From the RESEARCH ORGANIZATION OF INFORMATION AND SYSTEMS and “it’s just a number” department, comes this breathless press release.
Atmospheric CO2 concentration at Syowa Station in Antarctica exceeds 400 ppm
According to the 57th Japan Antarctic Research Expedition (JARE)/National Institute of Polar Research (NIPR), a daily mean atmospheric CO2 concentration value of 400.06 ppm was observed at Syowa Station, Antarctica, on May 14, 2016.
This is the first time that the CO2 concentration at Syowa Station has exceeded 400 ppm since NIPR and the Tohoku University in Japan initiated observations in 1984. In addition, the monthly mean CO2 concentration value for June 2016 reached 400.51 ppm.
CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and its atmospheric concentration is increasing owing to human activities since the Industrial Revolution. Global warming associated with the increase in atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases has become a serious problem worldwide.
“The fact that an atmospheric CO2 concentration over 400 ppm was observed at Syowa implies that anthropogenic activities are definitely affecting the Antarctic region, even though Antarctica is far from the northern hemisphere where the population is concentrated,” said Daisuke Goto, an assistant professor at NIPR. CO2 has exceeded 400 ppm at many locations on Earth; however, the Antarctic was the only region where CO2 had not yet reached 400 ppm. “It is important to continue monitoring the atmospheric CO2 concentration,” Goto emphasized.
###
Is there greater significance if it is CO 2-squared?
Does the significance of whatever level it is become greater if the threshold-passing event is re-announced in breathless fashion more than one time?
The PBS NewsHour breathlessly reported this last night during its newswrap segment ( http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/news-wrap-att-confident-time-warner-deal-approval/ ), “There’s word that greenhouse gases passed a grim milestone in 2015. The U.N.’s weather organization says carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached 400 parts per million last year for the first time on record.” Yep, she said last year, not this year. But the NewsHour had already given this breathless announcement on October 6th when NASA’s Gavin Schmidt was their honored guest ( http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/paris-accord-wont-halt-climate-change-step/ ), “JUDY WOODRUFF: So, this week, Gavin Schmidt, we saw one of the world’s most important sites for measuring carbon dioxide levels tell us levels now recently have risen above a symbolically important figure of 400 parts per million. This was a site in Hawaii.” And the NewsHour pointed out this breathtaking CO2 level in a May 2013 online blog post ( http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/the-odds-of-disaster-an-econom-1/ ) from their famous economic analyst: “Paul Solman: Are headlines trumpeting the fact that carbon dioxide levels in the earth’s atmosphere have now passed 400 parts per million for the first time in something like three million years unduly alarmist?” The ‘headlines’ there was in reference to the NY Times Justin Gillis article, “Heat-Trapping Gas Passes Milestone, Raising Fears” ( http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/11/science/earth/carbon-dioxide-level-passes-long-feared-milestone.html ).
How many times does this breathless CO2 level announcement need to be made before it runs out of breath?
My comment was in reference to representing CO2 as CO2 rather than CO2, not a quantity.
Can someone please make this shirt:
I survived Acid Rain (strikethrough)
I survived the hole in the Ozone (strikethrough)
I survived Y2K (strikethrough)
I survived 400 ppm CO2
Heck I’ll buy one. Do you have different colors?
And may I suggest a model adding “I survived the coming ice age in the 70s” to the top? Older guys like me can use longer lists. =)
I survived red M&M’s.
I survived New Coke
i survived the incredible edible egg…
I bought one of the ones a Mr A Watts was selling from his website which had the
I survived Y2K struck through and 400 PPM underneath.
Unfortunately he doesn’t seem to have them anymore.
James Bull
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
That was funny (-:
This is the one I have…
I need one that says:
CO2
Is not a
Problem
Well make one. Its not rocket science. 🙂
ps, don’t forget to print in reverse for iron on transfers.
btw, The one above was intended as a badge.
Here ya go
Sorry Anthony… I don’t know why they are displaying so big.
AndyG55: Because those badges are SUPER COOL! 🙂
Feel free to use.
I like it; CO2 is Super Cool!
Well in the oceans, CO2 is a solution
You forgot killer bees, termites, SARS, AIDS, bird flu, swine flu, GM foods, fracking and a few dozen other things. We’re doomed again!
@ur momisugly everybody those t-shirts with that many logos are becoming big enough to be bath robes and they’ll keep you warmer, so see no matter what you do they’ll say: see ” CO2 is a warming factor “.
@ur momisugly asybot: cute. 🙂
You also need: I survived the coming ice age (strikethrough)
I’ll buy one!
I believe that Cafe Press will print one up for you and if you let them they will offer it online and give you a (small) commission on all t’s sold.
I survived Y2K.
Add
I survived the Population Bomb (strikethrough)
I survived Peak Oil – Delayed
I proudly wear my Wattsupwiththat ‘I survived Y2k/400PPM’ at every opportunity but it has been under several other layers for several months in sunny, rain- and wind-swept, globally-unwarmed South Australia.
“I survived the hole in the Ozone (strikethrough)”
Shorten this one to “I survived the Ozone Hole”
Then print it!
“Global warming associated with the increase in atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases has become a serious problem worldwide.”
Where?
Scientists have too spend too much time filling out grant application forms. Detracts from their modelling.
CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and its atmospheric concentration is {conjectured to be} increasing owing to human activities …
There is not one piece of data that proves this to be true.
Given:
1. Natural sources (and sinks) of CO2 are 2 orders of magnitude greater (around 150 gigatons per year versus around 5 gigatons per year) than human CO2 emissions.
2. The ocean surrounding the Antarctic is an enormously large source of CO2 outgassing.
3. CO2 levels lag temperature by a quarter cycle.
Conclusion:
It is highly improbable that the 400 ppmv measured above was “affected” by human CO2.
**************************************
Also:
CO2 UP. WARMING STOPPED.
End of story.
Actually the southern ocean is a sink, the co2 gradient is north to south, if the southern ocean were a source then co2 would be higher in the south which it isn’t.
QED
Hans
Atmospheric transport that carries CO2 is also from the NH to the SH. It starts in May and continues through to after December. Check the thirty detailed OCO2 satellite images released in April. Then check the surface sampling stations from the low SH points all the way down to the South pole, and that will quickly dismiss any ideas that the southern oceans are sinks. Only 8 pecent of human CO2 emissions are sourced from the SH, and its spring down here also, start of land and plankton activity. Given the huge sea surface area and that the seas are very cold, I would expect that the CO2 values would go down as the atmosphere travels south to the Antarctic vortex. They dont, its a flat line = zero adsorbsion.
Regards
Janice,
As usual, here we differ in opinion… As Hans Erren already said: the Southern Ocean is a big sink for CO2.
The oceans are monitored for their CO2 pressure (pCO2) and if that is below the atmospheric CO2 pressure (pCO2 ~= ppmv), then CO2 enters the oceans or reverse. The speed of CO2 transfer is influenced by wind speed as simple diffusion of CO2 is very slow.
As you know, cold water does dissolve much more CO2, while warm water expells CO2. That is also the case here.
For the map with yearly averaged ocean-atmosphere and reverse fluxes, see:
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/feel2331/mean.shtml
The oceans as a whole do absorb more CO2 than they release: some 3 GtC/year…
Ferd, not to mention the CO2 used by aquatic plant life, and in calcification for shells etc.
To keep these ocean environments prosperous, we must try to keep feeding them plenty of CO2.
Thankfully, China , India and many other countries know this. 🙂
Doesn’t seem to be warming anything, does it. No Blanket down there.
Consistent with surface temperature
http://www.nerc-bas.ac.uk/icd/gjma/amundsen-scott.ann.trend.pdf
Until Gavin gets his hands on the surface temp data. !
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_forcing , radiative forcing is given by delta F = 5.35 ln(C/C0) , so when C = 2 C0 , delta F = 5.35 ln2 = 3.7 W/m^2 which the IPCC says produces 3 K warming (when feedbacks are included). Since 1850, CO2 has increased from 280 to 400 ppmv, so the forcing should be 5.35 ln(400/280) = 1.9 W/m^2, which would correspond to 3 K (1.9/3.7) = 1.55 K , which is twice the warming of 0.8 +/- 0.1 K actually measured, way outside the error bars. The recent 18-year hiatus, even as CO2 has continued to increase year-by-year, means that an appeal to a decades- or centuries-long time constant is not valid (because in that case temperatures would continue to increase, even if CO2 stopped rising). This obviously explains why all the computer models have consistently predicted temperature rises way above those actually observed. So if temperature rises caused by doubling CO2 can be no more than 1.5 K, then we would be wasting trillions of dollars trying to limit CO2 emissions to keep the resulting temperature rises to 2 K. You are right. End of story.
I don’t see what they are concerned about.
The reason they have not seen this value before is that the value of CO2 ppm there has not gotten that high there before now, at least in recent memory.
Get used to it; we have never seen a calendar date like October 25th 2016 before either, but we will survive it.
G
(( I don’t see what they are concerned about. ))
Mainly their income, big salaries, book sales, Docudramas, movies, speaking tours.
regards
Janice, I have no problems with the alarmist “saying” that man’s CO2 is increasing atmospheric CO2
That way I can rub it in that with China, India, and many other countries will be continuing to RAPIDLY increase their fossil fuel burning for many years to come, and that there will be PLENTY of atmospheric CO2 for all the world’s plant life..
Best of all… there is NOTHING they can do about it. 🙂
I think you are doing very WELL, Andy, to flog them with their own stick of bamboo!
#(:))
CO2 is plant food and if it goes below a point the plants starts to die then we will start to die too
150ppm apparently. We are only 250ppm away from certain extinction, but 1,100ppm away from ideal plant growing conditions of 1,500ppm.
However, we have been undone. The alarmists are heading us off at the pass by producing more ‘peer-reviewed’ papers stating that higher CO2 levels will likely be bad for plant life!
You and I couldn’t make it up, but they do.
You got that right. As CO2 is more accurately called a radiative gas, it absorbs and emits IR radiation, and converts some heat energy to IR and some IR to heat constantly in daylight—it’s overall effect is a wash during the day and has no detectable effect.
It is during the night, when there is no solar energy input, that both CO2 and water vapor (another radiative gas, more powerful and abundant than CO2) actively convert heat in the atmosphere to IR radiation, much of which is lost to space. Downwelling IR is absorbed and re-emitted by the cooling surface and eventually lost to space as well. That is why the air chills down so quickly after sunset and small breezes kick up so rapidly around the shadows of clouds on sunny days with scudding clouds.
The global climate computer models do not have night-time, so this radiative gas cooling function is completely absent, and they have bastardized the action of these radiative gases, renaming them “greenhouse gases.”
The global climate computer models do not have night-time
Where did you hear that poppycock? Following link dicusses diurnal range in models – 10 years ago.
https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch8s8-3-1.html
One wonders why, with the CO2 going up, why has not the temperature?
Because it doesn’t effect temperature in a measurable way.
Plants everywhere are celebrating.
Maybe not in Antarctica 🙂
Do personnel at the South Pole keep houseplants?
Tipping-Point?
I just looked out the window, and we’re still here on SaltSpring Island.
Yes, but if you were on Guam you should worry. But only if you’re a Democrat. 😉
Tipping point,
That’s the angle when the beer starts to leave the glass.
… on its way to a beneficial effect.
And any excess quantity is nicely handled by an amazingly well-designed sink …. and, ultimately, far downstream, via evaporation, puts rain in the sky and sea weed (and other green things) in the lakes and oceans.
Thus: DRINK BEER — SAVE THE PLANET!
After all, you can only rent it.
Negative perspective.
The tipping point is when the beer enters the mouth.
Is it true that every square inch of the earth’s surface gives off CO2 as a by-product of the munching of methane by subterranean microbes. Far more than mankind can produce. Ain’t the trees and plants lucky.
Matt,
Soil bacteria only can release what the plants have collected as CO2 out of the atmosphere in that and previous years. The net effect is more uptake by photosynthesis than release by (near) every non-plant. Some 1 GtC/year as can be measured in the oxygen balance:
http://www.bowdoin.edu/~mbattle/papers_posters_and_talks/BenderGBC2005.pdf
I was actually thinking of these little fellows:- http://www.universetoday.com/851/bacteria-found-deep-underground/
Google has a few thousand other references to similar tough little chaps.
If only they has used base 7 instead of base 10 they could have gotten over this number obsession back around 1985 when it crossed from 999 to 1000.
Ooops! Meant 666 not 999 … upside down!
Yeah, Y1K was a big deal for the scribes… Moving from a 3-column year to 4-column…
Without humans it would be like yeah so 2012 climate or so.
Wow, 32 whole years of data. In study of the climate that represents a single data point. And what has temperature over the Antarctic done since satellite measurements started in 1979: 0.0 degrees change.
32 years of data; and predictions based on that data didn’t come true. But to alarmists, every day is day one in their ongoing desire to condemn CO2 as the culprit for a natural event.
What is it with these self-flagellating, hair-shirt sporting, manic depressives, that they are compelled to impose their demonic beliefs on the rest of us?
Is North America the biggest carbon sink? Since all the leaves are gone here now, is that why C02 is up? I am pretty sure Antarctica is not a carbon sink.
They should stop spooking themselves and go buy a CM-0039 1% datalogger. About $200, or a lot less from the manufacturer. Get a few sequences of the diurnal variation. Around here its about 40ppm, eg 380 – 420. Been the same for years.
The next big step is to double 350.org. And watch the weepy tears.
Well done. That 400ppm isn’t just a number, it’s a very good number, and it’s getting better all the time.
Double CO2 and water (from the weepy tears). What happy plants we will have.
Now if only the increase in CO2 could add a bit more warmth. Now that would be even better still. We can live in hope..
Too much salt in those tears.
Here in Colorado all the marijuana grow facilities pump CO2 into the enclosures until the concentration reaches 1500ppm. Coloradans used to worry about global warming and CO2 but since pot became legal….they don’t worry about anything any more.
Now that’s what I call greening of the planet.
and Peyton Manning, retired Denver Broncos quarterback and owner of many Papa John’s Pizza places, says he has sold mucho more slices since legal recreational pot in the Mile High City …
Now High figuratively and altitudinaly.
I haven’t even tried Papa John’s new ‘grass’ pizza. Should be a big seller though! Leaves a mellow aftertaste.
Hey now, Bubba Cow! Peyton was a Colts boy for far longer then he was a Bronco. And some of us still burn Jim Irsay in effigy for releasing him. >_< But at least Manning was able to win another Superbowl with the Broncos.
In today’s El Tiempo, Bogota: The planet breaks the record for CO2 in the atmosphere.
Of course they are only repeating what overseas news services repeat – Efe and AFP in this case.
As usual there is no attempt to present any counterarguments. Luckily, I suppose Colombians have more to worry about than Global Warming.
It’s a shame we didn’t evolve with 6 digits on each paw. If we had, we would count in base 12 and it would only be 294.
What? You don’t have 12 digits?
base 21 for us males.
@ur momisugly andyg55 you forgot everybody is equal , so women have 21 as well and it is fun trying to find it with our 21st. ( okay a bit off color , I admit)
20.1
Did they purposely leave out a supposedly ratio of Mann’s vs natural C02 in that 400.06 ppm.
Some of NOAA’s tall towers have been back and forth across 400 ppm for several past years.
Re: “Global warming associated with the increase in atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases has become a serious problem worldwide.”
It’s a “serious problem” for ZPG-ers who cling to the Malthusian hypothesis and masochistically hope for vindication, because all that CO2 is greening arid regions, and increasing food production all over the world:
http://www.sealevel.info/resources.html#plants2
http://www.webcitation.org/6lX1irvqj
As of today, there is no problem.
As of today, there is a net benefit.
Will this continue to be the case as CO2 increases?
Personally, I would say yes. And if by some happy coincidence increasing CO2 brings with it some increase in temperature, personally I would suggest that that would be a godsend; the planet is presently way too cold (we are in the 2nd coldest period in the last 500 million years) and life in general would benefit if the planet were to further warm by a few degrees.
Of course, there would be some winners and losers, but overall, warming would be a net benefit to the biosphere.
Gasp! Choke! I just reached a tipping point! Just look outside!
Woops. It’s exactly like it was yesterday. Except four degrees Celsius cooler.
I imagine the phenomenon of ‘a cooler day after a warmer day’ is exactly what’s predicted by the climate models.
My problem is having to constantly put up with this nonsense.
Chart from the main post.
What I find interesting is the rise in CO2 values during December through to February, the SH summer period. Note 2014 / 15 and the the 2015/16 period.
Also note the unusually long increase curve from March through to late September into October. This is from two sources, first the end of summer in the SH to mid May with some NH mixed in, and then the continuous flow of well mixed atmosphere from the NH that starts in May drawn by the increasing vortex. Then it goes flat until mid December. Depending on the NH winter and events occuring there, the rise over December to Febfruary is mostly from the NH.
The fact that CO2 concentrations are much the same all over the World, is simply proof that the variation in CO2 concentrations in almost entirely caused by natural emanations from land and oceans. If industry was responsible for the growth of CO2, concentrations would be higher in the northern hemisphere.
Manmade CO2 is swamped by natural sources.
But that does not necessarily mean that the increase in the concentration of CO2 is not a consequence of manmade emissions.
The question to be answered is suppose man did not emit any CO2 (on an industrial scale) would present CO2 levels be less?
At between 2ppm and 4ppm…..are you kidding? Man’s CO2 fingerprint is only detectable because someone wants to find it. The scientific community largely condemns Homeopathic remedies which are dispensed at ppm treatments. Why should they believe in CO2 ‘forcing’ at levels comparable?
“Manmade CO2 is swamped by natural sources.”
That is true Richard, but you’re omitting to mention is that natural sinks also swamp man-made ones. The difference in observed concentrations are overwhelmingly human in origin as per their isotope analysis.
ntesdorf
Currently there is a higher volume of CO2 in the SH than the NH by about 15ppm average. The rise in the mid to high latitudes is almost entirely from the NH, it transports down here every year. That is why the latest OCO-2 images – 30 of released in April are not well known. They are not easy to find on the NASA OCO-2 website. You have to really search for them. No comment from NASA when they were released. They completely rebuke and make a joke of the current carbon cycle theory (the first drawings for the IPCC CAGW program were from Walt Disney !!).
Study the images you can see them with commntary here. Ignore the commentary by all means – just look at the images. And rememeber, only 8% of human CO2 emissions are from the SH.
After all, isnt the centre of the whole discussion CO2 ????????????????????
http://www.blozonehole.com/blozone-hole-theory/blozone-hole-theory/carbon-cycle-using-nasa-oco-2-satellite-images
It is an interesting commentary.
Has anyone worked out how much oxygen we are losing (consuming) from our atmosphere by burning fossil fuels?
We are essentially replacing oxygen with CO2, CO and H2O (and other miscellaneous gases such as SO2).
The last time I looked, Ralph Keeling reported that Oxygen was reducing at a faster rate than can be attributed to binding in CO2 formation. The older CO2 surface station reprts had CO2 and O2 on the same chart. Some would say that the decreasing O2 levels are a greater problem long term as most of it is bound and the only freely available stuff is in the atmosphere. Note that the base level is about 20% of total atmosphereic gas. Studies have identified that O2 levels drop in heavily populated areas especially on still nites, combustion for heating, vehicle usage. So breathing problems can be a problem.
Thanks for the comments on the article. The next one is on the way, it will focus on sea ice, atmospheric transport and a few other directly inter-related events. Sometimes you need to look at the data in a different light.
There was a recent paper that claimed the greenhouse forcing over much of Antarctica was negative. It cools. I wonder why they didn’t mention this little fact.
Great news, Emerald Antarctica is returning..
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/media/images/51125000/jpg/_51125879_51125877.jpg
Dinosaurs once foraged beneath the Southern Lights in Antarctica
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12378934
Antarctica was still fairly balmy well into the Cenozoic Era. Fossil marsupials have been found there from the mid-Eocene Epoch. They probably survived at least into the Oligocene, before the ice buildup got too great.
Antarctica of course was the bridge connecting South America with Australia, so that marsupials could spread from the Americas to Oz. When the Southern Ocean formed, with South America and Australia both separated from Antarctica by deep channels, ice sheets spread across the South Polar continent, burying prospective fossil beds.