The May 2023 Mauna Loa Carbon Dioxide Increase Over May 2022 Is the Third Highest Recorded...
...for May in 65 years
As I note here frequently, I enter the data from the Mauna Loa Observatory into spreadsheets I keep to work with the data, weekly (which set a record last week that may be surpassed this week based on daily data), monthly and annually.
Here is the reading from this month:
May 2023: 424.00 ppm
May 2022: 420.99 ppm
Last updated: Jun 05, 2023
Monthly Average Mauna Loa CO2
I missed the opportunity to update my spreadsheet earlier this week as I was at a scientific conference.
Flying in, the pilot came on to warn us that we would smell smoke when the plane descended, but that it would not be because the plane was on fire, but rather because Alberta was on fire and the smoke is covering the entire Northeastern part of the continent. (I was flying into New Jersey.) The air here is still terrible. It's from, um, climate change.
The 3.01 ppm increase for this May 2023 over May 2022 is the third highest in May increase year to year in 65 years of records.
For May of 2016, the increase over May 2015, the increase was 3.76 ppm.
For May of 2019, the increase over May 2015, the increase was 3.41 ppm.
All of three readings for May over 3.00 ppm have taken place in this century.
In the 20th century, the average increase for a monthly average when compared to the same month of the previous year (all months) was 1.30 ppm.
In the 21st century, the same average is 2.18 ppm.
Over the last 10 years, from 2013 to 2023, for the last ten years, beginning in May of 2013 (when the monthly average was 399.77 ppm) the average increase for all months is 2.46 ppm.
The first monthly reading ever to exceed 400 ppm was in April 2014, when the reading was 401.30 ppm. Less than 20 years later, here we are.
Have a swell evening.