Dark-clear and cold this early Tuesday on California’s north coast, at least for right now just as faint, blue light hints at us from the east.
Another clue for still new-born 2015, and how the environment will fare-thee-well — from Climate Central yesterday: ‘The new year has only just begun, but we’ve already recorded our first days with average carbon dioxide levels above 400 parts per million, potentially leading to many months in a row above this threshold, experts say.’
(Illustration found here).
Especially, considering in the US 2014 was one of its warmest years, while worldwide, the warmest on record. And here in California, also in the midst of a drought, was our warmest ‘since instrumental temperature records began in 1895.’
All this heat a product of civilization — heat-trapping CO2 belching continuously from the earth’s surface is making it warmer and warmer, and warmer still, and for the first time ever, the climate is shifting way-not only because of natural causes, but altering itself due to a big push from mankind
Further from Climate Central:
The Scripps Institution of Oceanography records of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels show that Jan. 1 was the first day of the new year above that concentration, followed by Jan. 3 and Jan. 7.
Daily averages have continued at this level or higher through Jan. 9, though they could continue to dance up and down around that mark due to day-to-day variations caused by weather systems.
But even with those fluctuations, 2015 will likely see many months above 400 ppm, possibly starting with the very first month of the year.
“My guess at this point is that January 2015 will be very slightly above 400 ppm, but it’s too early to tell for sure,” Ralph Keeling, the scientist in charge of the CO2 monitoring project atop Hawaii’s Mauna Loa, said in an email.
Keeling’s father, Charles, began the project in 1958.
The graph that shows the decades-long rise in CO2 is eponymously called the Keeling Curve.
The 400 ppm mark was first passed on May 9, 2013.
In 2014, it happened two months earlier, in March.
The average CO2 concentrations for March, April and June 2014 were all above 400 ppm, the first time that has been recorded.
The peak CO2 measurement of 2014 was just shy of 402 ppm in May.
While the 400 ppm mark is somewhat symbolic (as the increase in warming between 399 ppm and 400 ppm is small), it is a large increase from pre-industrial CO2 concentrations, which were around 280 ppm.
The progressively earlier occurrence of these high CO2 levels — not seen in somewhere between 800,000 and 15 million years — points to the inexorable buildup of heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere as human emissions continue unabated.
That increase in CO2 and other greenhouse gases has raised Earth’s average temperature by 1.6°F since the beginning of the 20th century.
Some scientists say that to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, that warming needs to stay under 2°C, or 3.6°F.
Warm, warmer, warmest, and so forth — apparently, however, there’s actually been a slow-down in warmth-building the last 15 years, a “global warming hiatus,” as been termed, and in new research, this phenomenon might be explained by the earth itself.
Yesterday, from TechTimes: ‘And according to a study, small volcanic eruptions played a part in keeping the planet’s temperature down.’
What the shit?
Where would we be if there had been no volcanic spew?