Guest essay by Ric Werme
It’s been a long wait, but OCO-2 speaks!
Let’s start with a timeline:
- Feb 2009: NASA’s $273 million Orbiting Carbon Observatory satellite crashed into the ocean near Antarctica shortly after launch today from Vandenberg Air Force Base. Bummer.
- Jul 2014: Try 2 was successful. The instruments checked out, we all look forward to results.
- Nov
21042014: NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center releases an animation of a model of CO2 flow across the Earth. Visually, it’s very attractive and feels right, but it doesn’t look at all like the OCO-2 imagery. It may be the scaling, it may be OCO-2’s poor temporal resolution, it may be partly including a carbon monoxide display. I’m sure the modelers will have lots to do for the next few years! - Dec 2014: Well, it took a while, but the first image from OCO-2 is release and it’s really not what we expected. There’s a lot of CO2 over China, and a lot that appears related to slash and burn agriculture, but Europe and the US look pretty good.
- July 2015: The New Horizons mission finally reaches Pluto. This team did things right. They posted images as soon as they had them. We could watch it get closer to Pluto, we could see Pluto up close right after the flyby, and they’re still releasing images as fast as the slow, weak downlink delivers them.
- Aug 2015: I get tired of waiting on OCO-2 and send Email to the OCO-2 PR contact asking what’s up. A month later I get a reply that includes:
Over the next couple of months, we will be releasing a number of new OCO-2 visual products to the public. Stay tuned! And thanks for your interest in the mission.
- Oct 2015: I’m not the only impatient person at WUWT, I see. However, Erik Swenson did something about and produced his own imagery. He did a great job.
- Oct 2015: The OCO-2 team releases a YouTube video showing the same sort of images that Erik released. I haven’t compared them yet, I wanted to get this up quick.
Check out first full year of OCO-2 science operations.
The video is interesting, but is missing mid-April to mid-May. I’m impressed at how quickly plants pull down CO2 in the northern spring, though I noticed that before I noticed the missing month. I’m impressed at how much CO2 is released in the tropics. I’m intrigued that there seems to be a bit of a surge in CO2 before spring triggers plant growth. Perhaps thawing ground releases CO2 produced by tree roots and rotting vegetation during the winter.
[Update – on the sampled area.]
A number of early comments refer to how much surface area doesn’t have imagery. I suggest reviewing Erik Swenson’s post and comments, a lot of that dialog applies here.
There’s also a link to NASA’s Data Product User’s Guide which goes into a lot of detail.
First, the CO2 measurements are done with a spectroscope. Light from the Earth’s surface enters a telescope, a small sample is selected from a slit. That line of light is bounced off a diffraction grating onto an imaging chip that provides 1016 pixels of the spectrum. There are three spectrometers tuned to areas of interest for O2 (I assume this is used to measure intensity), and two bands of CO2’s spectra.
Light has to go from the surface of the Earth to the satellite, and to measure the tiny differences due to changes of CO2 concentration, they want a bright source on the ground. They measure from two different paths (on different orbits). First is the “nadir” reading where the satellite looks straight down. This is not very bright, but it has the best spatial resolution. The other direction is to look at sunlight’s glint reflecting off water. This is much brighter, so it’s easier to measure the brightness of the spectral lines.
The measurements require that from the point being observed, the sun has to be at lest 5° above the horizon in nadir mode and 15° above in glint mode. Clouds, terrain, etc. can make for poor or unusable data. Still, it appears to me that NASA isn’t imaging as much data as Erik did.
Keep in mind that OCO-2 is one of the first satellites doing this sort of work. Astronomical spectral analysis generally doesn’t do the resolution that OCO-2 needs and has the opportunity to take very long exposures. So while climate scientists are looking forward to the data, the designers will be looking at things to do for the next design.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Thanks Ric!
Just a couple of questions in case I’m missing something. Why is there so much CO2 around Egypt and Africa in June? Also, I thought when we have summer in the North, they have winter in the South, so why does CO2 levels not alternate between the North and the South?
Look at the graph again.
What is the CO2 minimum and the CO2 maximum.
Do you think there is a “big” difference? How much is the difference?
I’m not sure what you are hinting at. The difference is measurable according to the color coding of the graph. Did you look at the video?
To Golden:
What is the difference?
I am not asking if the difference is measurable.
I am asking, what is the difference.
Can you give the difference and then is this difference of importance to you?
rd50 your reply and your question has nothing to do with what I asked. That graph cost $273 million to produce. It was important somebody – and if I paid that kind of money it would be important to me to understand what is going on.
Is 390 to 405 the actual instrument range?
I would say obviously it can’t be, or the designers are in for real trouble since it will have a very short shelf life given that we are currently at circa 400ppm and CO2 is increasing by circa 2ppm per year.
I see a range of about 396 to 404 ppmv, or 8 ppmv total shift.
That is about 5-6 years of ML CO2 data growth.
That is NOT my idea of a well mixed mixture. I would expect to be able to sample a well mixed mixture ANYWHERE and get a sample that is the same composition, within the limits of what is CRITICAL in regard to that variable.
Since the ML data changes by 6 ppmv in about 5 months of the year (going down), then clearly in that location, the value can adjust much more rapidly than 5-6 years.
And what is it with this ppmv business. Atoms and molecules were discovered, what; 200 years ago, or was it 300 ??
Can’t they count the molecules of each species present in the sample, and give us ppmm ?
g
CO2 outgasses from the Ocean at warm equatorial latitudes, is absorbed by colder water at high latitudes.
Presently 38 BMT raises the co2 levels by 2.5 ppm. How many BMT does it take to raise it another 12.5 ppm? 190BMT. NOAA estimates that half of the 38 BMT gets absorbed by the ocean and land ( 26% ocean, 24% land). We have been increasing output of co2 above 1 BMT/ year and yet the increase in co2 has remained steady at 2.5 ppm or less for the last 5 years. The IEA has it as 32 BMT. Who knows?
Using NOAA s numbers, over weighting the volume of air on the planet, as a level of confidence, I get a much higher number of absorption than 50%, 70% on the low side and 80% on the high side. The kicker is that if they are playing with the numbers, and 32 BMT is the correct amount, it increases the co2 from somewhere else. Additionally, why does it matter what season it is for the spike, co2 is alleged well mixed. The southern oceans should be pulling a lot more co2 than the NH. The ocean is much larger and has a greater capacity in the SH.
I suspect, they don’t know. I also suspect that co2 doesn’t stay around in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. I also suspect that they are measuring backwards, the increase in co2 is solely man made, and calculate the amount from there. I also suspect that since co2 isn’t hanging ground for very long, they can’t tell where the co2 is coming from simply by isotope ratios
To me that is sort of scary, increase in co2 production, the ppm leveled off or declined since 1998, and apparently a much larger sink. 1998 remains the highest level of co2 ppm for the year at 2.93 increase. It looks like the sink is not only eating up our increase but eating into the base amount in 1998.
I’m sure this year that the rate will be above 3 ppm. Why? I’m making an issue of it and I don’t believe they are honest. Even as the IEA has stated that production was flat this year.
Golden,
The south is mostly ocean so there is less variability. The north is mostly land so the seasonal plant difference is HUGE.
Correct, the only big land mass in the entire Southern Hemisphere is Antarctica which has zero any plants growing on it. It is nearly all ocean with a tiny bit if Australia and the skinny part of South America.
Well the biggest change in atmospheric CO2 seasonally happens at the north pole, where there aren’t any trees or plants at all. It’s more than 3 times the ML variation at 18-20 ppmm
What there is at the north pole and surrounds, is ice that can melt. At the south pole, and surrounds, the ice doesn’t melt.
I would look to the segregation coefficient for CO2 at the water / ice boundary.
g
Instead of looking at co lours, why don’t you look at numbers?
Pretend you are colour blind, look at the numbers.
You are impressed when looking at the numbers at the differences are of importance?
Tell us what differences you are impressed with.
Forget about colours.
@ur momisugly Golden, I am no expert but could seasonal changes including the annual spring flooding of the Nile valley have an impact? Lots of rotting debris and fast running water? (just a thought)
IIRC, since the Aswan High Dam was built, there’s been no spring flooding north of it.
Could it be that the forests in the south are largely tropical and sub-tropical whereas the northern hemisphere has large cold climate deciduous forests?
could the increase in levels in spring be the oceans beginning to warm after winter ?
After waiting all this time the animation is a pathetic anti climax. Eric did the better job by far.
There is no increase in CO2 in spring:
look at your cartoon , you know the little box that says “annual cycle”
My eyeball says that the jan-jan CO2 went down rather than up.
So where does the little yellow box put the Artic ice melt cycle ??
g
Your chart says otherwise. Look at the graph in the yellow box that says “Annual Cycle” and notice that the high point for CO2 is in the spring before increased plant growth begins to absorb it during the summer months.
tied! November 4, 2015 at 4:24 pm
michael 🙂
Yes, the chart is clear. This is why I posted it.
You can see exactly what is happening.
We are turning the corner.
March, April, May, keep going.
Nice cycle. always the same, give or take a few weeks.
It is a cycle of repeating magnitude – i.e., spring is not increasing independently compared to other seasons.
Louis – November 4, 2015 at 4:24 pm
You got the above “half” right. The 1st “half” of your above statement.
The measured/calculated yearly maximum atmospheric CO2 ppm most ALWAYS occurs post mid-April to pre mid-May of each and every calendar year and has done so for the past 56 years. Note month 5 ppm data herein, to wit:
NOAA ESRL DATA: ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/products/trends/co2/co2_mm_mlo.txt
But the 2nd “half” of your above statement is a biological impossibility.
The increase in plant growth (CO2 ingassing/greening) in the NH begins in early February in the southern latitudes (Texas – Zone 9) and progressively moves northward to the northern latitudes (Canada – Zone 2) by the 1st of June. But the microbial decomposition of dead biomass (CO2 outgasssing) begins prior to the aforesaid CO2 ingassing by “green” plants ….. and it continues both night and day, cloudy, rainy or Sunny, throughout the summer months.
http://www.plant-power.com/images/zone_map2.jpg
Now given the above biological facts associated with the “ingassing/outgassing” of CO2 ….. I do not think it is possible for anyone to associate or correlate them with the “steady n’ consistent” bi-yearly cycling of atmospheric CO2 as defined by the Keeling Curve graph or the above cited NOAA’s data record.
And a 2nd biological fact is ….. the initial “greening” of the live biomass is accomplished via the previous year’s CO2 absorption, …… the “stored sugars” in the roots and seeds, ….. thus said “green” biomass is incapable of absorbing atmospheric CO2 until its new foliage (leaves) is mature enough to do so. Therefore there is a one (1) to three (3) week “window” between the aforestated springtime microbial “outgassing” of CO2 and the live biomass (green plants) “ingassing” of CO2. And ps, … that microbial “outgassing” of CO2 continues after the green plant “ingassing” of CO2 has terminated.
Source references: Bacteriology 101 …… Botany 101
Appreciate if you could present similar curves from different latitude and longitude belts. Or is it considered as global average pattern.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
That graph is for Mauna Loa, it’s not for a global average.
There is this graph:
http://members.westnet.com.au/jonas1/CO2AtVariousStations.jpg
As Ferdinand has showed many times Antarctica and Barrow agree remarkably with Mauna Loa.
“””””…..
gymnosperm
November 4, 2015 at 10:04 pm
As Ferdinand has showed many times Antarctica and Barrow agree remarkably with Mauna Loa. …..”””””
No they don’t; they are over three times what you see at Mauna Loa, something more like 18-20 ppmm.
g
I note the scale of different colours is not linear, (2,3,2,3,2,5 ppm for equivalent appearing changes in colour), and also the change from green to red represents a change of only 4 ppm from 398(ish) to 402. I have doubts that their satellite based instrument is genuinely accurate to that level with any reliability, and in any event that is such a miniscule change in magnitude of an already small number…
The CO2 levels do not seem to coincide terribly much with human activity. Perhaps the delay is to allow manipulation of the data to fit the political narrative-how Lysenkoid. What would be more useful is to link CO2 levels from a particular area with plant growth rates to see if the 5ppm spread makes much difference to plant nutrition.
Yes, a 5 ppm spread. Even a 10 or 20 ppm spread.
No, too many other variables enter into plant growth for so little CO2 differences to be an important variable.
Simply, CO2 emitted in one part of the world is mixed rather quickly and distributed so we end with very little variation when we have the concentrations measured in different parts of the world, but still we can see variations at the ground levels in different parts of the world according to activities: forest fires, ground level crop residues burning, etc.
The map just for the northern hemisphere shows at least 8 ppmm spread, which takes about 5-6 years to accumulate at ML.
So it isn’t even approximately well mixed.
And just wait till they show the other half of the planet.
Remember that CFCs which are supposed to cause the ozone hole in Antarctica, are from emissions in the northern hemisphere, and they make it to the South Pole.
But for some reason CO2 can’t cross the equator ??
i think the view of the other half may be a while coming george 🙂
High – yes an amazing high amount of CO2 over the Sahara and Middle East. Other than a few oil wells and gas flares /sarc/ there must be a remarkable quantity of anthroprogenic sources there/sarc/!
It’s more about the lack of CO2 sinks than the quantity of CO2 sources. Plants suck up an enormous amount of CO2 from the air around them, especially rapidly growing plants like corn and bamboo. All of the carbon needed to manufacture cellulose and other fibrous mass is obtained from CO2.
Concentrations of 200 ppm CO2 are observed in a corn field at peak of growing.
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/09/plants-suck-half-the-co2-out-of-the-air-around-them-before-lunchtime-each-day/
Farmers say corn at peak grows so fast they can actually hear it growing. Perhaps the corn is trying to communicate with us, saying “More CO2 please!”.
Johanus – well put. The Government of Canada advises farmers on Carbon Dioxide In Greenhouses:
The ‘pull down’ of CO2 by plants in the northern spring must mean a huge concurrent energy storage as the endothermic plant chemistry stores very large amounts of energy in the chemical donds.
Not to mention all the transpiration that must take place as part of that, shunting LHV to the upper atmosphere.
And I gather the geniuses don’t even ‘model’ that. LOL.
… and what about the actual levels of CO2 right above vegetation, close to the surface in pre-industrial times at 280 ppm globally versus 402 ppm now? Are they the same or similar as the vegetation grows faster? Has the mean free path of a radiated photon changed much? Is that modeled?
It’s a little under 400 ppm now. http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/weekly.html
philincalifornia,
Here the monthly averaged trend at near ground level in Linden/Giessen (Mid-West Germany), compared to Mauna Loa:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/giessen_mlo_monthly.jpg
Although very variable, the trend is more or less following CO2 in the bulk of the atmosphere, with a bias of about +40 ppmv. A similar difference can be expected in ancient times.
CO2 levels between ground level until ~200 m height gradually go towards “background” CO2 levels. All depends of the mixing speed by wind and turbulence…
Why so much C02 over Arabian Peninsula? That’s almost all desert. Winds?
To Arbeegee:
“Why so much CO2…..”
How much more CO2 is there? Do you think this is of any importance?
I’m just going by the scale that shows the C02 measurement extreme to be red, the colour over Arabian P. It’s not important if you believe C02 is good for the Earth. Other than that, assuming there is some significance to the entire exercise of sending up a satellite to monitor C02, why is the concentration relatively so great over sand and rock? Oil power generators?
Could I be answering my own question? There simply isn’t the vegetation there to scrub the C02?
Perhaps, rd50, you mean to tell me that the difference between 390 and 402 parts per million is not really significant. But I doubt the differences are the result of random measurement variations.
Sorry if I was a bit abrupt.
Indeed you looked at the colors.
This is what they want you to look at.
The colors help, but when the difference between the low and high is so small, the red to blue is there to fool you.
rd50,
You are a one note song. 12 parts per million is HUGE when the entire swing (attributed 100% to man by zealots) is 122ppm. 10 percent has never been small potatoes. You need to THINK about the numbers and not just blow them off.
OweninGA,
The measured difference is at maximum +/- 8 ppmv (+/- 2% of full scale) over the seasons with an additional difference caused by the lag of the SH after the NH trend. That is peanuts compared to the +/- 20% exchange between atmosphere and oceans/vegetation over the same seasons.
That has not the slightest influence on the warming (as far as there is warming), as that needs years to show any influence, so any seasonal variation has negligible influence on longer term. The trend has, but that depends of the real sensitivity of temperature for CO2 increases…
Flaring off natural gas from the oil wells is a possibility I don’t know how much there is, probably a lot.
And it’s CO2, not C02. Pet peeve, sorry.
Even better: CO₂
I can’t get the subscript ₂ by direct entry from my laptop’s keyboard. I have to resort to a tedious, painstaking, roundabout, slightly devious way of producing the ₂, which I can do, thanks to you.
Steve,
Just use “CO2”. That’s what most of us use, and everyone understands what you mean.
Oh, I see your confusion, I am referring to CarboNZero the greenhouse gas program. x2. Okay, CO2 it is. Sloppy me. Taken plenty of chemistry, too. If I was in a feistier mood, I’d reference a font where the O looks exactly like a zero.
That should put a considerable plume downwind of Nigeria then.
According to some reputable sources they flare more gas in 28 days than the UK uses for ALL purposes in one year…….
To OweningGA:
If you think so, look over the past 20 years.
See how many ppm CO2 increased (list it here, give us a number) and see how many degrees temperature increased (list it here, give us a number). Don’t be afraid of numbers, as you stated, don’t blow them off.
The prevailing winds are offshore. Thar’s a microbiome in that thar sand, and it ain’t photosynthesizing…
“Why so much C02 over Arabian Peninsula? That’s almost all desert. Winds?”
Because there are very few plants to absorb CO2 in the desert.
The major global C/CO2 reservoirs (not CO2 per se, C is a precursor proxy for CO2), i.e. oceans, atmosphere, vegetation & soil, contain over 42,000 Pg (Gt) of C/CO2. Over 90% of this C/CO2 reserve is in the oceans. Between these reservoirs ebb and flow hundreds of Pg C/CO2 per year, the great fluxes. For instance, vegetation absorbs C/CO2 for photosynthesis producing plants and O2. When the plants die and decay they release C/CO2. A divinely maintained balance of perfection for thousands of years, now unbalanced by mankind’s evil use of fossil fuels.
So just how much net C/CO2 does mankind’s evil fossil fuel consumption add to this perfectly balanced 42,000 Gt cauldron of churning, boiling, fluxing C/CO2? 3 Gt C/CO2. That’s correct, 3. Not 3,000, not 300, 3! How are we supposed to take this seriously?
“That’s correct, 3.”
No, it’s not.
Then what is it? If you are going to say it isn’t correct, please tell us what correct is.
” If you are going to say it isn’t correct, please tell us what correct is.”
A link or reference in the original would have been the right thing. Even some clarity about units.
From CDIAC, 35 Gtons (Pgm) of CO2 (9.5 Gt C) were emitted in 2011.
In round numbers, it’s 10
Nicholas,
Within a year:
~90 GtC going in and out the oceans.
~60 GtC going in and out the biosphere (all bio-life: plants, insects, animals in oceans and on land).
~9 GtC added by humans.
Mass balance:
~9 GtC added by humans
~1 GtC stored in the biosphere
~0.5 GtC stored in the ocean surface layer
~3 GtC stored in the deep oceans
~4.5 GtC remaining in the atmosphere or ~2.15 ppmv/year.
The latter is called the “airborne fraction” which is around 50% of human emissions. That is calculated as mass, not the original molecules released by burning fossil fuels. Thus while the carbon cycle is huge, it is more sink than source.
Thus while only some 6% of the natural carbon cycle, humans are responsible for 90% of the increase in the atmosphere. 10% is from warming oceans.
If the human emissions will be visible in the OCO-2 data is another question: human emissions at 2.15 ppmv/year, means 0.06 ppmv/day. It will be a hell of a job to detect that in the much larger natural carbon cycle, even if the emissions are concentrated in smaller parts of the globe…
” Thus while the carbon cycle is huge, it is more sink than source.”
Again, does not follow from the numbers, as part of the outflux is a response to human forcing. This is the fallacy of the pseudo-mass balance argument, which does not account for the dynamic response of the sinks.
I prefer to say that “vegetation assimilates C/CO2” It is more accurate
I am glad you did not use the word sequester, mind you.
Oh. and O2 comes from photolysis of water. It does not come directly from CO2. That is just me being picky.
One has to wonder about timing and COP21 and the interpretation of the OCO-2 results….
There is – I think – some cause to be wary about this……
Why are so much of the maps blacked out. We have already seen maps where little has been left out.
There is obviously more going on here than the animation shows. It doesn’t sit right with me.
Bill Illis I agree. Do note the southern hemisphere cut off seems to be the Tropic of Capricorn, That is odd,
michael
As the South West of Western Australia seems to be at 0ppm, I intend to tell the ivy and the weeds overtaking my little garden that they should be dead – hmm odd – I probably should stop breathing too. Maybe Jo Nova needs to know so she can also lie down and die 😉
If you review some of the still frames they released back in Nov and compare them to the model run you’ll see that are basically reversed. Their is a huge band of CO2 just where the “missing data” line is in the south. Its highly likely they haven’t figured out how to spin that data yet and because its the complete opposite of what was predicted by models they don’t want people pointing out the fact they are @ss backwards.
Wow! I knew the government was slow, but I didn’t think would take 90 years!
(P.S. This is a typo in the original article.)
I’ll go fix it. I wanted to get it done before dinner, I’m surprised I haven’t seen more mistakes, thx.
Would one expect to see metro hotspots give good enough resolution?
“I’m intrigued that there seems to be a bit of a surge in CO2 before spring triggers plant growth”
My guess would be that rotting starts accelerating as soon as temperatures start rising. Plant growth however takes several weeks to months to get going and is slow at first.
True. Different plants require different soil and air temperatures before they begin vigorous growth. There is not a full consort of photosynthesis during a few weeks of spring. Plus you have the thawed livestock and wildlife feces and (wildlife) carcases which begin to rot well in the rising solar inclination.
Oops, should have mentioned insect activity. Termites are early spring swarmers.
The more I watch Murry Salby, the more he makes sense. Little human influence discernable, effect on temperature zero, but yes, a reverse correlation IIRC. He must be on the right track, they have been so vicious against him.
It’s not because a lot of people from the “warmist” side dismiss his findings that this means that he is right… He made several mistakes which render his opinion quite wrong…
Einstein made a huge mistake, warmist hatred of Salby is not because of his mistakes but because he might be correct.
so plants are pulling down more CO2 than we are emitting..
…for some reason those satellites are not orbiting over the poles
gee, I just don’t know what to make of this
(snark)
OCO-2 is in a polar orbit. However, I believe it only records data directly beneath it and maybe with the sun high in the sky. Erik Swenson’s post has a nice image showing the track and narrow field of view:
Anyone who comes up with a good link to information about the sun angle requirements wins a hat tip in an update to the main post!
Too late – there’s a good reference in Erik Swanson’s post. I’ll update the post soon.
Ric, i’m trying to find out the altitude range of the data also. Do you know?
thanks Ric…I know you caught the joke
Dawtgtomis, https://directory.eoportal.org/web/eoportal/satellite-missions/o/oco-2 says:
Altitude of 705 km, flying in polar, sun-synchronous formation with the EOS A-train
The A-train is a series of satellites “chasing” each other. IIRC, it’s done to make it easier to schedule data downloads. If they were at different heights, the times of the passes would vary and at time two satellites would be above the horizon but the receiver could only point at one.
Gracias para El Linko!
Maybe snarky, but a good point. current OCO data harvest is definitely not global.
Greenland is masked out. Why?
Why?
Something fishy going on?
How much deadly carbon pollution comes off of a frozen wasteland anyway?
Is it too much for the public to view?
What’s it all about Alfie?
For a few hundred million $ you woulda thunk there would be a little analysis.
Given the time frame of data acquired, I would think an analysis would be premature.
OK, no analysis but maybe a couple of observations?
I’d like it to disprove the CO2 greenhouse as much as anybody, but that time slice is razor thin.
Mark Silbert from Toowoomba?
No, Mark Silbert from Brooklyn.
Two quick thoughts on what is missing in the data
April to May is a critical period where the NH sink kinetics overtake the source kinetics. Why it is not in this data release is troubling. They must have it, but maybe they are sure what it means.
The entire SH south of 35S is missing. They have to have that too. Why it is not there is troubling as well since it is generally believed and the initial data demonstrates that the Southern Ocean is a huge CO2 sink.
Filtered data for the masses?
What I see is a widespread burst of CO2 in the northern hemisphere after March,
when the ground thaws. In just weeks. it seems to pop up almost everywhere.
Of course, the northern hemisphere isn’t even visible until after March.
What were they thinking?
What were they thinking?…..that was rhetorical …..right?
I note that the colour change scale is not linear (2,3,2,3,5 ppm) and the green to red change encompasses a 4 ppm range, approx 1% of .04% of atmospheric content.
So that counts as “well mixed”?
I mean we already know that 0.3% of climatologists are either nut jobs or worse. And it’s well known that the loudest voices on the net are the minorities (the 0.3%)…Not just in science, but pretty much everywhere. Time and time again, you’ll read that the loudest voices are those who complain as opposed to those who don’t….
If the minority is always going to be the loudest, then how do we get the majority to become louder than them?
Only three per cent of climate scientists realize that 97 percent of the warming is natural.
Does anyone know the altitude in the atmosphere of the CO2 that is being detected?
It looks at the entire column. They have to weed out samples where clouds block the lower atmosphere.
I was wondering the same since there is a lot of variability in the mixing of CO2 at low altitude. At low altitude CO2 is anything but a well mixed gas, although at high altitude it is probably well enough mixed to be classed as well mixed.
If this data is a mixture of a column from low to high altitude then the mixing at higher altitude may be better than 400ppm +/-15ppm since that variation may be a facet of some partial low altitude sampling where CO2 can vary by double (about a month ago Ferdinand posted data showing low altitude variation between about 280 ppm to about 720 ppm).