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It will be interesting to see if the "global warming" trend continues despite lower carbon dioxide levels. A note: The graphic shows the line moving FAR below

It will be interesting to see if the "global warming" trend continues despite lower carbon dioxide levels. A note: The graphic shows the line moving FAR below '92 levels, and it marks that this is "estimated." I'd go ahead and assume that the change would be much more gradual than that spike... but I've been wrong before. This is pretty nice to hear none-the-less. Some positive news on a global scale isn't so common anymore.

deleted 14y ago
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trevelyan 14y ago
As the article explicitly states, CO2 levels are still rising globally.
epistasis 14y ago
AFAIK, if we stopped increasing CO2 levels tomorrow, temperatures would continue to rise for a couple decades, as it takes a while for the climate to reach equilibrium after the change to the system.
jonknee 14y ago
There aren't lower carbon dioxide levels, we're just adding less every year than we were before. Also this is just in the US, other countries are adding more than they have before (China is building a lot of new coal fired electric plants for example).
jellicle 14y ago
Those are emissions, not levels; they are from burning coal only, not all U.S. emissions; read more carefully in the future.
Tuna-Fish 14y ago
As others have pointed out, the graphs you saw were emissions, not levels. For actual atmostpheric CO2 concentrations, look here: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/#mlo_full http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/#mlo_full . The red line is monthly averages from 1958 to today, the black line is seasonally adjusted monthly average, based on the nearest 7 years of data.
jussij 14y ago
> It will be interesting to see if the "global warming" trend continues despite lower carbon dioxide levels CO2 levels might be going down in the US but throughout the developing world they are rising dramatically. So if there is a link between CO2 and 'global warming', which I suspect there is, then global warming it is here to stay.
astrodust 14y ago
Air-quotes on global warming, huh? You think it's some kind of fairy tale, a conspiracy of researchers? The only controversy left is not that it is happening, but how bad it's going to get even if we shut down every factory on the planet right now. Even the emissions in the 1990s were well past the red-line. Don't forget that China is also way past the United States, moving to levels the US has never even touched. Even if the US pulled the plug, China and the rest of the developing world are a much huger problem.

deleted 14y ago

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trevelyan 14y ago

As the article explicitly states, CO2 levels are still rising globally.

epistasis 14y ago

AFAIK, if we stopped increasing CO2 levels tomorrow, temperatures would continue to rise for a couple decades, as it takes a while for the climate to reach equilibrium after the change to the system.

jonknee 14y ago

There aren't lower carbon dioxide levels, we're just adding less every year than we were before. Also this is just in the US, other countries are adding more than they have before (China is building a lot of new coal fired electric plants for example).

jellicle 14y ago

Those are emissions, not levels; they are from burning coal only, not all U.S. emissions; read more carefully in the future.

Tuna-Fish 14y ago

As others have pointed out, the graphs you saw were emissions, not levels. For actual atmostpheric CO2 concentrations, look here: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/#mlo_full http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/#mlo_full . The red line is monthly averages from 1958 to today, the black line is seasonally adjusted monthly average, based on the nearest 7 years of data.

jussij 14y ago

> It will be interesting to see if the "global warming" trend continues despite lower carbon dioxide levels CO2 levels might be going down in the US but throughout the developing world they are rising dramatically. So if there is a link between CO2 and 'global warming', which I suspect there is, then global warming it is here to stay.

astrodust 14y ago

Air-quotes on global warming, huh? You think it's some kind of fairy tale, a conspiracy of researchers? The only controversy left is not that it is happening, but how bad it's going to get even if we shut down every factory on the planet right now. Even the emissions in the 1990s were well past the red-line. Don't forget that China is also way past the United States, moving to levels the US has never even touched. Even if the US pulled the plug, China and the rest of the developing world are a much huger problem.