Yet Another New Weekly Reading Record Established at the Mauna Loa Carbon Dioxide Observatory.

[NNadir]

Over the next few weeks, through some week in May I'll be recycling text related to this topic of setting new weekly records for the concentration of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide concentrations in the planetary atmosphere, just changing the numbers to accommodate the numbers associated with the records.

Recycling is good, no? So I've heard.

Anyway...

Somewhat obsessively I keep a spreadsheet of the weekly data at the Mauna Loa Carbon Dioxide Observatory, which I use to do calculations to record the dying of our atmosphere, a triumph of fear, dogma and ignorance that did not have to be, but nonetheless is.

I had the naive wishful thinking notion that restrictions on automobile traffic with all of the worldwide lock downs would lead to a slowing of carbon dioxide accumulations. Something quite different has been observed with the most recent weekly data.

The data from the Mauna Loa Carbon Dioxide Observatory:

Up-to-date weekly average CO2 at Mauna Loa

Week beginning on March 29, 2020: 415.74 ppm
Weekly value from 1 year ago: 412.39 ppm
Weekly value from 10 years ago: 391.47 ppm
Last updated: April 5, 202

This week's reading, 415.75 ppm is the highest weekly average ever recorded at Mauna Loa, surpassing the record set last week, which was 415.53 ppm.

As I often note in this space the readings are sinusoidal, superimposed on a steadily rising slightly less than linear axis, as this graphic, which I often reproduce, from the Mauna Loa website shows:



Every year, like clockwork, a new all time record is set in May.

Last year's (then) highest ever recorded value, recorded on May 9, 2019, was 415.39 ppm

The increase in this week's reading over the same week 1 year ago is 3.35 ppm.

As of this writing, there have been 2,303 such data points, readings, at Mauna Loa. This week's reading is "only" the 100th largest.

Of the top 50 such readings, 29 have taken place in the last five years, 36 in the last ten years, and 40 in the twenty-first century.

If the fact that this reading is 24.27 ppm higher than it was ten years ago bothers you, don't worry, be happy. Just repeat over and over and over and over, until it becomes a modern day Gregorian chant - "Renewable energy is great! Renewable Energy is Great! Renewable energy is great! Renewable energy is great!" Talk about Elon Musk and his cobalt laced electric cars.

Maybe you'll feel better.

I won't.

My impression that I've been hearing all about how rapidly renewable energy has been growing since I began writing here in 2002, when the reading on April 14, 2002 was 375.14 ppm should not disturb you, since it is better to think everything is fine rather than focus on reality.

In this century, the solar, wind, geothermal, and tidal energy on which people so cheerfully have bet the entire planetary atmosphere, stealing the future from all future generations, grew by 9.76 exajoules to 12.27 exajoules. World energy demand in 2018 was 599.34 exajoules. Unquestionably it will be higher in 2019 and in 2020.

10.63 exajoules is slightly over 2% of the world energy demand.

2018 Edition of the World Energy Outlook Table 1.1 Page 38 (I have converted MTOE in the original table to the SI unit exajoules in this text.)

According to this report, the fastest growing source of energy on the planet in the 21st century over all was coal, which grew from 2000 to 2018 by 63.22 exajoules to 159.98 exajoules.

If you think that unlike you, I am worrying and not being happy, you can always chant stuff about how "by 2050" or "by 2075" or "by 2100" we'll all live in a so called "renewable energy" nirvana powered by the sun and tooling around in Tesla electric cars.

I may be too jaded to be comforted, having heard this stuff my whole adult life - and I'm not young - but you could try. It's not results that count, but good intentions.

After the last Covid-19 patient on the planet has recovered, the much larger problem of climate change will still be with us.

History will not forgive us, nor should it.

[Chemisse]

1. It's actually been a relief to worry about Covid-19.

It's taken my mind off climate change.

Unlike climate change, things will get better and we will get through it.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I have this futile hope that the environment will improve slightly during this lull, a shaken humanity will shift its priorities and we will collectively tackle this biggest problem we could ever face. I guess being a little more optimistic than realistic is what allows me to survive with sanity intact.

All that said, I know what our climate future holds and I'm pretty sure it's a whole lot worse than the published predictions. There are so many feedback mechanisms that act to accelerate the changes that scientists really have a hard time making predictive models. That's why we keep seeing articles that say some change due to global warming is "happening faster than expected".

So, no comfort here, but thanks for the update on the CO2 situation.

[NNadir]

2. I do expect that ultimately we'll see some signature of this event in the atmosphere.

Recessions/depressions generally slow the rate of increase in carbon dioxide growth for that year, but in terms of what we're seeing, I don't think we're ever going to see too many years where the annual increase falls below 2.00 ppm.

In the period between 2001 and 2019, thirteen annual increases exceeded 2.00.

Eight of those occurred between and including 2010 and 2019.

In the 42 years between 1958 and 2000, five did so, included the year that the Southeast Asian Rain forests burned, 1998.

The average annual increase in the 20th century was 1.57 ppm.

In the 21st that average is 2.43 ppm.

It's going very, very, very badly.