Earth’s CO2 Level Passes Historic Milestone

[Tender Branson]

Climate Milestone: Earth’s CO2 Level Passes 400 ppm

Greenhouse gas highest since the Pliocene, when sea levels were higher and the Earth was warmer.

Robert Kunzig
National Geographic News
Published May 9, 2013

An instrument near the summit of Mauna Loa in Hawaii has recorded a long-awaited climate milestone: the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere there has exceeded 400 parts per million (ppm) for the first time in 55 years of measurement—and probably more than 3 million years of Earth history.



The last time the concentration of Earth's main greenhouse gas reached this mark, horses and camels lived in the high Arctic. Seas were at least 30 feet higher—at a level that today would inundate major cities around the world.


The planet was about 2 to 3 degrees Celsius (3.6 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer. But the Earth then was in the final stage of a prolonged greenhouse epoch, and CO2 concentrations were on their way down. This time, 400 ppm is a milepost on a far more rapid uphill climb toward an uncertain climate future.

Two independent teams of scientists measure CO2 on Mauna Loa: one from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the other from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The NOAA team posted word on its web site this morning before dawn Hawaii time: The daily average for May 9 was 400.03 ppm. The Scripps team later confirmed the milestone had been crossed.

The Scripps team is led by Ralph Keeling, son of the late Charles David Keeling, who started the Mauna Loa measurements in 1958. Since then the "Keeling curve," showing the steady climb in CO2 levels caused primarily by burning fossil fuels, has become an icon of climate change.

When the elder Keeling started at Mauna Loa, the CO2 level was at 315 ppm. When he died in June 2005, it was at 382. Why did he keep at it for 47 years, fighting off periodic efforts to cut his funding? His father, he once wrote, had passed onto him a "faith that the world could be made better by devotion to just causes." Now his son and the NOAA team have taken over a measurement that captures, more than any other single number, the extent to which we are changing the world—for better or worse.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2013/05/130510-earth-co2-milestone-400-ppm

[DemPGH, Atty. Gen.]

Sure, but nooooo, there was a "Medieval warming period," which by comparison is close to being a joke, and it's just a "trend," which, if it were, we would not nearly be seeing these kinds of results so suddenly. There is going to be a terminus to this, and it's not going to be pretty if things stay status quo. In other words, there are serious adjustments that will need to be made if we do not take proactive steps, which should have been done decades ago.

[Harry]

I'm afraid we're just going to have to deal with it.  There is no political will to actually try to solve anything.  What's sad is the countries who caused it will figure out some kind of adaptation strategy, and the countries who didn't will be the ones who can't afford to adapt.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

That's interesting.  As I've said before, I think humans have contributed to global warming, and there seems to be little doubtnof that, but it's certainly debatable how much of it is caused by humans and how much by natural weather patterns.

[Tik]

Waiting for Snowguy..

[Snowguy716]

Totally misleading tripe.  The scientists who just did a study were going on and on about how CO2 was only slightly higher at that time than today... but the planet was warmer.

Which is why they argued that climate sensitivity is higher than currently programmed into the models (even though the climate is warming at a much much slower rate than predicted by the same models).

What they forget to mention... and this is well studied... that right at this time, the isthmus of Panama closed.  This is considered to be the main event that caused the earth to begin periodic glaciations.

That's because there was no heat transfer from the Atlantic to the Pacific anymore.  The Atlantic ocean became saltier and the warm tropical currents rather than flowing into the Pacific, began flowing north all the way to Europe.

This increased winter precipitation there and allowed glaciers to begin building.

But no.. it was all CO2 and we're all doomed. 

[Snowguy716]

Interestingly, they just revised the numbers and the highest the CO2 level reached was 399.89ppm... so it might be next year before it for sure reaches 400ppm because global atmospheric CO2 dives in the northern hemisphere's summer due to all of our plant life on land.

The HadCRUT4 temperature series was quietly "adjusted" in April.  Guess which way the adjustments pushed the warming trend?

Upwards, of course.  Which years got the biggest adjustment upward?  The past 10 years.  Which years got adjusted downward?  Pre 1950.  This small adjustment might buy them some time before the global temperatures fall off the bottom of the predictions of the global climate models... but they can only adjust upward so much!

As if we could measure the globe to the hundredth of a degree anyway.. and then constant adjustments that always brings the temperature record closer in line with the models...

Then you have people like Kevin Trenberth who don't use raw data to prove global warming.. but "reanalysis"... this is very important to know when it comes to the work he does, because we have no good widespread measurements of the oceans at depth prior to about 2003.

The raw data since 2003 has shown a flat trend in ocean heat content.. but when he uses computer models to "fill in" the missing data.. you get this huge warming trend that just happens to agree with the models.

Seriously.. you should look this stuff up.