OT: CO2 level for April at record level

[Chris Hogg]

As measured on Hawaii at the Mauna Loa observatory, the CO2 level for April was 416.21 ppm, the highest value recorded for any month since records began. ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/products/trends/co2/co2_mm_mlo.txt and scroll down to the bottom. Graphed up here

And that, despite the global shut-down due to covid-19, with reduced industrial activity, reduced electricity generation, reduced road transport and almost no aircraft activity (aircraft are said to be a major contributor the atmospheric CO2).

It raises the question as to whether all the efforts on renewable energy, all the wind farms and all the solar panels, aren't a complete waste of time and money, because if the shut-down due to covid-19 can't lower the global CO2, what chance have they? None at all, I would suggest!

[Spike]

Sometimes I think that the opposite might have been better - a massive drop in CO2 followed by planetary temperatures continuing to rise....

...although everything and its opposite are caused by the Unprecedented Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change Global Heating Emergency Alarm system, so it isn't hard to guess which way this would have been played.

[newshound]

It is interesting to see that April is regularly the peak. I think I would have expected it to start dipping as the growing season in the Northern Hemisphere takes off, the fact that it doesn't suggests there is something of a lag.

[T i m]

I think it's the aircraft that would normally be mixing the atmosphere up, reducing the levels at the sensors. ;-)

What about the particulate levels?

Cheers, T i m

[Jethro_uk]

TL;DR

Climate is complex and we still don't really understand it.

Not quite sure if this is "news" or not.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

And measurements elsewhere in the world were?

Or is Hawaii the one always used for giving the world figure?

[Andy Bennet]

With all its leaking volcanos pumping out CO2 and SO2

[newshound]

But it is in the middle of a big windy ocean, and not too far from the equator. I think it is generally agreed to be an acceptable site to provide reference figures.

[Chris Hogg]

Corrected for, so they say. And burping volcanoes have always been there, so something of a constant background, unless one burped and no-one noticed, which seems unlikely.

[Tim Streater]

Lag? We'll need to see what it does over the coming months. If it just continues to go up as before, that'll make Oi larf.

[Chris Hogg]

It will fall steadily over the next few months as the new growth absorbs CO2, and then it will rise again in the Autumn. Whether the fall will be any steeper this year than in the past, remains to be seen. But I would have expected to see at least rounding-off of the peak this April.

[#Paul]

Since we haven't stopped burning fossil fuels, but are just using less, your conclusion would seem more than a little impetuous.

#Paul

I

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Quite.

[Andrew]

The BBC repeated the two programs where the Humble lady visited Vanuatu and peered over the edge of an active volcano that had a sea of boiling larva deep down but clearly visible.

[Paul]

Maybe we need to go there and read the dials our own selves ?

Mauna Loa CO2

SCRIPPS UCSD

Apr. 2020 406.18 ppm Apr. 2019 413.52 ppm Apr. 2018 410.30 ppm

Paul

[Martin Brown]

There is a couple of months lag in temperature and the ground needs to be warm enough before the plants really get going properly. Once they do then the CO2 level drops quite abruptly. The dependence of annual CO2 variation on latitude is quite remarkable - it is almost averaged out at the S pole. Not a lot of green plants around there nor heavy industry.

[AJH]

Thanks for that correction

[Chris Hogg]

Well, that's certainly more like what I'd have expected. The equivalent NOAA results for April 2019 and 2018 are 413.32 and 410.24, respectively, close to the Scripps results. So who's right?

The NOAA results I go by are their averages. They say: "The "average" column contains the monthly mean CO2 mole fraction determined from daily averages. If there are missing days concentrated either early or late in the month, the monthly mean is corrected to the middle of the month using the average seasonal cycle."

I see that the site you link to says there are two independent records of CO2 changes maintained in parallel at Mauna Loa, one by NOAA-ESRL and the other by Scripps UCSD, and it also gives a link to the same NOAA data as I use. The link to the Scripps data doesn't work for me. For some reason they don't give the NOAA data in the little table you quoted, just 'tbd', which I assume means 'to be determined', except that it's been determined. So why don't they show the data?

I see no way of knowing from the data presented in your link, which is correct, NOAA or Scripps. At the moment I think it would be wrong to assume one is correct over the other. One, or the other, might yet be subject to correction.

Old Chinese proverb: Man with one watch always know right time; man with two watches never know right time.

[newshound]

and man with broken watch...

[Brian Gaff (Sofa 2)]

Well is it coming from the island as it is volcanic? Otherwise maybe too many fire extinguishers were used. Brian