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> Perched on a barren volcano in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the Mauna Loa observatory is a benchmark sampling location for CO2. It’s ideally situated for
by jxramos 5y ago
> Perched on a barren volcano in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the Mauna Loa observatory is a benchmark sampling location for CO2. It’s ideally situated for sampling well-mixed air- undisturbed by the influence of local pollution sources or vegetation, producing measurements that represent the average state of the atmosphere in the northern hemisphere.
Time series plot (just need to click the Submit button to the left)
https://gml.noaa.gov/dv/iadv/graph.php?code=MLO&program=ccgg&type=ts https://gml.noaa.gov/dv/iadv/graph.php?code=MLO&program=ccgg...
- brink 5y agoIt's in Hawaii.. The way it was worded, it initially sounded like it was thousands of miles from everywhere.
- koheripbal 5y agoCO2 is very evenly distributed. I have a monitor in my house and I also get around 420ppm.
- jxramos 5y agoDo those things reflect when the indoor air quality gets too stuffy by any chance? In those instances can you see the ppm rise some amount?
- idiotsecant 5y agoI'm pretty sure 'stuffiness' isn't measured on any meter.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jxramos 5y agoright, but in conditions that are stuffy as detected by the user does the meter reflect increased C02. Seems like it does according to some other threads where people report feeling `xyz` when numbers reach `abc`.
- kossTKR 5y agoYou can create a sensor for everything perceived by humans though.
- sbierwagen 5y agoThe closest part of any other US state to Hawaii is an Alaskan island: https://www.quora.com/How-far-is-Hawaii-from-the-nearest-land-mass https://www.quora.com/How-far-is-Hawaii-from-the-nearest-lan... >Located near the town of False Pass, the tip of an unnamed peninsula overlooking Ikatan Bay is exactly 2,259.28 miles (3,636.44 kilometers) from a part of Tunnels Beach on the island of Kauai. So yes, thousands of miles.
- Sebb767 5y ago> So yes, thousands of miles. Or a few miles to a quite lively island. I think the OPs point was that the observatory isn't actually far away from civilization, but instead rather close to it.
- jxramos 5y agoyah, I took it as some remote distant island on the fringe of Hawaii, when I looked at where it was on the map I realized it was near civilization.
- kbelder 5y agoI take it as a sign that Mauna Loa is about to erupt.
- knodi123 5y agowhy is it a sawtooth shape? i.e. why is carbon PPM on a yearly cycle? (I'm not referring to the overall trend)
- mturmon 5y agoAnnual periodicity of CO2 is due to seasonal drawdown of C by greening-up plants in the Northern Hemisphere.
- tamaharbor 5y agoWhat do the plants in the Southern Hemisphere do?
- singularity2001 5y agothere is much less land mass in the southern hemisphere
- mturmon 5y agoYes, and the plants in the tropics (North and South) don't show strong seasonality. Here's a plot of a few CO2 swings versus latitude (https://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/graphics_gallery/other_stations/global_stations_co2_concentration_trends.html https://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/graphics_gallery/other_stations/...) -- the northern one, at Point Barrow, Alaska, hovers around the same value as Mauna Loa, but swings harder due to stronger influence from Northern hemisphere vegetation.
- benhurmarcel 5y agoThat is much faster than I imagined. About +25ppm per decade. We'll easily reach 500ppm in 30 years.
- sireat 5y agoThis time series plot is the most depressing thing I've seen this year. You almost want to believe it fake, but you see how many data points are there and for how long the measurements have been taken. The trend is so strong - I wonder what would Michael Crichton (ugh) say about it.