The Washington Post brings our attention today to the famous Keeling Curve, which shows the concentration of CO2 at the top of Mauna Loa. In March CO2 concentrations were 4.4 ppm higher than the year before, a new record.¹
In 2000, CO2 increased at an annual average of 1.17 ppm from the previous year. In the most recent 12 months that was up to 3.17 ppm.
¹The Post article says 4.7 ppm, but I get 4.4 ppm from the NOAA data. It's a record either way.
The CO2 PPM in the atmosphere is just another way of describing global GDP.
Higher GDP, more finite resources dug up and burned so rich people can get a little richer. More CO2.
Hey, if you're going to be dead in the next 20 years, woohoo, economic growth.
If you're going to be alive in the next 50 years, looks like the joke is on you...but at least rich people have a little more money.
Everything is fine, the kids have it great, and ecofascism is totally not right around the corner.
Now do your part to increase GDP, and go buy some petro chemical products and throw them away as soon as possible. Let's make the rich just a touch richer.
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"The CO2 PPM in the atmosphere is just another way of describing global GDP"
No, it is not. Economic growth decoupled from oil consumption half a century ago, and from CO2 emissions nearly 30 years ago, esp. in the developed world. Example: US GHG emissions are slightly lower today than they were in 1990, while our population has increased by over 30% and GDP has more than doubled.
This isn't to minimize the urgency of getting to net zero carbon as quickly as possible, just to emphasize that (a) it is achievable, and (b) the path to achieving it isn't in some sort of existential conflict with economic growth.
Let's be clear. You believe that GDP and CO2 output are "decoupled"?
You're quoting US GHG emissions.
Tell me, is there perhaps an explanation for why the US GHG emissions are less over the last 30 years that takes into account the very observable fact that GHG emissions are higher now than they've ever been, and are increasing each and every year?
Perhaps, where all of our cheap plastic throwaway garbage is produced, perhaps?
Yes, we can have infinite growth on a finite planet with finite resources and we'll just seed the atmosphere with more poison to do it. Everything is just fine.
Sigh.
You are arguing that PPM CO2 in the atmosphere is another way of describing global GDP. It isn't. Global GDP has been increasing faster than global CO2 emissions *and* total atmospheric CO2. Which is both a pretty banal and a pretty good thing, as it means--as I hope you are aware--that we can actually get to carbon net zero.
Here's a thought experiment: what if we went back to the global economy of the 1990s? CO2 emissions would come way down, but because they aren't zero, atmospheric CO2 would continue to increase and we'd have only achieved staving off the apocalypse by a few decades or so. Is that something to celebrate? Not really.
The only solution is to get to net zero. And there are two paths to that: (1) humanity goes back to being a pre-industrial civilization of a few hundred million or so people, or (2) we develop and implement the technology to use energy with a closed carbon cycle. Since net zero has to be achieved soon, option (1) is really only achievable through absolute horrors that would make Thanos look like a piker, leaving option (2). And the fact that economic growth can and does happen without growth in CO2 emissions is one of (many) indicators that option (2) can be done.
"Yes, we can have infinite growth on a finite planet with finite resources . . . . Everything is just fine."
I don't believe I ever said anything about infinities. And I'm not claiming "everything is just fine"--to the contrary, I think we need to get to global net zero as rapidly as possible. I certainly think that there's a lot of additional technological development we can and must achieve (clean energy and energy storage are two areas I'd prioritize), but I don't claim anything as asinine as infinite GDP, so please get out of here with your straw men.
To be clear, the PPM is not emissions - the change in PPM is the net gain in CO2 in the atmosphere.
Growth in emissions has actually been slowing since circa 2016 relative to the 2000-2016 trend: https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions
What appears to be happening, however, is that carbon sinks are less efficient so the same amount of emissions results in a greater gain in CO2 PPM in the atmosphere.
Just pointing this out for headline clarity, because the current headline is not true and the truth is actually even more concerning.
Yes, this is more concerning. It is not well understood just where that missing CO2 is going and thus we have no idea when it will stop being absorbed (most likely into the ocean). It is expected that natural sinks will become sources at some point, so in the future "net zero" will be too high.
All the CO2 emission data is self-reported by the countries and they have every incentive to lie about it.
All the CO2 emission data is self-reported by the countries and they have every incentive to lie about it.
Not necessarily. It's typically based on fossil fuel consumption, which is a standard economic indicator -- as nicholas pointed out, above.
There is now significant pressure to show that countries are doing something about CO2 emissions and it is very easy to lowball the emission data, especially since there is no good way to accurately check the data.
Measuring the C14 concentration in the atmospheric CO2 does provide a means to check on fossil fuel emissions since fossil fuel has no C14 isotopes anymore. Presently this is done at only a few places and just confirms that the increased CO2 in the atmosphere indeed comes from burning fossil fuels. Monitoring C14 at many places around the world could provide a check on a country's emission data.
I think that CO2 is too well mixed in the atmosphere for that idea to be very practical. It would require really a lot of measuring stations.
I think that global growth in emmissions is pretty well constrianed.
In this case the reduced efficiency appears to be driven by warmer ocean temperatures due to El Niño. As ocean temperatures rise generally and El Niños become more extreme, more CO2 will remain in the atmosphere. Feedback loop.
Exactly. I just didn't call that one out in particular because maybe there are other effects - I'm no expert, I only know about that one in very basic terms.
More precisely, the abiotic absorption of CO2 decreases with average water temperatures. Some degassing and less absorption equal the crappy result observed.
thanks for that clarification. i knew there was a disconnect with the ppm increase and emissions data i'd seen, but didn't understand what might be accounting for it.
So, they measure CO2 above Mauna Loa a volcano that emits CO2 and this is an accurate measure of global warming?
Look, I don't believe the conservative view that volcano's emit more CO2 during a major eruption than human do but this seems like a pretty worthless measure.
Or, am I wrong?
This explains it:
https://science.nasa.gov/earth/natural-disasters/volcanoes/how-do-we-know-mauna-loa-carbon-dioxide-measurements-dont-include-volcanic-gases/
yes, you're wrong. The folks doing the measures are not so stupid. There are also numerous other similar datasets being gathered.
(some details here) which all agree.
typhoon
Thanks
I like the fact that NASA can take thousands of measurements from space w/o the "clutter" of nearby volcanic releases.
Its NOT that I think the figures are wrong from Mauna Loa. I think the space monitoring gives a much more accurate tranche of data.
"Space data" does require a lot more processing. Orbits and timing of the satellites shift, and Republicans were complaining that the data corrections were a conspiracy.
yes, as exotic as "space data" sounds, the reality is very messy. Just start with the simple fact that it is not possible to measure air samples directly from orbit. It is all about EM radiation wavelengths and many of those evil "adjustments" scientist are always doing to line their own pockets /s
Observational ocean circulation expert here.
Coby and Golack get it right: space data is tremendously valuable, if for no other reason than that it is globally uniform. But it is indirect, also highly processed, so in situ data is crucial.
But we don’t collect both kinds of data to convince republicans (wouldn’t work no matter what we do), we do it because we want to be right. Very few results in science are convincing without an independent confirmation.
If we burn all current known reserves of oil and coal, we can exceed 1,000 ppm although the actual amount in the atmosphere will depend on carbon sinks. How are we going to convince companies to leave money in the ground? That number is based on a recent paper: https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2024/ea/d3ea00107e
Given the ice core data describing the last 900K years, it is a near certainty that the natural sinks will become sources. Atmospheric concentrations will eventually exceed what can be explained by our fossil fuels.
Convincing people or companies to leave profit opportunities behind because of the harm that is done to others is certainly a hard problem to solve with gentle incentives and pleas to their conciense.......but we typically (and effectively) solve these kinds of problems with punishment and enforcement.
Lots of money to be made in stealing goods from others, dumping waste...even kidnapping is a heck of a business when there isnt a structure to outlaw profit opportunities that are harmful to others.
Convincing them to not harm others is probably the wrong approach. It really never works.
So really, we need a decades long economic depression to save the world for people to have a decent life in 2150. A massive population crash back to 5 billion too. No thanks. I’d rather live a good life to 2040, depart the scene in peace, and let humanity go extinct in 2150. I mean, really, this isn’t even a close call.
The trend lines over the entire data set is scary:
https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/mlo.html
Better get-in those astrophotography jaunts while you may…