoretically and observationally. His theory is a Magnum Opus of 40 pages <sup>2</sup> that came out in 2007. It has been attacked in the blogosphere by incompetent, activist scientists who simply did not understand the math. Miskolczi's next move <sup>3</sup> was a study of the absorption of infrared radiation by the atmosphere over time. For that he used NOAA database of weather balloon observations that goes back to 1948. He found that for the entire 61 year period available to him atmospheric absorption of IR was constant. At the same time, carbon dioxide went up by 21.6 percent. This substantial addition of carbon dioxide had no effecct on the absorption of IR by the atmosphere. And no absorption means no greenhouse effect, case closed. To explain why carbon dioxide absorption did not show up I need to elaborate a bit. First of all, carbon dioxide is not the only greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Water vapor is, too, and there is more of it. Furthermore, Arrhenius of whom IPCC constantly talks about simply ignored it which makes his theory incomplete. According to Miskolczi theory, when more than one greenhouse gas absorbs OLR, there exists an optimal absorption window for the atmosphere as a whole that they jointly maintain. For example, if you add more carbon dioxide to air and thereby cause additional absorption, the amount of water vapor will diminish and thereby restore the original absorption level of the atmosphere as a whole. This is equiivalent to negative water vapor feedback, the exact opposite of what IPCC uses to get those very high predictions of warming. That does not sit very well with those who believe in the greenhouse effect. Empirically, the greenhouse effect is dead already without any help from Miskolczi. There has not been any warming of any kind for the last fifteen years as even Pachauri has reluctantly admitted. At the same time, there is more carbon dioxide in the air then ever before and more is added daily. It is simply not doing its warming thing, just like Miskolczi theory says. Did it ever? The answer is no. If you check the temperature record there has been no greenhouse warming for the last 100 years. Miskolczi's 2010 paper proves his theory applies to the real world. It is important to emphasize that the observations in this paper are empirical observations that simply verify his predictions. They override any predictions from theory that do not agree with it. It followas that any and all predictions of global warming based on the greenhouse theory are false. And any and all anti-pollution laws passed with the aid of these predictions were passed under false premises and must be nullified. This includes emission control laws and regulations including subsidies to alternate energy sources, satellites designed to monitor carbon, and other projects too numerous to mention. There is precedent for this when the superconducting supercollider was cancelled out in the middle of construction that had already started.
<sup>1</sup> Daniel Rothman "Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels for the last 500 million years" PNAS 99(7):4167-4171 (April 2, 2002)
<sup>2</sup> Ferenc M. Miskolczi, "Greenhouse effect in semi-transparent planetary atmospheres," Quarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Service, 111(1):1-40 (January-March 2007)
<sup>3</sup> Ferenc M. Miskolczi, "The stable stationary value of the earth's global average atmospheric Planck-weighted greenhouse-gas optical thickness," Enrgy & Environment 21(4):243-262 (2010)
I would like to commment the last paragraph, "It's kind of silly that we chose to go all ostrich-like," a quote of Jim White, whom I don't know and certainly respect since I worry a lot about CO2 and climate change; however, concerning ostriches, they certainly don't behave at all like he suggested, only humans.
As to the daily experiences of people, a former high school friend who moved back to Canada tells me that the bay of water near his house has always frozen over in winter. This past winter it did not freeze over and water surges, that are typically prevented by the ice, from storms have severly devastated the surrounding landcape. Anecdotal evidence is interesting at best. Let's stick to the hard, empirical evidence, most of which suggests rising CO~2~ levels.
@john moseley
Increased snowfall isn't necessarily a sign of colder weather. If the area in question typically has temperatures significantly below freezing, snowfall will be low as snow only falls within a small range of temperatures at or below freezing. If snowfall has increased in an area it could be due to warmer temperatures keeping the area closer to the freezing point of water.
We should be very optimistic about the future with electrically or hydrogen driven vehicles are on the rise, the source of CO2 due to vehicles emission should be minimized. However, one should ask what the sources of CO2 release are in the future. It is a global effect and so NATO should monitor the sources of CO2 release and use military action if necessary to enforce the CO2 release from countries such as China.
It is quite fascinating how disleading the term "global warming" is and how many people are making wrong assumptions over and over again.
Taking a look at the scientific background shows that this term refers to the calculated AVERAGE of temperature values for different time periods, which are taken as reference variables and measured at different meteorological stations/ satellites or other devices worldwide.
This means that only the average values are rising, but not necessarily all initial (measured) values at the single points! And as you can see, this is actually happening! Some regions are even expected to become colder within the next decades...
If you're after anecdotal evidence John Moseley, I can tell you that it is supposed to be Autumn in the Southern Hemisphere and it is unusually warm. More like summer. We have also just had record-breaking droughts in New Zealand and a summer of record-breaking temperatures in Australia.
The climate is changing due to CO2 and still some deny it - on a science site no less. Wow, that takes chutzpah.
The coldest British winter in 50 years, snow in Saudia Arabia yesterday (the city of Haet), snow across northern Spain today, snow between Denver and Wyoming tomorrow (according to local forecasts). There'll only be so many years like this before the pass AGW continues to receive from the daily experiences of billions of people comes to an end, especially as the 'favour' the planet is giving us with such coldness deepens into a new Maunder Minimum. Global warming? Yes please.