It seems we didn’t reach 400PPM last week after all. The data has been revised. Ooops.
‘Carbon dioxide measurements in the Earth’s atmosphere did not break the symbolic milestone of 400 parts per million at a Hawaiian observatory last week, according to a revised reading from the nation’s climate observers.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) revised its May 9 reading at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii, saying it remained fractions of a point below the level of 400 ppm, at 399.89′
Source: LA Times
Oh well, there’s always next week…or maybe not, since spring in the Northern Hemisphere tends to reduce CO2 as plants suck up all that CO2 that some claim is not plant food.
Still time to get t-shirts though.
H/t to Marc Morano
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This way they get to have two celebrations — and two screaming headlines in the New York Times.
This way they can make headlines again next month (or this fall if we’re into the summer CO2 decline). I don’t think the readers of USA Today will remember.
Gah! Nobless Oblige beat me to it as I was typing…
Laughable article: “CO2 at All Time High”
Is she a low-information fear-monger, or a liar?
Rob Potter says:
May 13, 2013 at 11:44 am
The seasonal variation in northern hemisphere CO2 is due to more than agriculture. It’s much bigger. It has more to do with the annual die-off and decay of the total biomass of photosynthesizing land plants in the north. What percentage of that is agricultural would be interesting to know. Since our crops aren’t allowed to keel over and lie rotting in the fields, they aren’t contributing to that biomass. Maybe there’s a spike from the sudden loss of CO2-absorbing plants?
A climate metric revised downward ??? Stop the presses!
So we’re destined to repeat this disaster twice?
Whatever…
In Minnesota yesterday CO2 levels dropped from over 400ppm to 362ppm in just one day! http://m4gw.com/minnesota-co2-drops-from-over-400ppm-to-362ppm-in-one-day/
Atmospheric CO2 did not reach 400 ppm last week?
Ah, well that explains why the world did not come to an end.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 1.8 million civilians work for the Federal Government, excluding the Post Office
5733 ppm
Oh great. So the alarmists can have another fit in a month or two.
I update CO2 content and global temperatures from satellite measurement almost monthly for this graph on the Friends of Science website. It shows the seasonal CO2 variations.
http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?id=453
Hey, does that mean I can take off my oxygen mask ??
Is it safe again?
Celebration back on?
According to SCRIPPs..
http://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/special-note-on-may-9-2013-reading/
Special note on May 9, 2013 reading
May 10, 2013
May 10 Comment:
NOAA has reported 400.03 for May 9, 2013, while Scripps has reported 399.73. The difference partly reflects different reporting periods. NOAA uses UTC, whereas Scripps uses local time in Hawaii to define the 24-hr reporting period. If Scripps were to use same reporting period as NOAA, we would report 400.08 for May 9.
Oh dear. This gives the MSM a second opportunity to report the bad news when it finally breaches the symbolic figure.
Well, who would want a 400 t-shirt now.. Maybe they can add ‘so near, but so far’ somewhere on those t-shirts.
Steve Rosenberg
Lubos Motl did a post at his blog few months back discussing som aspects of the annual seasonal variations in the carbon dioxide concentration in the athmosphere, it was mostly about fitting a mathematical function to thaht could mimic the actual data but the post contains a quick and short and very readable overview of how the CO2 variaies throughot the year. The url of the that post is:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2013/02/mauna-loa-carbon-dioxide-fit.html
One intriguing conclusion he drew from that exercise was contained in the paragraph I copied and paste here below:
quote: ” ………
Let me mention that between May and September, the seasonal variations contribute the drop by 3.12+3.58=6.70 ppm of CO2. If you could make plants thrive in the winter as well, you could easily subtract something like 13 ppm of CO2 from the atmosphere every year, well above the 2 ppm by which we are increasing the concentration every year (it’s 1/2 of 4 ppm we are adding; the other half is already being absorbed by the enhanced consumption of CO2 due to the elevated concentrations).
…….” end of quote.
In other words with our current yearly human additions of co2 to the athmosphere then if we had an endless summer season in the northern hemispehere , the plants would be devouring the co2 so fierecly that with we would be loosing 11 ppm/year and so would reach the 140 ppm mark ( the total biosphere extinction mark ) in less than a quarter of a century.
Speaking of carbon dioxide…
http://earthengine.google.org/#intro/ColumbiaGlacier
Watch Sahel greening.
Lance Wallace says:
May 13, 2013 at 11:08 am
However, only three sites were examined, and one (near the Antarctic) gave very different values, so probably more is known now.
http://bluemoon.ucsd.edu/publications/ralph/3_Seasonal.pdf
Indeed, more data and better detection methods for O2 (still a huge challenge to measure less than 1 ppmv on 200,000 ppmv!) are available nowadays. Here the results for 1993-2002 (fig. 5):
http://www.bowdoin.edu/~mbattle/papers_posters_and_talks/BenderGBC2005.pdf
In the introduction they give more background info.
mwhite says:
May 13, 2013 at 11:09 am
“180 Years accurate CO2 – Gasanalysis of Air by Chemical Methods (Short version)”
http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/180_years_accurate_Co2_Chemical_Methods.pdf
and
E.G. around 1940 there was a maximum of CO2 of at least 420 ppm
Please, not again… There was no peak of CO2 around 1942. Not in ice cores (8 years resolution), not in stomata data, not in coralline sponges or any other proxy.
The problem with many of the historical data is less the method (most were accurate to +/- 10 ppmv) but the places where was measured: near huge CO2 sinks and sources like forests (600 ppmv at night, 250 ppmv on a sunny day) and midst of towns. Completely unsuitable to know what the “background” CO2 levels of that time were. It is the equivalent of taking temperature readings near A/C exhausts, barbecues or on an asphalted parking lot. See further:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/beck_data.html
Bob Mount says:
May 13, 2013 at 11:42 am
Is the ~400 ppm figure simply that which has been measured at Mauna Loa? If so, what is the actual proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere? Does anybody know?
Mauna Loa is only one of the stations (be it with the longest continuous record), but all stations from near the North Pole (Alert, Canada) to the South Pole show similar levels, be it with some lag with altitude and between SH and NH. The official “global” CO2 level is taken from a mix of stations at sealevel and is lower than Mauna Loa:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/about/global_means.html
another reason to wait several years to celebrate the 400 ppmv…
Special note on May 9, 2013 reading
May 10, 2013
May 10 Comment:
NOAA has reported 400.03 for May 9, 2013, while Scripps has reported 399.73. The difference partly reflects different reporting periods. NOAA uses UTC, whereas Scripps uses local time in Hawaii to define the 24-hr reporting period. If Scripps were to use same reporting period as NOAA, we would report 400.08 for May 9.
“partly reflects different reporting periods”?
“If Scripps were to use same reporting period as NOAA, we would report 400.08 for May 9”
It’s worse than we thought.
Here is an interesting little fact from ASU from there database on European temps from 1956 to present. The highest temperature in that period of time took place in 10/07/1977, which is the beginning year of the return to a warming pattern.
So how is it that this terrible record breaking warming pattern has not generated a new European high temp since 1977??????? Is this a possible clue to the real climate change?
Rhoda R says:
May 13, 2013 at 12:14 pm
MWhite: Thank you for that link. The historical CO2 info they found was — enlightening, to say the least. We’ve been assuming and need to question the assumptions about CO2 measurement. Keeler et al may be right – but this study is enough to open the issue. Was it ever published?
Yes.
http://www.biomind.de/nogreenhouse/daten/EE%2018-2_Beck.pdf
I did a quick plot of CO2 (Mauna Loa) against the Pacific SST (SE of Hawaii)
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SST-CO2.htm
It appears that two are linked, with CO2 trailing by about 3 months.
(phytoplankton thriving in cooler seas, taking more CO2 ?)