16 ms·
Global CO2 Levels
- ibejoeb 3y agoIt's a good time to plant some trees
- helloplanets 3y agoWhat is the zigzag pattern that starts on May 1958, and why does it start on that date?
- Xophmeister 3y agoI suspect it's the earliest date from when they have more granular data. The zigzag was still there pre-1958, but it was never recorded, so the smooth line is the best you're going to get.
- winrid 3y agoMore granular data capture + variance in seasons (?)
- boringg 3y agoSeasonality nature of CO2 with greater ability to measure
- cromulent 3y ago> The modern record of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels began with observations recorded at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. > The seasonal cycle of highs and lows (small peaks and valleys) is driven by Northern Hemisphere summer vegetation growth, which reduces atmospheric carbon dioxide, and winter decay, which increases it. https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/...
- citrin_ru 3y agoLikely reflects the seasonal cycle (vegetation cycle) and before 1958 likely was no frequent measurements to see it.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- rahen 3y agoLikely continuous measurements rather than ice cores. We can clearly see the difference between winter and summer (what you call the zigzag pattern), when a small portion is absorbed by the biomass.
- rsecora 3y agoit starts 1958 because it changes the source [1]. Before 1958 law dome & ice cores. After 1958 air measurements at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii. [1] https://www.co2levels.org/#sources https://www.co2levels.org/#sources
- Eumenes 3y agoThat's fear
- Matumio 3y agoBasically the northern hemisphere has more land/forest. When it's summer there, trees turn CO2 into wood much faster. Until mushroom season. (It's more complex of course, and not just the trees.)
- jbaczuk 3y agooh good, it's finally starting to level off
- foobarbecue 3y agoA plot of an absolute quantity like this should really have a zigzag line at the bottom of the y-axis indicating that it does not start at zero. Or else, it should start at zero and / or be logarithmic.
- Haemm0r 3y agoOpened the site, realized the vertical axis configuration, closed the site again. Offsetting zero is an annoying practice.
- foobarbecue 3y agoTo be fair, it's a dynamic zoom / pan plot so a little less eggregious, but still bad.
- laserbeam 3y agoI don't think 0 makes sense here. Nor does "50% lower in preindustrial times" makes sense either. The correlation between temperature and co2 exists, but the absolute values involved are not intuitive. "The co2 level is N standard deviations out of the ordinary compared to preindustrial times" feels more useful here, but reading that requires basic statistics (which general audiences probably lacks).
- MrRolleyes 3y ago[dead]
- timsco 3y agoWhile I see what you're saying, the issue is that when you eyeball the graph, you think, "wow, it's 4x what it used to be".
- laserbeam 3y agoHere's the thing... It might actually be 4x standard deviations higher, if not more. "Almost 2x absolute value" conveys less information here as the absolute minimum co2 value in the entire known history if the earth is non zero. And it is non zero. If I recall correctly it's closer to 80% of the value of recent preindustrial values (one should check this). Would be cool to see that value on the graph, also a median/average/max preindustrial value.
- asadm 3y agoWhy is it high in summer? AC?
- foobarbecue 3y agoDon't forget that while it's summer in your hemisphere, it's winter in the other one. I believe this has to do with the fact that there's land in the northern hemisphere and hence more biomass. I'm not sure if it has more to do with photosynthesis or cellular respiration. My guess is that the strongly seasonal effect is more photosynthesis in the summer, with the differential effect being stronger for the N hemisphere. I'm guessing respiration is less seasonal, and anthropogenic input is not very seasonal. I took classes about this a decade ago and I remember asking this question at the time, but don't remember the exact answer.
- jedberg 3y agoBiomas growth in spring acts as a carbon sink, then as it dies in fall it releases the carbon back into the air.
- chris_va 3y agoThe sensor they plot is in Hawaii, here's 2006 from NASA: https://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/142/video-super-hd-view-of-global-carbon-dioxide/ https://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/142/video-super-h... (I assume it has to do with prevailing wind and weather in Hawaii more than AC)
- foobarbecue 3y agoCO2 mixes globally relatively quickly. CO2 concentration is not very regional. You could take that measurement anywhere on earth and be within 20 ppm.
- chris_va 3y agoAgreed, the variation in the chart is pretty small. Though, if you near a large CO2 source (e.g. a city) it can be 100ppm+ higher (just staring at some CO2 meters right now).
- robertlagrant 3y agoThe "last 800000 years" view is interesting.
- boringg 3y agoIt is interesting - whats the validity of the historic data? Theres clearly some consistent patterns if that data is to be trusted.
- jbaczuk 3y agoYeah, esp. temperature and the global sea levels
- renewiltord 3y agoThis was something I was concerned about, but then an environmentalist friend told me that a few companies are responsible for the majority of emissions. This means that my behavioural patterns are not likely to matter. The number one way to change a few companies is to acquire money and power so one can apply force there. So I don't care that much about air flight and stuff like that which I would kind of try to manage earlier. Previously used to use public transit plus bicycle primarily and then use Terrapass to clear net. I still use ebikes because more convenient in SF, but there's no way I could Terrapass each flight reasonably now. Too many of them. This is actually pretty fortunate that the best way to deal with the problem is personal enrichment. One of the few things in life where all incentives align.
- rayiner 3y agoYour friend is using a stupid environmentalist trick where they talk about “tracing back” CO2 emissions to the corporate entities that produced the hydrocarbon product: https://www.activesustainability.com/climate-change/100-companies-responsible-71-ghg-emissions/ https://www.activesustainability.com/climate-change/100-comp... Yeah you could apply pressure on those companies. But that would cause gas prices to skyrocket. And nothing else would provoke Americans into actually getting out guillotines than $15/gallon gas.
- gs17 3y ago>This was something I was concerned about, but then an environmentalist friend told me that a few companies are responsible for the majority of emissions It's sad that I genuinely can't tell if this is sarcasm or not because I've had people sincerely say that. BP really won their gamble on feigning interest in carbon footprints.
- IshKebab 3y agoEh you've just found a way to not feel guilty about your personal pollution. I don't know what your friend says but I imagine it was along the lines of "it's not your fault! 80% of carbon emissions are due to these 5 oil producers!", conveniently ignoring the fact that it's ordinary people buying the oil... Still, you can't fix this by hoping people and companies will care. We probably have to force them with laws. So voting is about all you can really do on a global scale.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- yrral 3y agoHas anyone looked into the theory that SO2 is an "anti-greenhouse" gas and that much of the greenhouse effects of CO2 have been negated by SO2. Essentially SO2 particles stay in the air for a long time and reflects a large spectrum of light so it fails to be absorbed by land or sea/converted to infrared (infrared is primarily what the CO2 reflects). Recently (since 2010ish but moreso since 2020 in shipping) there has been a global effort to reduce SO2 emissions (eg by installing scrubbers) which has caused the CO2 increase over the last 150 years to actually "take effect" since the SO2 is no longer negating the effects. I stumbled upon this theory recently and it sounds compelling but am curious if better informed people could shine a light about this. https://twitter.com/hankgreen/status/1687535525169930241 https://twitter.com/hankgreen/status/1687535525169930241 https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1688145475289931776 https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1688145475289931776 https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/07/sea-surface-temperature-imo-low-sulphur-fuel-shipping/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/07/sea-surface-temperatu...
- RandallBrown 3y agoNeal Stephenson wrote a whole novel exploring this theory. It's called Termination Shock.
- digging 3y agoFWIW, I found this book to be an extremely disappointing introduction to Neal Stephenson and an extremely disappointing exploration of Sulfur-based geoengineering. The actual geoengineering is just a vehicle for a semi-political thriller IMO.
- tommoor 3y agoIt's not a great book, but the fact that a single billionaire could decide to change the climate with a relatively small amount of SO2 was news to me until I read this!
- RandallBrown 3y agoI felt exactly the same way. It seemed like he thought "If Elon Musk tried to stop global warming, what would happen?" and then just sorta fleshed it out an released it during his spare pandemic time.
- verisimi 3y agoThe problem is, how trustworthy is any of the provided data, when we have seen that the historical records are edited (in the climategate nonsense) https://web.archive.org/web/20160322230859/http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/ https://web.archive.org/web/20160322230859/http://blogs.tele... "Attempts to disguise the inconvenient truth of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP): ……Phil and I have recently submitted a paper using about a dozen NH records that fit this category, and many of which are available nearly 2K back–I think that trying to adopt a timeframe of 2K, rather than the usual 1K, addresses a good earlier point that Peck made w/ regard to the memo, that it would be nice to try to “contain” the putative “MWP”, even if we don’t yet have a hemispheric mean reconstruction available that far back…."
- boringg 3y agoMan that link you provided is quite an entertaining fiction read circa 2009. Good thing I followed the author's lead: "If you own any shares in alternative energy companies I should start dumping them NOW. The conspiracy behind the Anthropogenic Global Warming myth (aka AGW; aka ManBearPig) has been suddenly, brutally and quite deliciously exposed after a hacker broke into the computers at the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (aka CRU) and released 61 megabytes of confidential files onto the internet. "
- hotnfresh 3y agoFor anyone else taken aback by the nostalgia-inducing mention of "climate gate" and wondering what's up: no, there don't appear to have been any new developments, it continues to be the case that scientific misconduct was not uncovered.
- verisimi 3y agoIts very hard to find any of the emails to make up one's own mind. The wiki page is pure information management. That is one of the few places where you can see what the researchers said in their own words.
- danielodievich 3y agoMy favorite presentation of this is beloved XKCD https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/
- rsecora 3y agoFor those wondering why there is zig zag in the plot after 1958. The data source changed at that date [1]. * 1000 - 1958: Historical CO2 record from the Law Dome DE08, DE08-2, and DSS ice cores * 1958 - Today: in situ air measurements at Mauna Loa, Observatory, Hawaii. [1] https://www.co2levels.org/#sources https://www.co2levels.org/#sources
- benrutter 3y agoI came to ask exactly this! Although, any clues for why the Hawaii measurements follow that pattern?
- trescenzi 3y agoIt's due to vegetation growth during the summer in the northern hemisphere https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide#:~:text=The%20seasonal%20cycle%20of%20highs,is%20driven%20by%20human%20activities https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/....
- benrutter 3y agoOh wow! So interesting to see such a concrete impact from vegetation!
- AnotherGoodName 3y agoHawaii does month by month measurement and the seasons have vastly different CO2 levels due to plant activity. Going back further was just a rough yearly average. The zig zags are a reasonably smooth yearly wave if you zoom into them.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- roschdal 3y agoPropaganda from the people who will benefit from a world without fossil fuel energy.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- izend 3y agoThe growth rate of C02 is a very big concern but I disagree with the narrative that the Earth is going to turn into Dune-like planet by 2100, see the C02 levels 15 million years ago: https://today.tamu.edu/2021/06/14/ancient-deepsea-shells-reveal-66-million-years-of-carbon-dioxide-levels/ https://today.tamu.edu/2021/06/14/ancient-deepsea-shells-rev...
- DVassallo 3y agoHow come this says it's 420ppm currently, but when I open a window all the CO2 monitors in my house show ~390ppm?
- MrLeap 3y agoThe constituents of the atmosphere are not evenly mixed everywhere. I wager the air above my desk has a higher local PPM of Oreo cookies than yours.
- quercusa 3y agoYeah, I'd like to see the measurement locations.
- barbazoo 3y agohttps://www.co2levels.org/#sources https://www.co2levels.org/#sources > Atmospheric CO2 concentrations (ppm) derived from in situ air measurements at Mauna Loa, Observatory, Hawaii.
- qqqwerty 3y agoMost (if not all) CO2 monitors need to be calibrated. The ones that I have looked into recommend putting it outside and calibrating it to 420ppm. I am not sure how much local variance in outdoor CO2 concentrations one can expect, but my guess is maybe 1-2ppm, definitely not 30ppm. But that is just a wild guess.
- barbazoo 3y agohttps://www.co2levels.org/#sources https://www.co2levels.org/#sources > Atmospheric CO2 concentrations (ppm) derived from in situ air measurements at Mauna Loa, Observatory, Hawaii.
- quercusa 3y agoSo not really global, is it?
- kitsune_ 3y agoIt's absolutely mind blowing that we as humans were able to increase a constituent part of the atmosphere from from 0.028% to 0.04%. Written like that it looks small but, each part per million of CO2 in the atmosphere represents approximately 2.13 gigatonnes of carbon, or 7.82 gigatonnes of CO2.
- foobarbecue 3y agoYes. We are extremely powerful and need to learn to harness our power before it's too late.
- xyzelement 3y agoFunny! I read your comment in exactly the reverse way: "2.13 / 7.82 gigatonnes" sounds high. 0.28% to 0.04% sounds absolutely tiny. Maybe THAT's the right way to think about it?
- russdill 3y agoYou should see what we've done with land mammals.
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y agoI don't understand how people think Carbon Capture is a solution. Every Gigaton of carbon is roughly equivalent to covering the entirety of Texas in ~1 millimeter of carbon. Globally, we emit about ~13x that per year. That's about equivalent to covering the state of Massachusetts in a foot of carbon. Per year. The entire planet is either the ocean, in use, desert, or already covered in forests. ~33% of the earth is desert. We'd need a decent chunk of that to get ~0% fossil fuel energy. But let's pretend we don't. We'd still need to cover all of that in several feet of carbon to capture all of our emissions. It is not going to happen.
- kjkjadksj 3y agoPeople think its a solution because its one tool in a toolkit. You are right capture alone won’t solve everything, but I don’t think anyone is seriously suggesting as much, and are saying instead its an important complement to other strategies.
- beardog 3y ago"The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries." -1912 newspaper (New Zealand) https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ROTWKG19120814.2.56.5 https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ROTWKG19120814....
- ebisoka 3y agoThe Climate Change story told by ice cores... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1mjG_F8ppw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1mjG_F8ppw another great site about CO2 https://co2coalition.org/ https://co2coalition.org/
- nicolaslem 3y ago> The CO2 Coalition was established for the purpose of educating the public about the important contribution made by carbon dioxide to our lives and the economy. That's satire, right?
- gnarbarian 3y agoIsn't the effect that increased CO2 levels logarithmic rather than linear or exponential? As in the more CO2 that gets dumped into our system the more slowly temperatures will rise. https://skepticalscience.com/why-global-warming-can-accelerate.html https://skepticalscience.com/why-global-warming-can-accelera...
- lasermike026 3y agoWe need a graph for oil, coal, and natural gas consumption. The goal is to get those number to 0%. We must use nuclear, electrify, and end private ownership of cars and trucks. I am absolutely ready to make the changes required to meet these goal. I'm halfway there already.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mgbmtl 3y agoIf you want a depressing graph, check Canada's oil production: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_industry_in_Canada#/media/File:Oil_production_in_Canada.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_industry_in_Canada#/... (the US has a similar curb, although I'm not an expert, just a slightly depressed Canadian, especially since the government will soon shift further right, expect production to increase in 2 years)
- rstarast 3y agoWhat's the view on the immediate impact on elevated CO2 levels on humans? I know high indoor CO2-levels correlate with poor mental performance, but as far as I know that might just be because it also correlates with reduced O2 levels. But it seems reasonable that a 25% increase of CO2 in ambient air would do something to our health.
- T-A 3y agoHere are a couple of controlled studies: https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.1104789 https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.1104789 https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.1510037 https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.1510037 Cognitive impairment seems to get really noticeable at ~1000 ppm.
- AnotherGoodName 3y agoNo problems outdoors but my worry there is that being inside can easily more than double CO2. Even with a window cracked slightly. So we're ok if we have really good ventilation. A fan makes us safe. At <300PPM we would have had far less to worry about here. As CO2 reaches over 500PPM (this is not that far away) that doubling of CO2 levels from being indoors puts us in the cognitive impairment range. Not good.
- huevosabio 3y agoInteresting that you can see the big wars affect Co2: Napoleonic wars, WW1 and Ww2.
- sintaxi 3y agoPropaganda presented as data. * data source on x-axis changes at 1958 * y-axis does not begin at 0 Fundamentally dishonest for the purpose of manipulation.
- bobsmooth 3y agoThose damn scientists trying to trick me into believing in climate change!
- radiusvector 3y agoMeanwhile Marc Andreesen thinks technology is going to solve everything forever and for everyone
- silisili 3y agoThis kind of chart makes me wonder what the weather of places like Florida and New Orleans were back in the exploration age or before. Was it appreciably cooler? I always thought they'd be about perfect if they were just about 5 degrees(F) cooler in the summer.
- flkenosad 3y ago[flagged]
- fwungy 3y agoI'm going to summarize Physicist, Caltech President, and Obama DOE appointee Steven Koonin on climate change: 1) Climate is an extremely complicated phenomenon 2) It is extremely difficult to model beyond a limited time frame. 3) The models we have, running on the most powerful, purpose built, computers rely on massive aggregations because there are otherwise too many interactions to handle. These aggregations are too large to be reasonably interpreted. 4) There is a large industry of well paid scientists, researchers, and policymakers who have built careers on Climate Change. Alarming news keeps them in a job, so they have an incentive to bias towards worst case outcomes. " It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair 5. Efficient and clean technology is worthy of pursuing regardless of its climate impacts. We can do more for the planet creating market based solutions in those directions than trying to manage CO2 directly. Finally, I must acknowledge the Yale paper and climate scientists who have criticized his work. Rather than fire from the bushes, they should debate Koonin directly. He isn't a Fox News kook, if anything his credentials are superior to theirs. Remember, one of the oldest ruse of charlatans is promising they can change the weather. https://youtu.be/l90FpjPGLBE?si=6KfwkEH8HVb3GtXV https://youtu.be/l90FpjPGLBE?si=6KfwkEH8HVb3GtXV
- a_square_peg 3y agoIf you're going to note his credentials as a physist & Caltech president, you should also note that he was also employed by BP as the oil and gas company’s Chief Scientist from 2004 and 2009. Remember, one of the oldest ruse of climate-change deniers is to equate weather and climate.
- fwungy 3y agoSo how is that different from veing a full time job in climate change as a scientist or policy maker? Do you believe that Koonin wants a climate catastrophe? If a person could be so monumentally blindsided to ignore a threat that will not only harm themselves, but everyone they know and care about, then could not others be too, e.g. Climate scientists? Another question; Accepting Climate Change as presented by the IPCC, how do we resolve the problem of the major oil producing states like Russia and Saudi Arabia refusing to give up the oil wealth which allows them to exist as they do, and the developing world states from consuming it? Green conversions are not feasible for large segments of the world population in anu useful time frame. The net zero policies being advocated by the G7 nations are very expensive and handwave away big problems with "batteries will get cheaper, and the tech will improve" but they fail hard if thar doesn't turn out. If we are really concerned about CO2 driven climate change the best solution is next gen nuclear power and mitigation strategies. Make electricity so cheap that no one will want fossil fuels if they can avoid it. Yes, they just started talking about nuclear power, but it's late. James Hansen was talking about it 20 years ago, it's not a surprise.
- discussDev 3y agoI wish there was always an option to user zero based graphs.
- julienreszka 3y agoScales too short
- pdntspa 3y agoNot to undermine the urgency of the CO2 situation but this graph is extremely misleading.
- Podgajski 3y ago“From way up here I can see our doom.”
- reactordev 3y agoI can’t stress enough the importance of house plants. Man this is depressing. I know the left-hand scale should be factored but this isn’t stock, it shouldn’t but “up and to the right”.
- diimdeep 3y agoHow soon we will see personal, indoor CO2 removal devices ?
- jpadkins 3y agohouse plants?
- diimdeep 3y agoI meant high tech gadgets, but sure How to grow fresh air | Kamal Meattle https://youtu.be/gmn7tjSNyAA?t=11 https://youtu.be/gmn7tjSNyAA?t=11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Clean_Air_Study#List_of_plants_studied https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Clean_Air_Study#List_of_p... On a second thought, indoor DIY growbox is probably can be considered as such device.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- it 3y agoThis sharp rise of global CO2 level, combined with the small rise in global temperature of 1 degree F over the past 100 years [1], is evidence against the idea that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=how+much+has+the+global+temperature+increased+in+the+past+100+years%3F&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS1040US1040&oq=how+&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7MgYIARBFGDkyBggCEEUYOzIGCAMQRRg8MgYIBBBFGDwyBggFEEUYQTIGCAYQRRhBMgYIBxBFGDzSAQgxMzczajBqN6gCALACAA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?q=how+much+has+the+global+temp...
- it 3y agoThis got downvoted but whoever did it failed to provide a counter argument.
- mr_mitm 3y agoCO2 is known to be a greenhouse gas for hundreds of years. Without it, earth would be freezing. Also, you didn't say how much the temperature should have risen instead of the 1 degree which you believe to be wrong. You didn't make a point, so there is no argument to be made here.
- it 3y agoWhere is the data that supports your claim that CO2 is a greenhouse gas? How do you know what the Earth would be like without it?
- mr_mitm 3y agoIt's basic quantum mechanics and thermodynamics. All molecules with three atoms are greenhouse gases. The information is readily available, I'm not going to repeat it here. Pick up some textbooks.
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoWait, what? Why does three atoms make it a greenhouse gas? Not saying you're wrong, but from the quantum I know (senior level undergrad), that's not "basic". Could you explain the "three atom" bit at an undergrad level?
- SillyUsername 3y agoMore CO2 also correlates with population which is beginning to level off (if world war doesn't cause it to drop). Compare the OP's chart to the climate-population one here: https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/population-climate-change-1.5331133 https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/population-climate-change-1.... Population decrease won't stop global warming but global warming will lower population quicker, which will likely then be reciprocal. Sadly it'll likely be the poorest that bear the brunt of it (high price food, expensive land to live on, poor living conditions due to heat), but hopefully we'll innovate more extreme weather resistant crops, ways to remove CO2, plant more trees etc.
- andreygrehov 3y agoIt's always good to approach historical CO2 measurements with a degree of skepticism, especially when they cover such an extensive timeline. How confident are we in the proxies used for pre-industrial CO2 levels? I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing a decline in the future followed by a flurry of research into the causes of that.
- TheBlight 3y agoI think it makes sense to be at least somewhat skeptical of the proxy data and treat them somewhat adversarially for the purpose of science. They seem to carry a significant amount of interpretive weight right now so they should be probed with equally substantial weight, IMO.
- AnotherGoodName 3y agoA question. Without going into detail on all the different ways to measure CO2 historically and how scientists align them against each other and also to modern direct measurements what difference does it make here anyway? We have the very accurate direct measurement for a while and the most alarming part of this in this recent direct measurement era. I feel that such questions like yours miss the rather obvious point here. How do you feel about CO2 going up ~50% since we started direct measurements?
- andreygrehov 3y agoThere's a significant possibility that our assumptions about past CO2 levels might be off the mark. Considering this, it's conceivable that today's CO2 levels could actually be lower than they were at certain points in the past. What if CO2 levels fluctuate over millennia in a sinusoidal pattern, akin to seasons, and we are currently experiencing an upward trend? With that in mind, the accuracy of the existing measurements doesn't matter.
- AnotherGoodName 3y agoSo you think it's just a coincidence that CO2 has suddenly and massively increased at this point in time and this happens all the time?
- mensetmanusman 3y agoShould the Y axis start at 200?
- lgkk 3y agoApologize in advance if this is a silly question but… Is it fair to assume the earth is a closed loop self healing system? That is even if we dump a lot of bad stuff into the atmosphere, the planet will eventually “equalize” to “normal” levels. I would rather we did not of course. I’m just curious about the planetary atmospheric system.
- nathanfig 3y agoNot really. The ocean serves as a natural carbon sink to a degree- but this is acidifying the ocean. And some feedback loops accelerate rather than decelerate warming- such as ice loss decreasing albedo. Life on Earth can adapt to a new normal, certainly, and on a geological timescale normal has shifted many times. Humans will adapt too, but will likely endure catastrophic losses on the way.
- chris_va 3y agoVery simplified (ocean-centric) homeostat: The surface of the ocean is in equilibrium with the atmosphere, so increasing atmospheric ppm increase the ppm of CO2 in the mix layer (think of it as a gas sponge). The ocean buffers that co2 (carbonate/bicarbonate system), so the amount of carbon there is a lot higher than just 420ppm, and in doing so it becomes slightly more acidic. As the ocean turns over (every ~5000 years), it brings that acidity down to depth where it can react with various forms of alkalinity that are at down there (mafic rock at the bottom of the ocean, sediment, etc), partially neutralizing it. It takes about 20 cycles (very slow) to do this, so ~100k years to return to a pre-industrial level. The pre-industrial ppm is defined mostly by biology. A more complicated treatment of the carbon cycle: https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/TAR-03.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/TAR-03.pdf
- ggpsv 3y agoThe assumption you're making here is that the Earth "heals", as if a wound has been inflicted. Likewise, that there is a "normal" level. In other words, that there is a prevailing state to which the system returns to, or must return to. I invite you to question that assumption first and foremost. You must think of the Earth more as a process than a fixed thing. Thinking about this system in terms of feedback loops may be more helpful here. Drastically increasing C02 levels affects several feedback loops in the system, essentially transitioning it to a state that is different to the current one. As noted elsewhere in the comments, the Earth has gone through different eras in which the atmosphere had "high" and "low" levels of C02.
- lettergram 3y agoImo should go back 100m years and chart should start at 0. For reference on ppm of other materials that are acceptable in the workplace: https://www.osha.gov/annotated-pels/table-z-1 https://www.osha.gov/annotated-pels/table-z-1 CO2 is arguably just shows the transfer of one carbon organism to another https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-023-01274-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-023-01274-4 Would be cool to overlay the co2 levels with other things (such as tree growth, etc)
- v1l 3y agoHow do they know CO2 levels 500 years back? And what happened in 1600 for them to drop?
- draaglom 3y agohow: ice cores (I don't know the answer re: 1600s)
- delecti 3y agoI'm no expert, but it seems one prominent theory on why CO2 dropped around 1600 is that it's a result of Europeans killing so many indigenous Americans. The reduction in agriculture led to forests regrowing, giving a temporary boost to CO2 sequestration. The CO2 dip is referred to as the "Orbis Spike". This seems to be one of the better results on the subject: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2015/mar/epoch-defining-study-pinpoints-when-humans-came-dominate-planet-earth https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2015/mar/epoch-defining-study-pin...
- emvein 3y agoWhy it decreased in 1600?
- andrewla 3y agoMauna Loa is not the only source of historic CO2 levels, though it has the oldest data. You can see all the other ones that NOAA keeps track of through their data interface [1]. Most of the data sources report very similar numbers, especially in the trendlines. [1] https://gml.noaa.gov/dv/data/index.php?category=Greenhouse%2BGases¶meter_name=Carbon%2BDioxide https://gml.noaa.gov/dv/data/index.php?category=Greenhouse%2...
- ZEAES 3y agoI cant believe how many people continue to fall for this nonsense. First of all the manipulation of the graph to make it look like there is massive changes going on in the atmosphere. You have to see it in true perspective. For instance represent all the components 100 % on a wall as 100 inches ( A little over 8 feet high) 21 percent of oxygen in our atmosphere would take up 21 inches Carbon Dioxide at 421 PARTS PER MILLION is actually 0.04 percent To represent this we need a little less than one millimeter (about 1/25) of an inch That 280 ppm to 421 ppm jump that looks so frightening on their graphs is actually about 1/7 of a millimeter of a scale of the atmosphere over 8 feet tall water vapor in the atmosphere has a much greater heating and cooling effect. They have convinced millions of people that carbon dioxide is some kind of dangerous pollutant that we must control by giving them control over our activities and travel. In fact carbon dioxide is an essential component for plants (a plant food) In fact many green houses go to a lot of trouble to keep pumping up carbon dioxide levels up to 1500 ppm because it results in lush growth and is absorbed by the plants resulting in higher yields.
- mr-ron 3y agoPretty incredible that so little CO2 can affect so much change of heat on the planet. And also pretty incredible how much more CO2 there is now than before. What are you arguing about exactly? You are saying that CO2 isnt contributing to global warming?
- _8j50 3y agoThis chart doesn't look right. The it went from 280 in the 1700s to not even 500 now (not even a double) yet the chart looks like there was an astronomical spike. With dishonest exaggeration like this, who needs climate change deniers.
- andruc 3y agoI used to following a twitter account that would post the average CO2 level each day, and I distinctly remember the few weeks where I started to see a few 400s amongst the high 300s, and then, finally, never saw 300s again.
- bjourne 3y agoAnyone can explain why the curve is sawtooth-shaped? I get that it has to do with seasonal variations, but shouldn't the curve be sinusoidal in that case?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- curiousObject 3y agoIf you stretch out the timescale horizontally it is close to sinusoidal. There does seem to be a slight sawtooth effect. A smoother rise followed by a more rapid fall. But if you think about what vegetation is doing, that fits. Plants slowly gather resources and build structures for reproduction. This extra mass and activity absorbs CO2. When the plants have successfully reproduced (spread fruit and seeds) the most efficient strategy is to quickly discard the reproductive support structure and processes that are no longer required. So the CO2 intake falls rapidly. Autumn leaves falling are one of many symptoms of this, though decaying vegetation also releases CO2
- tim333 3y agoThat shows levels over the last 1000 years looking exponentially on the rise but if you look over the last 600 million years the impression is very different and much of the time higher. https://co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/CO2_07.jpg https://co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/CO2_07.j... I'm not a warming denier but framing everything to make things look bad has adverse effects too.
- sixbrx 3y agoThe vast majority of that time had neither modern humans nor anything like our civilization, so wouldn't really be relevant though. Hell at 600 million years ago there were just the first "complex" (not individually microscopic) life forms emerging. Also the ups and downs in temperatures happened over a far longer period of time than what we're experiencing now, giving life more time to adapt.
- SergeAx 3y agoThat should be named "co2levels.fyi"
- bioinformatics 3y agoFunny website. You have to be a complete moron, or a regular user here, to take it serious.
- MongoTheMad 3y agoInteresting graph. I believe too much CO2 in the atmosphere is a bad thing, but it is hard to find good, global suggested remediations to this issue. - I use public transportation with my family of 6. (We do not own a car). - My kids walk to school ~1 mile away. - I stopped buying oak, because I read somewhere oak removes a good amount of CO2 over other types of trees. - We live in an area where it is easy to find evironmentally-concerned food producers and buy from them. What else is there left for us to do?
- Kankuro 3y agoConvincing more people that your approach is necessary and that technology will not evolve quickly enough to we (western people) continue to live like we used to? (until now, I brilliantly failed around me)
- sershe 3y agoI wonder how they chose a time period both for the initial display and for the total. What's special about last 800k years? Full context: https://u4d2z7k9.rocketcdn.me/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Co2-levels-historic.jpg https://u4d2z7k9.rocketcdn.me/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Co2... from https://earth.org/data_visualization/a-brief-history-of-co2/ https://earth.org/data_visualization/a-brief-history-of-co2/