Hawaii News Now is reporting that the February average CO2 concentration measured atop Mauna Loa has set a new record. Setting records compared to anytime over the last million years is nothing new for CO2 concentrations. What is unusual is how early in the year it happened.
Ralph Keeling, the director of carbon dioxide program at the Scripps Institution of Oceangraphy — which runs the Mauna Loa lab with NOAA — said setting a record in February is “rare, but not unprecedented.”
“In most years, the previous maximum is surpassed in March or April,” he said, adding that “the February record breaking is a measure of just how fast carbon dioxide has been rising in the past months.”
Here is a Keeling curve with a typical annual cycle superimposed.
The annual cycle is due to cycles in photosynthesis. Atmospheric CO2 goes down when the Northern Hemisphere is experiencing spring and summer, because there is more land and photosynthesis north of the equator.
We have been seeing historically high CO2 concentrations nearly every year, but it usually happens March through May, before global photosynthesis picks up enough to reduce the peak.
This February record follows another record year in CO2 emissions.
Global Carbon Project finds that global carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels are likely to have increased by about 2.7 percent in 2018, after a 1.6 percent increase in 2017.
We’ll probably exceed the February record this year.
Getting off of fossil fuels can’t happen soon enough.