Latest news with #MaunaLoa
New York Times
6 days ago
- Science
- New York Times
After 7 Decades of Measurements From a Peak in Hawaii, Trump's Budget Would End Them
More than 11,100 feet above sea level, surrounded by nothing but black rocks, white clouds and blue sky, the Mauna Loa Observatory is in a Goldilocks spot for studying the atmosphere. The air that swirls around the isolated outpost located on a Hawaiian volcano is a mix from all over the Northern Hemisphere. That makes it one of the best places to measure greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It is indispensable to scientists around the world. The readings collected from Mauna Loa, starting in 1958, were used to create what is famously known as the Keeling curve. It's an upward-swooping line that charts the steady rise of carbon dioxide over the past seven decades — the result of nations burning oil, gas and coal. But President Trump's proposed 2026 budget would put an end to Mauna Loa, along with three other key observatories and almost all the climate research being done by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 'It's frankly inconceivable,' said Lisa Graumlich, an emeritus climate scientist at the University of Washington and past president of the American Geophysical Union. People know and understand the 'iconic' record, she said. 'A lot of the science we do is incredibly complex, and this record is something that can be grasped.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
CNN
01-07-2025
- Science
- CNN
Trump admin tries to kill the most indisputable evidence of human-caused climate change by shuttering observatory
The Trump administration's proposed budget seeks to shut down the laboratory atop a peak in Hawaii where scientists have gathered the most conclusive evidence of human-caused climate change since the 1950s. The Mauna Loa laboratory in Hawaii has measured atmospheric carbon dioxide, which — along with other planet-warming pollution — has led directly to climate change, driving sea level rise, supercharging weather and destroying food systems. The president's budget proposal would also defund many other climate labs, including instrument sites comprising the US government's greenhouse gas monitoring network, which stretches from northern Alaska to the South Pole. But it's the Mauna Loa laboratory that is the most prominent target of the President Donald Trump's climate ire, as measurements that began there in 1958 have steadily shown CO2's upward march as human activities have emitted more and more of the planet-warming gas each year. The curve produced by the Mauna Loa measurements is one of the most iconic charts in modern science, known as the Keeling Curve, after Charles David Keeling, who was the researcher who painstakingly collected the data. His son, Ralph Keeling, a professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, now oversees collecting and updating that data. Today, the Keeling Curve measurements are made possible by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric administration, but the data gathering and maintenance of the historical record also is funded by Schmidt Sciences and Earth Networks, according to the Keeling Curve website. In the event of a NOAA shut down of the lab, Scripps could seek alternate sources of funding to host the instruments atop the same peak or introduce a discontinuity in the record by moving the instruments elsewhere in Hawaii. In 1958, when the Keeling Curve began, the concentration of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere was 313 parts per million. In 2024, that had risen to 424.61 ppm, and this year, monthly average CO2 levels at Mauna Loa exceeded 430 ppm for the first time. The proposal to shut down Mauna Loa had been made public previously but was spelled out in more detail on Monday when NOAA submitted a budget document to Congress. It made more clear that the Trump administration envisions eliminating all climate-related research work at NOAA, as had been proposed in Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for overhauling the government. It would do this in large part by cutting NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research entirely, including some labs that are also involved in improving weather forecasting. NOAA has long been one of the world's top climate science agencies, but the administration would steer it instead towards being more focused on operational weather forecasting and warning responsibilities. CNN has reached out to NOAA and Scripps for comment.
CNN
01-07-2025
- Science
- CNN
Trump admin tries to kill the most indisputable evidence of human-caused climate change by shuttering observatory
The Trump administration's proposed budget seeks to shut down the laboratory atop a peak in Hawaii where scientists have gathered the most conclusive evidence of human-caused climate change since the 1950s. The Mauna Loa laboratory in Hawaii has measured atmospheric carbon dioxide, which — along with other planet-warming pollution — has led directly to climate change, driving sea level rise, supercharging weather and destroying food systems. The president's budget proposal would also defund many other climate labs, including instrument sites comprising the US government's greenhouse gas monitoring network, which stretches from northern Alaska to the South Pole. But it's the Mauna Loa laboratory that is the most prominent target of the President Donald Trump's climate ire, as measurements that began there in 1958 have steadily shown CO2's upward march as human activities have emitted more and more of the planet-warming gas each year. The curve produced by the Mauna Loa measurements is one of the most iconic charts in modern science, known as the Keeling Curve, after Charles David Keeling, who was the researcher who painstakingly collected the data. His son, Ralph Keeling, a professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, now oversees collecting and updating that data. Today, the Keeling Curve measurements are made possible by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric administration, but the data gathering and maintenance of the historical record also is funded by Schmidt Sciences and Earth Networks, according to the Keeling Curve website. In the event of a NOAA shut down of the lab, Scripps could seek alternate sources of funding to host the instruments atop the same peak or introduce a discontinuity in the record by moving the instruments elsewhere in Hawaii. In 1958, when the Keeling Curve began, the concentration of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere was 313 parts per million. In 2024, that had risen to 424.61 ppm, and this year, monthly average CO2 levels at Mauna Loa exceeded 430 ppm for the first time. The proposal to shut down Mauna Loa had been made public previously but was spelled out in more detail on Monday when NOAA submitted a budget document to Congress. It made more clear that the Trump administration envisions eliminating all climate-related research work at NOAA, as had been proposed in Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for overhauling the government. It would do this in large part by cutting NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research entirely, including some labs that are also involved in improving weather forecasting. NOAA has long been one of the world's top climate science agencies, but the administration would steer it instead towards being more focused on operational weather forecasting and warning responsibilities. CNN has reached out to NOAA and Scripps for comment.
CBC
07-06-2025
- Science
- CBC
CO2 levels just broke another record. Here's what that means
Social Sharing When man first walked on the moon, the carbon dioxide concentration in Earth's atmosphere was 325 parts per million (ppm). By 9/11, it was 369 ppm, and when COVID-19 shut down normal life in 2020, it had shot up to 414 parts ppm. This week, our planet hit the highest levels ever directly recorded: 430 parts per million. For 67 years, the observatory on Hawaii's Mauna Loa volcano has been taking these measurements daily — tracking the invisible gas that is building up in our atmosphere and changing life on Earth. The record is known as the Keeling Curve. Charles David Keeling began those recordings, some of the first in the world to measure CO2 concentration over time. His son, Ralph Keeling, born one year before the observatory opened, has witnessed the rapid increase firsthand over his lifetime. "I was a teenager when I first started to appreciate what my father was doing and how it might be significant," Keeling told CBC News. Back then it was around 330 ppm. Keeling, a geochemistry professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, took over the research once his father passed away in 2005. "This problem is not going away, and we're moving further and further into uncharted territory, and almost certainly, very dangerous territory." Why CO2 matters The build up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere isn't visible to the naked eye, but its concentration matters because of the greenhouse effect. Like the glass walls that trap heat from the sun in an actual greenhouse, gases in our atmosphere such as CO2 and methane also trap heat from the sun. At the start of the Industrial Revolution, ice core samples show CO2 levels were around 280 parts per million but as they rose, warming has increased by about 1.3 C over the pre-industrial average. That's led to rising temperatures and leading to more frequent and extreme weather, like heat waves, floods, wildfires and droughts. While many have heard about the goals of limiting warming to 1.5 C or 2 C above pre-industrial levels, there have also been efforts to return CO2 levels to below 350 parts per million, as a key part of limiting the damage from climate change. The record highs have continued though. Just in the last year, CO2 readings from May have increased more than three parts per million — that many more molecules of CO2 trapping heat and contributing to warming. "We know why it's rising faster than ever, it's because we're burning more fossil fuels each year," said Keeling. Direct link to fossil fuels Damon Matthews, a climate scientist and professor at Concordia University in Quebec, also says he's concerned and isn't surprised that there are new records every year. "If we want to actually stabilize CO2 levels in the atmosphere, we would need to cut global emissions by more than 50 per cent, and we're nowhere near doing that," he said, adding that there are other gases at play but CO2 is the dominant influence. "Every May, we're going to see a new record of atmospheric CO2, until we actually make a lot more progress on climate mitigation than we have today." The annual cycle, peaking in late spring in the northern hemisphere, is tied to plant photosynthesis — CO2 concentrations drop in the summer as plants absorb the gas and release oxygen. In 2021, the International Energy Agency said that if the world wants to limit global warming and reach net-zero by 2050, there could be no new coal, oil or gas projects. Matthews is part of Canada's net-zero advisory body and says he's seen some progress in decreasing CO2 emissions the last few years, but not enough. He says Europe's emissions have been going down for decades, and that last year CO2 emissions in China didn't increase. However, he says Canada still lags behind other countries, and the U.S. is trending the other way. "There's lots of policy options, certainly focusing on expanding the oil and gas industry in Canada right now is not going to get us where we need to go in terms of climate," he said. "We just need to stop arguing about whether it's a priority and start doing the things that we know will help to solve the problem."
Daily Mail
06-06-2025
- Science
- Daily Mail
Earth's CO2 hits highest recorded level in human history, experts say
There's now more carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere than ever before in human history, scientists have revealed. For the first time on record, monthly average CO2 levels exceeded 430 parts per million (ppm), according to experts at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego. The monthly average for May 2025 reached 430.2ppm – the highest level since accurate measurements began 67 years ago. The more CO2 in the atmosphere, the higher the rate of global warming , which could one day could make Earth's surface too hot for humans. At much higher concentrations, CO2 can also cause a variety of health issues. Worryingly, this includes cognitive impairment, drowsiness, nausea and even death in the most extreme cases. 'Another year, another record,' said Ralph Keeling, director of the Scripps CO2 Program. He added: 'It's sad.' Like other greenhouse gases, CO2 acts like a blanket, trapping heat and warming the lower atmosphere. This changes weather patterns and fuels extreme events, such as heat waves, droughts, wildfires, heavy rain and flooding. Rising CO2 levels also contribute to ocean acidification , which makes it more difficult for marine organisms like crustaceans and coral to grow hard skeletons or shells. The experts' new measurements come from Mauna Loa Observatory, a research station situated high on the slopes of the Mauna Loa volcano, Hawaii. At 11,141 feet above sea level, Mauna Loa Observatory measures different gases in the air by shining different kinds of light and radiation through air samples. According to the experts, the observatory's monthly average for May 2025 of 430.2 ppm is an increase of 3.5 ppm over May 2024's measurement of 426.7 ppm. Meanwhile, NOAA's Global Monitoring Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado has separately reported an average of 430.5 ppm – an increase of 3.6 ppm over last year. In a post on X , Jeff Berardelli, meteorologist and climate specialist for WFLA Tampa Bay, called the new record 'concerning'. CO2 is by far the most abundant human-caused greenhouse gas and it can persist in the atmosphere and oceans for thousands of years. According to scientists, the amount of carbon present now in the Earth's atmosphere is equal to that which would have been seen some 4.1 to 4.5 million years ago, during a time which scientists refer to as the 'Pliocene Climatic Optimum'. At this time, the sea level was a whopping 78 feet (24 meters) higher than in the present day, while the average global temperature stood at 7°F (3.9°C) higher than it was before the Industrial Revolution. In fact, the temperature was so warm during this period of time that large forests occupied areas of the Arctic which today are barren, chilly tundra. Although humanity is constantly pumping out CO2 all-year-round, atmospheric CO2 is at its highest in the Northern Hemisphere in the spring – specifically May. Between autumn and spring, much of the hemisphere's plant matter decomposes, releasing CO2 into the atmosphere as it does so. May tends to represent the highest extend of atmospheric CO2 before plants come to life and draw in CO2 to fuel their growth. This begins the process of lowering the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere until the autumn when the plants start to die – and the cycle continues. Researchers say Mauna Loa Observatory's new measurements represent the average state of CO2 in the atmosphere of the Northern Hemisphere. However, CO2 concentrations have not yet passed the 430 ppm mark in the Southern Hemisphere, which has a reversed cycle. It was Scripps scientist Charles David Keeling, father of Ralph Keeling, who was the first to recognise that CO2 levels in the Northern Hemisphere peaked in May. In 1958, he began monitoring CO2 concentrations at Mauna Loa Observatory and documented a long-term increase, known as the Keeling Curve. NOAA's Global Monitoring Laboratory, meanwhile, begun daily CO2 measurements in 1974 and has maintained a complementary, independent measurement record ever since.
