The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports that Carbon Dioxide Levels in Atmosphere hit Record High in May:
Atmospheric carbon dioxide continued its rapid rise in 2019, with the average for May peaking at 414.7 parts per million (ppm) at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory.
The measurement is the highest seasonal peak recorded in 61 years of observations on top of Hawaii’s largest volcano and the seventh consecutive year of steep global increases in concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), according to data published today by NOAA and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The 2019 peak value was 3.5 ppm higher than the 411.2 ppm peak in May 2018 and marks the second-highest annual jump on record.
[...] "It’s critically important to have these accurate, long-term measurements of CO2 in order to understand how quickly fossil fuel pollution is changing our climate,” said Pieter Tans, senior scientist with NOAA’s Global Monitoring Division. “These are measurements of the real atmosphere. They do not depend on any models, but they help us verify climate model projections, which if anything, have underestimated the rapid pace of climate change being observed."
The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere increases every year, and the rate of increase is accelerating. The early years at Mauna Loa saw annual increases averaging about 0.7 ppm per year, increasing to about 1.6 ppm per year in the 1980s and 1.5 ppm per year in the 1990s. The growth rate rose to 2.2 ppm per year during the last decade. There is abundant and conclusive evidence that the acceleration is caused by increased emissions, Tans said.
The Mauna Loa data, together with measurements from sampling stations around the world, are collected by NOAA’s Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network and produce a foundational research dataset for international climate science.
The highest monthly mean CO2 value of the year occurs in May, just before plants start to remove large amounts of the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere during the northern hemisphere growing season. In the northern fall, winter and early spring, plants and soils give off CO2, which cause levels to rise through May.
Based on their global data, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have increased over 20% in the last nearly 40 years.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 05 2019, @09:47AM (46 children)
Trumptards told me it's Fake News! and now I live in my own bubble of make belief where science and consequences don't matter.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 05 2019, @10:42AM (39 children)
This is what they do to get those numbers:
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00006.1 [ametsoc.org]
You've got be a moron to think a process like that has an accuracy of 0.1 ppm. Like really, it is insulting to any one with a tiny bit of quantitative sense.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 05 2019, @11:42AM (35 children)
Even the premise that an increase in the proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere can be solely attributed to more CO2 instead of less of some other gas is wrong. Ie:
ppm = CO2/( CO2 + N2 + O2 + H20 + ... )
So relatively small decreases in other gases could also contribute to a rise in CO2. Or even increases could counteract an increase in CO2. And it isn't ppm that they should care about anyway if they are worried about radiative forcing but density (molecules per m^3 or whatever), so they aren't even measuring the right thing.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 05 2019, @12:01PM (10 children)
For reference, it takes about a .04% rise (~1/20 of a percent) in N2 to get a 0.1 ppm drop in CO2:
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 05 2019, @12:23PM (9 children)
Still same AC. I can't find a plot of Nitrogen concentration over time for some reason... but humans have been sucking nitrogen out of the atmosphere and pumping it into the soil since the early 1900s:
https://phys.org/news/2017-09-unprecedented-nitrogen-pose-earth-environment.html [phys.org]
The amount of nitrogen available to plants has been decreasing (from the linked paper by up to 40%):
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181022135722.htm [sciencedaily.com]
Anyone know where there is historical atmospheric Nitrogen level data?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 05 2019, @12:37PM (3 children)
Amazing....
Original AC ... and I was sarcastic as hell about idiocy out there... and then here you come and prove my point that idiocy is alive and well. Do you actually *think* through your arguments or just hand-wave shit away that you don't "feel" good about? Or are you just a troll trying to muddy that waters for the good ol' uneducated crowd?
Little knowledge is very dangerous. If you are sincere, you have that little knowledge and suddenly you think you are an expert.
Hint: CO2 concentrations are in parts in million. We doubled that. N2 concentrations are quite literally completely irrelevant to the discussion. Comparison would be like arguing how peeing in the ocean is responsible for sea level rise. Another example would be arguing how all our fossil fuel burning will reduce O2 levels and we will suffocate. Completely different orders of magnitude! Like a gnat farting into a hurricane - does it make a difference?
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 05 2019, @01:00PM
Work out the math (if you are capable). I shared some quick code for you. Decreasing the amount of Nitrogen in the atmosphere by a few percent results in the CO2 concentration increasing by tens of ppm. Eg, If Nitrogen is depleted from 78 to 74% that moves CO2 concentration from 413 to 489 ppm. It is simple algebra, you do not need an authority figure to tell you the answer.
This is orders of magnitude bigger than their given certainty of 0.1 ppm and no one is even checking the Nitrogen or other levels to update them.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday June 05 2019, @06:24PM
But our burning fossil fuels *is* likely to make us suffocate. Just a little bit indirectly.
FWIW, the plankton are already having trouble. And they produce most of the Oxygen in the atmosphere. There were also experiments that showed that increasing the CO2 percentage in the atmosphere under which plankton are grown results in deformed reproductive stages, so it's not just some other pollutant.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 06 2019, @08:06AM
No no, au contraire. Something *out there* is replacing our nitrogen. https://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Replace_20Nitrogen [halfbakery.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 05 2019, @12:53PM (4 children)
I found this from 1976 that gives the same 78.8084% N2 value which apparently dates back to 1951:
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19770009539.pdf [nasa.gov]
Apparently this number is just treated as a constant. Everything except CO2 concentration is being treated as a constant:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth#cite_note-total%-8
I looked into it more and see:
The Paneth 1939 paper gives the percent Nitrogen as 78.09: https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.49706528105 [doi.org]
The Glueckauf (1951) uses the current 78.8084 value: paperhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-940033-70-9_1
This difference alone could account for an increase of 3 ppm in CO2, 30x the stated uncertainty.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 05 2019, @01:13PM (1 child)
Sorry, there is a typo in my post. The 1951 to current value is 78.084% compared to the 1939 value of 78.09%. This is less than the 78.8084% I typoed.
Also, the Glueckauf (1951) paper has this to say about nitrogen:
The source of that value isn't clear to me. This is the Krogh paper, but I couldn't find it:
Krogh, A., “ Abnormal Carbon Dioxide Percentage in the Air in Greenland….” Medd. Grønland, 26: 407–435 (1904).
And of course we do not really care about Nitrogen specifically here, but the sum of all the other constituents besides CO2.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 05 2019, @01:32PM
Oxygen levels are also declining:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5138252/ [nih.gov]
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday June 05 2019, @06:27PM (1 child)
Perhaps in that study, but there are multiple studies where both Oxygen and H2O are considered as well as CO2. Nitrogen is pretty much subsumed under "air pressure".
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 05 2019, @06:58PM
Which study are you referring to?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 05 2019, @01:28PM (22 children)
FTFY. To give you an idea of this, a standard measure of the impact of CO2 is that a doubling of CO2 causes a certain amount of temperature increase (the temperature sensitivity). At current human rates of production of CO2, that would happen on the order of a century. Now, suppose we were to double the concentration of CO2 by removing arbitrary non-CO2 components of air? We would need to halve the amount of non-CO2 air in order to do that. That's why they don't worry about the effect of pulling other components of atmosphere out.
In your example, 0.04% reduction in nitrogen yields roughly a 0.1 ppm increase in CO2. Annual rates of increase are on the order of 4ppm. So that explains, one-time a bit more than a week of CO2 concentration increase at present.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 05 2019, @01:34PM (7 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 05 2019, @01:48PM
Yes, there are two ACs here. The one spouting political drivel and then the one sharing quotes with references and calculations. It shouldn't be too hard to tell them apart.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday June 05 2019, @02:06PM (5 children)
An honest attempt at sorting this out is somebody is probably confusing "total equivalent greenhouse gas" with solely CO2 data.
Methane has a zillion times the greenhouse gas effects of CO2 so someone could possibly honestly get confused where CO2 could theoretically decline (unlikely, but...) at the same time as methane emissions increase by a tiny little bit and the overall greenhouse gas equivalent would then increase at the same time as CO2 is declining / steady / very low increase.
Gotta be careful not to confuse raw measurements, with equivalent measurements, with anticipated results.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 05 2019, @02:21PM (2 children)
This has nothing to do with my point. It is a simple matter of algebra. Call it AC's inequality:
x/(x + y) < x/(x + p*y) where 0 ≤ p < 1
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 05 2019, @04:09PM (1 child)
At least you didn't call it code again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 05 2019, @04:48PM
Trump is orange.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 05 2019, @04:00PM (1 child)
Which thought leads to a policy opportunity, which is that reducing methane emissions would have quicker results.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Wednesday June 05 2019, @06:32PM
Not necessarily quicker, but a smaller change would have a bigger impact. H2O is also an important greenhouse gas, so drying out the atmosphere would also have quick results.
I think the question is "How are you proposing to reduce methane emissions?". Just today there was an article about cottonwood trees emitting methane (generated by microbes, but that's a detail). This is also true of swamps, bogs, methyl cathlates, melting permafrost, etc., etc. I'm not sure how much cows emit, but elephants emit a lot per each. Oh, and musn't forget volcanoes. And rice paddies. And...
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 05 2019, @01:43PM (9 children)
This is totally irrelevant to my point. My point is they claim the numbers are accurate to within 0.1 ppm, this is way too precise for the information they are basing their calculations on.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 05 2019, @11:45PM (8 children)
Well, how precise are the numbers then? And how much does that precision matter to the arguments being made?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 06 2019, @01:24AM
^
khallow replies to self!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 06 2019, @03:43AM (6 children)
How should I know? I just know they are doing a bad job if they came up with 0.1 ppm. If I had to guess though, I would say probably between 1-20 ppm.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 06 2019, @09:53AM (5 children)
Bad job of what? You have yet to explain what's wrong with the alleged precision of the measurement. It's worth noting that individual measurements can be that precise (for example, one could merely extract all carbon from a sample of atmosphere and measure the mass of the carbon so extracted to the 4 or 5 significant digits required, chemistry can be very precise when it comes to measuring mass) and they're consistently making hundreds of measurements per site per year, meaning a further increase in the precision due to those extra measurements.
More importantly, the precision of the measurements isn't that relevant. Even if we supposed the worse precision at 20 ppm error, it's still precise enough detect the present trend of increasing CO2.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 06 2019, @10:55AM (4 children)
Bad job of assessing the uncertainty of their measurements. Did you read there second post in this thread? They are multiplying measurements by arbitrary numbers like 6.8 and smoothing/adjusting in like 5 different ways. And when interpreting the ppm value they ignore that the denominator has been falling due to depletion on oxygen and probably nitrogen too.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 06 2019, @11:27AM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 06 2019, @12:18PM (1 child)
It matters to accuracy... It is easy to be very precise and very wrong.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 07 2019, @01:24PM
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 06 2019, @11:36AM
Not over a single year, it didn't. Someone showed that over human history the changes in oxygen and nitrogen content probably are on the order of the alleged precision of the measurements, 0.1 ppm. That argument won't go anywhere.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 05 2019, @01:46PM (3 children)
Also, see my other post. Atmospheric O2 has supposedly been decreasing by ~ 4 ppm/yr. I'll have to think more on if that means something or is a coincidence.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 05 2019, @02:23PM (2 children)
That actually makes sense. The O2 to turn C into CO2 has to come from somewhere.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday June 05 2019, @06:34PM (1 child)
It's also true because the plankton are in trouble, and they're the source of most of the Oxygen in the atmosphere.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 06 2019, @10:16AM
Plankton are always in trouble. It's part of being a small animal in a big world. You're thinking algae. Who are also always in trouble. But being in enough trouble that they can't keep up with oxygen production? We're not actually seeing that with the minute decline in oxygen production mentioned above.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 06 2019, @02:54AM
Yeah no worries mate, you all just keep fighting the fact that the planet is in serious trouble. You don't worry your pretty little heads about it all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 05 2019, @12:46PM
Great argument! You could have started waving around with systematic errors and standard deviation errors, but no.. very scientific..
Anyway, CO2 measurements are rather accurate. You've got to be a moron to even think otherwise. The non-morons already know that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 05 2019, @01:16PM
Every time a trumptard opens his mouth. Every. Fucking. Time.
(Score: 2) by Nobuddy on Thursday June 06 2019, @01:29PM
The worst part is it would take years to educate you up to the point that you could even understand how stupid your reply is.
(Score: 1, Troll) by VLM on Wednesday June 05 2019, @02:01PM (3 children)
The left is jealous that the right even hints at culturally appropriating "their" style of beliefs traditionally applied to leftist economics, genetics, sociology, psych, history, etc.
There's a bit of turn about is fair play, a little trolling about climate science for LOLs, now leftists know how the reality based community feels for decades about leftist trolling of genetics or econ.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by cmdrklarg on Wednesday June 05 2019, @03:35PM (1 child)
And this is why things don't get done, and problems are rarely fixed. It's all about cut-off-my-nose-to-spite-my-face politics and assholes always having the loudest voices.
And right-wing being "reality-based"? Bullshit; the right revels in their "belief over evidence" mantra. If you want reality look towards the independents in the center.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Wednesday June 05 2019, @06:38PM
*SOME* independents in the center. Not being left or right is not a guarantee of much of anything, except that there are a couple of "faiths" you don't subscribe to. That leaves plenty of others.
FWIW, I think actual objectivity is impossible to a human reasoner. It is known to be impossible to a bayesian reasoner that has priors. And it may be useless as well as impossible. It's quite possible that the people who seem reasonable to me just have the same set of unreasoned beliefs that I do.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 05 2019, @04:11PM
Nice to see an asshole admit they're being an asshole for no good reason. Ok, you think you have a good reason, but every normal person just sees a gaping prolapsed anus.
Not trolling or ad-homming, just telling it like it is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 05 2019, @04:03PM (1 child)
Even in that bubble, though, people's attitudes don't make sense.
If someone really thinks scientists don't know the effects of raising CO2 levels this much, why on earth would they be willing to risk the experiment?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 05 2019, @04:10PM
Because the climate is always going to change anyway no matter what humans do.
(Score: 2) by ilsa on Wednesday June 05 2019, @03:50PM
Darn it, where is Ghengis Kahn when you need him? (https://www.livescience.com/11739-wars-plagues-carbon-climate.html)
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 05 2019, @08:14PM (1 child)
Do you know that the "greenhouse effect" is proportional to a LOGARITHM of "greenhouse gas" concentration? We do.
Do you know the primary "greenhouse gas" is WATER VAPOR? We do.
Do you know its concentration is about 30000 ppm? But we do.
Scaring people with numbers does work, somewhat, with those who cannot count. But we do. Numeracy is at the heart of all tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 06 2019, @08:25AM
I know you're a troll but come on, scraping the barrel using no. 36 on the list of discredited bullshit. https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php [skepticalscience.com]
(Score: 1, Troll) by Coward, Anonymous on Wednesday June 05 2019, @08:47PM (3 children)
CO2 is a vital nutrient for plants, and "global greening" has been observed with satellites. The harm that would make CO2 a "pollutant" is theoretical and not observed directly. The harm is inferred from computer models, which have not been validated. We don't have to trust the models just because scientists like them. Clearly, scientists have a conflict of interest in evaluating the model skill, as the model outputs are the basis for much funding and media attention. This conflict is never mentioned in research papers or media stories.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 06 2019, @08:35AM (2 children)
Funnily enough that argument applies to all scientific endeavor. Which means it's all corrupt lies?
That $65k salary is soooo alluring, they drool about writing grants.
The people making real money - tobacco, pharma, oil - why they're just exercising free speech by donating millions on "lobbying".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 06 2019, @10:58AM
Yea, that's one reason progress everywhere has been slowing since after WW2. That was when the first generation living under this system was trained. Formal peer review was introduced, US government became the biggest funder of research, it became less of a past time of the rich, etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 06 2019, @12:22PM
Like go ask any medical researcher why they p-hacked and they will tell you "to survive". I don't have a problem with getting paid to do research but people in that situation cannot be trusted. I would trust the work of someone who was independently wealthy far more than someone living grant to grant.