March 2022 Atmospheric CO2 Content: 418.81 ppm; March 2021 417.64 ppm; March 2020 414.74 ppm

[hatrack]

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[NNadir]

1. 2022's March CO2 increase was the smallest, 1.17 ppm, since the March of 2000.

March of 2000 was actually below a 1.00 ppm increase, 0.96 ppm.

By contrast, March of 2021 came in at 3.14 ppm over March of 2020, the second highest March increase recorded over 64 years of data posted at the Mauna Loa observatory. (March of 2016 had a reading that was 3.31 ppm over that of 2015.)

This year has been anomalously mild. I have expected 2022 to produce weekly readings in excess of 422 ppm; now I'm not sure. We recently had a weekly reading exceeding last year's record, but I'm not sure where we'll go.

Covid has led to a well defined decrease in the use of energy on this planet in 2020 and perhaps in 2021. We'll see what happens with the lockdowns in China.

It won't last. We're sure to be at 440 ppm within ten years because whatever we think we're doing clearly isn't working and we refuse to acknowledge it. We'll have lots of nice pictures of wind turbines though in ads about "going green," oh, and lots of cheering for electric cars.

We should require students to understand the basic laws of thermodynamics to get a high school degree. We won't, but we should.