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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."
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels break seasonal records: NOAA
Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide made history last month by climbing to their highest seasonal peak available in historical records, a team of researchers reported. For the first time ever, these levels surpassed 430 parts per million (ppm) at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, which is considered the global benchmark site for tracking atmospheric carbon dioxide. The 430.2 ppm calculation for May marked a 3.5 ppm increase over May 2024's reading of 426.7 ppm, according to scientists from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the the University of California, San Diego, who worked together with colleagues at NOAA. 'Another year, another record,' Ralph Keeling, director of the Scripps CO2 Program, said in a statement. 'It's sad.' At an elevation of 11,141 feet above sea level, the observatory is located on the slopes of the Mauna Loa volcano and produces measurements that reflect the average state of the atmosphere for the Northern Hemisphere. Carbon dioxide, the scientists explained, acts like a blanket — trapping heat and warming the lower atmosphere, as well as altering weather patterns and fueling extreme weather events. The surge in CO2 concentrations is also contributing to acidification and causing changes in ocean chemistry that affect the survival of marine organisms, according to the researchers. A half-century of sampling at Mauna Loa, conducted by researchers at both NOAA and Scripps, have provided a baseline for tracking the increase of human-generated carbon emissions, the scientists noted. They acknowledged, however, that the station does not capture the full extent as to how carbon CO2 concentrations can vary across the planet — as stations in the Southern Hemisphere have yet to cross the 430-ppm threshold. NOAA's global sampling network, as well as 14 worldwide stations operated by the Scripps CO2 program, are also contributing to the broader planetary picture and helping identify locations of carbon sources and sinks, the researchers added. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
06-06-2025
- Science
- The Hill
Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels break seasonal records: NOAA
Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide made history last month by climbing to their highest seasonal peak available in historical records, a team of researchers reported. For the first time ever, these levels surpassed 430 parts per million (ppm) at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, which is considered the global benchmark site for tracking atmospheric carbon dioxide. The 430.2 ppm calculation for May 2025 marked a 3.5 ppm increase over the previous May's reading of 426.7 ppm, according to scientists from the University of California San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who worked together with colleagues at NOAA. 'Another year, another record,' Ralph Keeling, director of the Scripps CO2 Program, said in a statement. 'It's sad.' At an elevation of 11,141 feet above sea level, the observatory is located on the slopes of the Mauna Loa volcano and produces measurements that reflect the average state of the atmosphere for the northern hemisphere. Carbon dioxide, the scientists explained, acts like a blanket — trapping heat and warming the lower atmosphere, as well as altering weather patterns and fueling extreme weather events. The surge in CO2 concentrations is also contributing to acidification and causing changes in ocean chemistry that affect the survival of marine organisms, according to the researchers. A half-century of sampling at Mauna Loa, conducted by researchers at both NOAA and Scripps, have provided a baseline for tracking the increase of human-generated carbon emissions, the scientists noted. They acknowledged, however, that the station does not capture the full extent as to how carbon CO2 concentrations can vary across the planet — as stations in the Southern Hemisphere have yet to cross the 430-ppm threshold. NOAA's global sampling network, as well as 14 worldwide stations operated by the Scripps CO2 program, are also contributing to the broader planetary picture and helping identify locations of carbon sources and sinks, the researchers added.
