Update on the Disastrous 2024 CO2 Data Recorded at Mauna Loa
Last edited Tue Jul 23, 2024, 04:17 PM - Edit history (1)
As I've indicated repeatedly in my DU writings, somewhat obsessively I keep spreadsheets of the of the daily, weekly, monthly and annual 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, a fact.
Facts matter.
When writing these depressing repeating posts about new records being set, reminiscent, over the years, to the ticking of a clock at a deathwatch, I often repeat some of the language from a previous post on this awful series, as I am doing here with some modifications. It saves time.
A recent post (not my last on this topic) reflecting the annual record being set is here:
A New Record Concentration for CO2, 427.98 ppm Has Been Set for the Mauna Loa CO2 Observatory's Weekly Average.
A more recent example of this series is here:
2024's Disastrous CO2 Increased Readings Continue at the Mauna Loa Observatory.
We've just had another very, very, very bad week of data, that of the week beginning 7/14/2024. (I was not able to post about it on Sunday as I was traveling.)
If one looks, one can see that the rate of accumulation recorded at the Mauna Loa CO2 Observatory is a sine wave superimposed on a roughly quadratic axis:
Monthly Average Mauna Loa CO2
Thus this week's data is not a record - in the Northern hemisphere summers concentrations decline from the peak until generally September, but the data is nonetheless highly disturbing.
This week's data:
Week beginning on July 14, 2024: 425.95 ppm
Weekly value from 1 year ago: 421.45 ppm
Weekly value from 10 years ago: 398.98 ppm
Last updated: July 23, 2024
Weekly average CO2 at Mauna Loa
There have been 2529 weekly data points such as that immediately above, recorded at the Mauna Loa CO2 Observatory which are available on the data pages of the website which compare the value with the same week of the previous year. The reading above, for week 28 of 2024, shows an increase of 4.50 ppm over week 28 pf the previous year, 2023. Among all such increases for weekly data, again, 2529 of them, compared with the same week of the previous year, this is the 11th highest ever recorded. It is one of only 29 readings to exceed an increase of 4.00 ppm, eight of which took place in the current year, four of which exceed increases of 5.00 ppm, three of which were in 2024. Of the top 50 week to week/year to year comparators 16 have taken place in the last 5 years of which 10 occurred in 2024, 39 in the last 10 years, and 45 in this century. Of the five readings from the 20th century, four occurred in 1998, when huge stretches of the Malaysian and Indonesian rainforests caught fire when slash and burn fires went out of control. These fires were set deliberately, designed to add palm oil plantations to satisfy the demand for "renewable" biodiesel for German cars and trucks as part of their "renewable energy portfolio." The only other reading from the 20th century to appear in the top 50 occurred in the week beginning August 21, 1988, which was 3.91 ppm higher than the same week of the previous year. For about ten years, until July of 1998, it was the highest reading ever recorded. It is now the 34rd highest.
The same media that loves to promote a seriously intellectually crippled serial rapist and con man and felon as a viable Presidential candidate likes to talk about a so called "energy transition" that is supposed to save our asses.
This highly advertised propaganda is connected with the unsupportable belief that the vast sums of money spent so called "renewable energy," which I personally regard as reactionary as the six thugs of the apocalypse in the rogue US Supreme Court, is about addressing climate change.
If so, the money is clearly wasted and ineffective. How much money is it?
The amount of money spent on so called "renewable energy" since 2015 is 4.12 trillion dollars, compared to 377 billion dollars spent on nuclear energy, much of the latter to prevent the willful and deadly destruction of existing nuclear infrastructure.
IEA overview, Energy Investments.
The graphic is interactive at the link; one can calculate overall expenditures on what the IEA dubiously calls "clean energy," ignoring the fact that the expenditure on so called "renewable energy" is basically a front for maintaining the growing use of fossil fuels.
A 52 week running average of week to week comparators with those recorded 10 years ago has reached a record, 25.14 ppm/10 years, in other words, 2.51 ppm/year. In 2000 this same figure in week 25 of that year was 15.76 ppm/10 years.
The data in comparison to week 28 of 2024 with that of week 28 of 2014 is 26.97 higher. This is the 2nd highest increase in comparison to that of 10 years earlier ever recorded.
Things are getting worse faster.
People lie, to each other and to themselves, but numbers don't lie.
I fully expect our nominee, VP Harris, to have profited by her exposure to what I regard as the most important climate policy of the best Presidential Administration of my lifetime: The embrace of nuclear energy.
The Biden administration has rightly described itself as promoting "the largest sustained push to accelerate civil nuclear deployment in the United States in nearly five decades."
White House holds summit on US nuclear energy deployment
My strong opinion that nuclear energy is the last best hope of the planet is not subject to change by appeals to clap trap about so called "nuclear waste," Fukushima, Chernobyl (and even more silly) Three Mile Island, blah, blah, blah...
I suggest finding someone more credulous than I to whom to chant endlessly about these points. I'm far more concerned with the collapse of the planetary atmosphere than I am with the fear that someone somewhere at sometime may die from an industrial accident involving radiation. Let me repeat: I am far more concerned with the vast death toll, extreme environmental destruction, and the global heating associated with the normal use of dangerous fossil fuels. I am pleased to note that history will record that Joe Biden was a leader in doing something about this, perhaps less than would have been desirable in a sensible world, but at least he thought anew.
In any case I am certainly prone to thank our current President for his hard work to press for the expansion of nuclear energy, since very clearly we are out of time. I look forward to a Harris administration embracing this important legacy of President Biden.
When our country, as precious as it has been to us, is an ancient memory, the rot we left behind in the planetary atmosphere will still persist. I am pleased to note that history will record that Joe Biden was a leader in doing something.
As for the rest of us, history will not forgive us, nor should it.
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