Climate Report, February 2024.

Today is Friday 9th February 2024. Yesterday, the 8th, according to CO2 Earth, the daily atmospheric CO2 level was 425.6 ppm, up from 420.12 ppm on the 8th February 2023. This is an increase of 5.48 ppm = 1.3% p.a. 425.6 ppm = 824.7 mg/m^3 = 3,321.519 GtCO2.

The Keeling Curve gives a slightly lower figure for the 8th February of 425.1 ppm = 823.8 mg/m^3 = 3,317.616 GtCO2.

The daily levels for February have been consistently higher than those of January this year, except for the first two days, which were both 422.21 ppm. The NOAA's Global Monitoring Laboratory recorded a monthly mean of 422.8 ppm for January 2024, up from 419.48 ppm for January 2023, an increase of 3.32 ppm = 0.79% p.a., but the daily means have increased substantially since the 4th February, with that date's figure being 426.21 ppm, that for the 6th being 425.89 ppm, and that for the 7th - like that for the 8th - being 425.6 ppm.

According to de la Vega et al, 2020, CO2 during the KM5c stage of the Mid-Piacenzian Warm Period of the Pliocene Epoch, ~3.205 million years ago (i.e., before the emergence of genus Homo), when the Earth's orbital parameters were similar to today's, reached a maximum of 421 ppm, yet during that time global mean annual surface temperatures were 3°C higher than the pre-industrial level, and sea levels were 20 metres (65.617 ft) higher than at present. According to Hansen, Kharecha and Sato, 2013, it is the presence in our atmosphere of cooling aerosols that is the sole preventative of a reproduction of the Mid-Piacenzian climate. Yet these are being removed as a result of clean-air legislation, and must be removed, for the sake of public health, for we are talking about things like PM10s and PM2.5s.

The only solution is to end the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and destruction of wetlands, and livestock farming that puts methane, a greenhouse gas with 84-86 times the global warming potential of CO2 (over a 20 year timescale) into the atmosphere. We know what we have to do - but will we do it? That is another question entirely. The price of failure to do it will be grim indeed.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Climate Report for March 2024.

Today is Sunday 24th March 2024. The latest daily atmospheric CO2 level reading from CO2 Earth is 425.48 ppm, for the 22nd March, which compares with 420.64 ppm for the 22nd March 2023, an increase of 4.84 ppm = 1.15% p.a. The latest daily atmospheric CO2 level reading from the Keeling Curve is also for the 22nd March, and is 425.28 ppm. The monthly average for February 2024, according to the NOAA's Global Monitoring Laboratory , was 424.55 ppm, compared to 420.3 ppm a year earlier, an increase of 4.25 ppm = 1.01% p.a. The NOAA has recorded nineteen daily CO2 readings so far this month at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, with an average of 425.486 ppm = 824.5 mg/m^3  = ~3,320.63 GtCO2. The Bloomberg Carbon Clock , meanwhile, has reached 424.63 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere. Whatever its precise value, atmospheric CO2 is now much higher than at any time in the past 805,000 years (Yamamoto, M.  et al , Nature Geoscience , 31st March 2022) and, indeed, in the last 3.3 million ye
Read more

The Insatiable Appetite of Global Capitalism for Carbon.

Capitalism needs to grow, and if it does not grow, it dies. Production must increase, therefore consumption must do so, both driven by the imperative of increased revenues and increased profits, required by shareholders requiring increased dividends, banks and other financial institutions requiring increased interest payments, and owners of 'land' (which, in economics jargon, includes the sources of raw materials for industry) for rents. Workers, deprived of collective bargaining power by anti-trade union laws and firms preventing them from joining trade unions, struggle to keep wages in line with rising prices. Capitalism wants them to consume more, but doesn't want to pay them more!  Capitalism, in order to grow, requires an increased supply of energy. Some of that energy, it's true, is supplied by renewables and nuclear power, but the vast majority of it is still supplied by fossil fuels - by carbon. According to the Guardian on Monday 26th June 2023, citing a re
Read more