Source: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/weekly.html
Al Gore calls for a day of prayer and reflection, and bothering your neighbor:
So please, take this day and the milestone it represents to reflect on the fragility of our civilization and and the planetary ecosystem on which it depends. Rededicate yourself to the task of saving our future. Talk to your neighbors, call your legislator, let your voice be heard. We must take immediate action to solve this crisis. Not tomorrow, not next week, not next year. Now.
Scientific American laments the plants
This measurement is just the hourly average of CO2 levels high in the Hawaiian sky, but this family’s figures carry more weight than those made at other stations in the world as they have faithfully kept the longest record of atmospheric CO2. Arctic weather stations also hit the hourly 400 ppm mark last spring and this one. Regardless, the hourly levels at Mauna Loa will soon drop as spring kicks in across the northern hemisphere, trees budding forth an army of leaves hungrily sucking CO2 out of the sky.
…
In the coming year, Scientific American will run an occasional series, “400 ppm,” to examine what this invisible line in the sky means for the global climate, the planet and all the living things on it, including human civilization.
Sorry, we already beat you to it when it comes to summing up what it means:
Since the world hasn’t ended (just like what happened with Y2K) we can now go forward from here.
T-shirts saying “I survived 400 PPM” will be made available if there’s enough interest in comments.
UPDATE: T-shirts now available due to popular demand. See here:
I wonder if Gore talks to his neighbours. Anyone know who they are?
@DirkH & others:
As I have said many times before, CO2 is now a good candidate for crowd-sourcing, with accurate 1% metering available at less than $200 ($A, but now very close to $US). You can learn a great deal. Cooking a meal? 1200ppm. Might cause a headache, but that could be the possibility of embarrassment rather than the CO2 level.
Serving it to guests in an enclosed room? Likely to be approaching 1000pmm, especially if you daren’t turn up the AC because you can no longer afford the peak hour charges, or your smart meter/off-peak tariff thingy has already switched it off.
Take the meter outside, watch what happens when the sun goes down … OMG – 425ppm !!!
DesertYote says:
May 10, 2013 at 3:20 pm
BZZT Wrong answer. If your brain was not so overloaded with leftist propaganda, you might have been able to figure out were you went wrong before you made a fool of yourself. Hint: Sources are independent of sinks. Sheesh. Didn’t your mom teach you any DiffEq?
No, simple elementary school math:
increase in the atmosphere = human emissions + natural emissions – natural sinks
human emissions are appr. 8 GtC/yr, based on fossil fuel sales and burning efficiency
increase in the atmosphere is measured and is about 4 GtC/yr (~2 ppmv/yr).
Thus the above equation gets for one year:
4 GtC = 8 GtC + natural emissions – natural sinks
and
natural emissions – natural sinks = -4 GtC
If you can tell me how nature can be the cause of the increase over at least the past 50 years:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/dco2_em.jpg
I am very interested…
Great headline, great T-shirt. I’ll buy one.
I’ve had headaches in the past couple of days. You have just explained it. Who do I sue?
jc says @ur momisugly May 10, 2013 at 11:17 am
These people are not just idiots. They are retarded.
Wrong diagnosis. These people are malevolent, in pursuit of their own interests. Al Gore doesn’t believe the carp he spews; he makes money from it. The EPA doesn’t care a darn about the environment, just more micro-control of society; a bigger and better funded EPA.
Just caught an email with this link about open government data.
2 min video.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/05/09/landmark-steps-liberate-open-data
cn
CO2 levels measured at Cape Grim in January are 391.2 ppm. The missing 8.8 ppm of CO2 must be coming from the volcanoes at Mauna Loa.
DesertYote says:
May 10, 2013 at 3:24 pm
Steve T says:
May 10, 2013 at 3:17 pm
###
Its lactic acid that causes hemoglobin to release oxygen, as any teleost fish will tell you (its how the swim bladder works).
***********************************************************************************************
Non of my teleost friends will tell me exactly how it works, but a quick bit of research informs me that it is the acidity of lactic acid which causes the hemoglobin to release oxygen into the swim bladder.
Couldn’t an increase of CO2, which would also create acidity, have the same reaction on hemoglobin in humans. Empirically, I know that the breathing exercises I learnt increase my lung CO2 levels, I don’t know about any effect the breathing exercises have on my lactic acid levels.
Steve T
Gbees says:
May 10, 2013 at 1:49 pm
I’ve never really understood why CO2 is measured on or near a volcano. CO2 is abundant in and around them even when not errupting. Someone please explain?
Just coincidence, the first measurements with the new CO2 measurement instruments were done at the South Pole. A new meteorological station was opened at Mauna Loa some year later. Keeling expected that most of the time the winds at the stations were the Trade Winds over the oceans, not influenced by the volcanic vents. That indeed was/is the case. The South Pole lacks a few years of continuous measurements (but still had bi-weekly flask samples), therefore Mauna Loa has the longest continuous record.
See the difference in raw data (including all local influences) for a year Mauna Loa and the South Pole:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/co2_mlo_spo_raw_select_2008.jpg
The averages are calculated without the outliers, but show the same seasonal variability and trend.
See further the interesting autobiography of Keeling about the CO2 measurements story:
http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/publications/keeling_autobiography.pdf
Ferdinand Engelbeen postulates at May 10, 2013 at 3:46 pm
increase in the atmosphere = human emissions + natural emissions – natural sinks
human emissions are appr. 8 GtC/yr, based on fossil fuel sales and burning efficiency
increase in the atmosphere is measured and is about 4 GtC/yr (~2 ppmv/yr).
The “carbon budget” of the planet is poorly understood. I see a lot of hand-waving and large error bars.
So what are they going to do when nothing happens?
Nicholas Tesdorf says:
May 10, 2013 at 4:02 pm
CO2 levels measured at Cape Grim in January are 391.2 ppm. The missing 8.8 ppm of CO2 must be coming from the volcanoes at Mauna Loa.
No, opposite seasons and a lag between the SH and the NH:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/month_2002_2004_4s.jpg
here for Samoa and the South Pole in the NH, but I suppose that Cape Grim has the same lag. The lag points to a source in the NH, where most of the human emissions take place and the ITCZ slows down the air mass exchanges between the NH and the SH, including CO2 and aerosols.
How am I still alive?
Robert of Ottawa says:
May 10, 2013 at 4:11 pm
Ferdinand Engelbeen postulates at May 10, 2013 at 3:46 pm
The “carbon budget” of the planet is poorly understood. I see a lot of hand-waving and large error bars.
One doesn’t need to know any individual natural CO2 flow, neither the sum of all natural ins and outs to know that nature can’t be the cause of the increase in the atmosphere. Nature was a net sink for CO2, not a source over the past 50 years (at least).
Human emissioms are reasonably estimated at 8 GtC/yr, based on sales (taxes!), maybe a little underestimated because of under the counter sales (-1 to + 1.5 GtC/yr) and measurements are quite accurate (+/- 0.4 GtC/yr).
I’s like to see the Smiling Flowers from above with “We Heart 400 ppm” underneath.
You know, only with the heart drawn and not the word heart.
That’d get my vote.
cn
That’s I’d
cn
Has it occurred to these ‘scientists’ that the number 400 has significance only because of the decimal system? In hexadecimal, we just passed 190 ppm!!! OMG!!! Uh-oh. In binary, we just passed 110010000 ppm!!!
As far as gardening is concerned, I hope the increase in CO2 will somehow offset the cooling trend we’re experiencing, but I’m not convinced. While the gas helps them grow, I doubt there’s enough carbonation in my tomatoes to protect them from early frost.
With the final arctic blast of the year expected to invade the Ohio valley this weekend, smart corn farmers will hold off planting corn a week longer. So where does that put us? According to the USDA:
“Corn: By May 5, producers had planted 12 percent of this
year’s corn crop, 57 percentage points behind last year and
35 points behind the 5-year average. Despite increased
fieldwork throughout much of the major corn-producing
region, overall planting progress continued at the slowest pace
since 1984. In Iowa, producers took advantage of warmer
early-week weather and planted 6 percent of their crop before
cold, snowy weather forced them out of their fields toward
week’s end. Nationally, emergence advanced to 3 percent by
May 5, twenty-six percentage points behind last year and
12 points behind the 5-year average. This represents the
slowest emergence pace on since records began in 1999.”
All those stark, empty corn fields. Acres and and acres and acres, not using a bit of CO2.
If Global warming was real, the dip in CO2 levels would start earlier in the spring, in the northern hemisphere, not later.
Uh oh. It’s time to panic.
You climate change deniers!
What you got to say now, huh?
@ur momisuglyRobert of Ottawa says:
May 10, 2013 at 3:57 pm
jc says @ur momisugly May 10, 2013 at 11:17 am
These people are not just idiots. They are retarded.
Wrong diagnosis. These people are malevolent, in pursuit of their own interests. Al Gore doesn’t believe the carp he spews; he makes money from it. The EPA doesn’t care a darn about the environment, just more micro-control of society; a bigger and better funded EPA.
——————————————————————————————————————–
I fully agree. Retardation and malevolence are not mutually exclusive.
In this example though, I think retardation has the upper hand. In any case, apart from the active originators and strategists, there are definitley those for whom retardation is the defining quality, who can be used to cheer for victory. It’s a broad church, at least in relation to the dysfunctional and criminal.
Uh oh. It’s time to panic.
You climate change deniers!
What you got to say now, huh?
A few years back when I was in pulmonary rehab the pulmonary therapist described an extraordinary young woman, also in rehab at the same time, although I didn’t personally meet her.
She was a cystic fibrosis patient. Someone is born with that and it is one nasty disease. Years ago, few patients made it past eighteen. Perhaps for most cystic fibrosis patients a lung transplant will be on the horizon. The 5 year survival rate for an LT, at least at that time and probably still is 50%. This 30 year old woman had had one 10 years prior.
Surprisingly, there actually are living donors for a lung transplant, but that’s a complex three person operation and very uncommon. Almost all donors are deceased. If successful, past 5 years, the life expectancy of the transplanted organ from a deceased donor is generally 10 years.
With her transplanted organ, beginning to fail after the sustained attack upon it by her immune system, this amazing young woman was staring at another transplant. Amazing? She was also a mother.
Think hard about all of that. Human beings are not a living creature upon this planet that will easily meet its doom. And think what medical science accomplished for this young woman who had the courage to accept it. I know personally the courage that would take. And I know I don’t have it.
I’m pretty damn sick and tired of the likes of Al Gore and his worshipers trying to scare us and tell us we’re doomed. That woman clearly didn’t view things that way and she faced adversity the likes of which Al Gore and his minions at Scientific American could never imagine. People cling to life and what modern life can offer. And they will not easily go back in time. So to Al and SA all I can say is; don’t you dare try to drag us back there, let alone pick our pockets while trying to do so.