MADRID, 5 Jun. (EUROPA PRESS) –
CO2 levels measured at NOAA’s Global Reference Observatory in Hawaii peaked at 424 parts per million in May, reaching levels not seen in millions of years.
These measurements of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere obtained by NOAA’s Global Monitoring Laboratory correspond to the month of the year in which it peaks in the northern hemisphere. That’s an increase of 3.0 ppm from May 2022 and represents the fourth largest annual increase in the Keeling curve peak on record by NOAA.
Scientists at the Scripps Oceanographic Institution, which maintains an independent registry, calculated a May monthly average of 423.78 ppm, also an increase of 3.0 ppm over the May 2022 average.
Carbon dioxide levels are now more than 50% higher than before the start of the industrial age.
“Each year we see increasing levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere as a direct result of human activity,” NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said in a statement. “Each year, we see the impacts of climate change in the heat waves, droughts, floods, wildfires and storms that occur all around us. While we will have to adapt to climate impacts that we cannot avoid, we must do do everything possible to reduce carbon pollution and safeguard this planet and the life that calls it home.”
Carbon dioxide pollution is generated by the burning of fossil fuels for transportation and electricity generation, by cement manufacturing, deforestation, agriculture, and many other practices. Like other greenhouse gases, CO2 traps heat radiating from the planet’s surface that would otherwise escape into space, amplifying extreme weather events such as heat waves, droughts and wildfires, as well as rainfall and floods.
Rising CO2 levels also pose a threat to the world’s oceans, which absorb both CO2 gas and excess heat from the atmosphere. Impacts include rising ocean surface and subsurface temperatures and disruption of marine ecosystems, rising sea levels and ocean acidification, changing seawater chemistry, resulting in it leads to a decrease in dissolved oxygen and interferes with the growth of some marine organisms.
This year, NOAA’s measurements were obtained from a temporary sampling site atop the nearby Mauna Kea volcano, which was established after lava flows cut off access to the Mauna Loa observatory in November 2022. The measurements Scripps in May were taken at Mauna Loa, after NOAA personnel repowered a Scripps instrument with a solar and battery system in March.
Data from Mauna Loa, along with measurements from sampling stations around the world, are incorporated by NOAA’s Global Monitoring Laboratory into the Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network, a fundamental research dataset. for international climate scientists and a point of reference for policymakers trying to address the causes and impacts of climate change.
Widely considered the world’s premier sampling site for monitoring atmospheric CO2, Scripps Observatory and NOAA operations were abruptly suspended on November 29, 2022 when lava flows from the eruption of the Mauna Loa volcano buried more than a mile of the access road and destroyed the transmission lines that supply power to the observatory campus.
After a 10-day outage, NOAA resumed greenhouse gas observations on December 8 from a temporary instrument installation on the deck of the University of Hawaii Observatory, located near the top of the Mauna Kea volcano. Scripps began air sampling on Mauna Kea on December 14, 2022, and resumed sampling on Mauna Loa on March 9, maintaining his observations on Mauna Kea.
Scripps obtained continuous daily samples from both Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea during May, the month when CO2 levels in the Northern Hemisphere reach their highest levels for the year. Scripps recorded a May CO2 reading from Mauna Kea of ??423.83 ppm, which is very close to the Mauna Loa observatory’s reading of 423.78 ppm.
The Mauna Loa observatory is located at an elevation of 3,395 meters above sea level, while the Mauna Kea sampling site is slightly higher, at an elevation of 4,145 meters. Scientists can sample the air without being disturbed by the influence of local pollution or vegetation, and produce measurements that represent the average state of the atmosphere in the Northern Hemisphere from both locations.
