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Global Carbon Dioxide Levels Reach New Monthly Record

mrflash818 writes: For the first time since we began tracking carbon dioxide in the global atmosphere, the monthly global average concentration of carbon dioxide gas surpassed 400 parts per million in March 2015, according to NOAA's latest results. “It was only a matter of time that we would average 400 parts per million globally,” said Pieter Tans, lead scientist of NOAA’s Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network. “We first reported 400 ppm when all of our Arctic sites reached that value in the spring of 2012. In 2013 the record at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Observatory first crossed the 400 ppm threshold. Reaching 400 parts per million as a global average is a significant milestone."

25 of 372 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Meh by Squiddie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I guess the amount of money that will be spent dealing with the coming mess, the lives that will be ruined, and ocean levels are just arbitrary numbers as well.

  2. Re:"The Polar Bears will be fine" by by+(1706743) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Dyson agrees that anthropogenic global warming exists, and has written that "[one] of the main causes of warming is the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere resulting from our burning of fossil fuels such as oil and coal and natural gas."[53] However, he believes that existing simulation models of climate fail to account for some important factors, and hence the results will contain too much error to reliably predict future trends: ...

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...

    Freeman Dyson also doesn't understand gravity (no one does). But that doesn't mean some vague claims can't be made about the two -- "heavy objects hurt when they fall on your foot" isn't a rigorous scientific statement, but it is true, as is his (vague) quote above.

  3. Re:Milestone my ass by riverat1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The proof that CO2 does not drive climate is to be found during the Ordovician-Silurian and the Jurassic-Cretaceous periods when CO2 levels were greater than 4000 ppmv (parts per million by volume) and about 2000 ppmv respectively. If the IPCC theory is correct, there should have been runaway greenhouse induced global warming during these periods but instead there was glaciation.

    You can't ignore the fact that the Sun was dimmer back then and the topology of the continents was completely different. CO2 isn't the only factor in the Earth's climate, just the most important greenhouse gas in determining it. (If you want to chime in and claim that water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas, it's true that WV causes the largest effect of the greenhouse gases but WV is a condensing gas under conditions in the Earth's atmosphere and the level is strictly controlled by temperature. Water vapor can not drive climate change.)

  4. Re:Milestone my ass by russotto · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Incredible how well temperature predicts changes in CO2 concentration, isn't it? (Temperature is blue, CO2 is red)

  5. Re:The Jurassic DGW, Dinosaurogenic Global Warming by XXongo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The Jurassic period. O2 in atmosphere was 130% modern levels. CO2 was at 1950ppm, 5-7 times modern levels. The temperature was a whole 3 DEGREES C over modern times!

    So, you're basically chiming in here to agree with the global climate models. There was more carbon dioxide in the paleozoic, and the climate was warmer. Yep. The climate was warmer, and the dinosaurs lived with it Of course, the planet didn't have any ice caps then, and a lot of what we call "farmland" they called "shallow ocean".

    We probably won't get the dinosaurs back, though.

  6. Re:AWESOME! by rtb61 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Underwater front property valuations are in for a rather rude and sharp decline. As this increases, denials and attacks will increase (they will become extremely loud, aggressive and distorted, pretty much anything goes), to allow the rich and greedy to dump those properties, into a market of the gullible. Low lying water front at this time is a truly horrible investment and governments who approve construction in low lying coastal areas are corrupt as hell. Yes, developers will be seeking to develop and on sell land with multi-million dollar new buildings on it, knowing full well, they will be flooded out because it is more profitable than just dumping the land alone.

    Other bad investments, coastal tourism companies, hotels chains with lots of at risk properties. Port facilities will of course be in major turmoil, needing to either relocate or where higher land is closely accessible shift from fixed dock design to a floating dock design. So no ifs just when, how bad and how fast and a real hold your breath when it comes to major methane releases which could trigger extreme compounding surges (fortunately the methane does readily break down over time, unfortunately, no where near fast enough and as flooding increases so does displaced organic matter and hence more methane is generated).

    Never make the mistake to think the deniers are disbelievers, they are not, all they care about is how much they can make and how much power they have and totally disregard the consequences of their actions upon other people. A whole bunch of deniers are actually believers and are simply denying now to continue destructive practices and to be able to off load at risk investments (a whole lot of pension funds are going to be burdened by at risk investments and basically glug, glug, glug).

    --
    Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  7. Re:"The Polar Bears will be fine" by Crashmarik · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Freeman Dyson

    "Generally speaking, I'm much more of a conformist, but it happens I have strong views about climate because I think the majority is badly wrong, and you have to make sure if the majority is saying something that they're not talking nonsense." - Freeman Dyson (who is smarter and more educated about damn near anything, than any of you fools).

    "What I’m convinced of is that we don’t understand climate." - Freeman Dyson

    As a general rule, if Freeman Dyson doesn't understand something, you don't, either.

    Oh don't go there.

    Dyson is a good guy, and if you point that out, these people are going to organize campaigns to shun him, have what he says banned, make it impossible for him to get work, and likely organize protests at his home.

    It's the way tolerance works in the 21st century. Any resemblance to 20th century fascism is purely coincidental.

  8. So when will this actually happen? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    So when will all of this destruction and devastation actually happen?

    I distinctly recall hearing about how major cities along the U.S. eastern seaboard would be under water "within a decade" back in the mid 1970s. It didn't happen.

    Then we were supposed to be completely out of oil by 1990. It didn't happen.

    The next prediction was that the ozone layer would be almost completely depleted by 2002. It didn't happen.

    Then we were told global warming would spiral out of control by 2011. It didn't happen.

    It gets harder and harder to take these claims from environmentalists, scientists and politicians seriously, when they're so wrong again and again and again.

    It's not even a case of efforts to mitigate the problems actually having any effect.

    Most of the time these efforts haven't even started by the time the problem has either resolved itself, or been shown to have been a load of bullshit in the first place.

    1. Re:So when will this actually happen? by pitchpipe · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Nothing resolved itself. People took action, and you fucking idiot don't even bother to figure out that someone else saved your sorry ass.

      Just like Y2K, It's the same shit over and over again: society expends resources to head off disaster, because of said expenditures disaster is averted, fucking morons baffled because disaster that everyone was talking about didn't happen.

      Fucking morons believe disaster scenario was made up to expend resources.

      REALITY FUCKING BAFFLING TO MORONS! FILM AT 11

      --
      Look where all this talking got us, baby.
    2. Re:So when will this actually happen? by unimacs · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The ozone was being depleted by chlorofluorocarbons. International efforts were able to largely phase them out, and the Ozone layer has recovered.

      One of the first predictions of running out of oil was made in 1914 by the Bureau of Mines. They thought the world would run out in 10 years. There have been similar predictions since then. Why haven't they come true? Because huge sums of money have been invested in making sure we don't run out or at least to put it off as long as possible. Billions and billions have been spent on locating more oil, and figuring out how to extract the relatively small amounts of oil that are in places we already know about. Think about some the crazy stuff we do to get oil out of the ground even in the middle of the ocean.

      One of the consequences has been that the price of oil has gone up over time. It's slumped back down for now, just like it did in the 90's but it rose after that and you can bet it will again. If in the early 90's you had told somebody that gas would cost almost $4.00 a gallon in a decade, they would have thought armageddon was coming.

      In both the case of the ozone layer and oil supplies, the dire predictions didn't happen in large part because we did what was necessary to keep them from happening. Same thing with Y2K. A ton of money was spent updating computers and software.

      And we could avoid the problems being predicted as consequences of global warming if we take action and be willing to spend some money. But for some reason, we'd rather just argue about it whether it's really a problem or not and in the meantime the solutions just get more expensive and likelihood of widespread consequences increase.

    3. Re:So when will this actually happen? by penguinoid · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It gets harder and harder to take these claims from environmentalists, scientists and politicians seriously, when they're so wrong again and again and again.

      Someday, you'll realize that everything said by a politician, and most things said by a journalist, are misleading exaggerated gibberish. Try talking to someone with a science degree about your science-related concerns.

      --
      Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
    4. Re:So when will this actually happen? by unimacs · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Note: Fortunately the world as a whole is making substantial investments in renewable energy while the US drags its feet. Of course the problem is that we will largely have to import solutions developed elsewhere. We are wasting an opportunity for more energy independence. While renewable/nuclear energy will be produced locally, we will have to import the technology from places that were smart enough to make the investment.

    5. Re:So when will this actually happen? by monkeyxpress · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's just because the world is not dominated by engineers/scientists anymore. History has shown that if you sit down and try to constructively solve a problem rather than argue about it, you can achieve some pretty incredible things. But the world has never been dominated by problem solvers. It is generally dominated by bullies who realise it is easier to steal someone else's lunch than figure out how to make more sandwiches. The world wars showed the folly of this sort of destructive, zero-sums thinking, and for a while after people worked on solving problems and creating new stuff. Now we are just quickly heading back to our old (and normal) ways.

      This is why companies like Tesla are so interesting. I really hope that Musk can prove that a market led solution can bring about positive technological change. If he fails then it pretty much means we should all go re-train as lawyers. It isn't anywhere near as hard as you might think, you just have to lose hope in humanity first.

    6. Re:So when will this actually happen? by johanw · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "It does not take a few years to cause noticeable change in Global Warming. It takes centuries. Maybe your great-great-great-grandkids will intent a timemachine and shoot you for your own stupidity,"

      Those idiots, if they just would have continued pumping up the CO2 levels we wouldn't have this ice age now.

    7. Re:So when will this actually happen? by Bongo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And the big one, population growth. But another big one is also this:

      An environmentalist who had travelled the world to find a job in carbon trading, explained to me that, "it doesn't matter if CO2 isn't really a problem, because by cutting CO2 you force a reduction in production and consumption; it is about reducing GREED."

      As far as I know she wasn't religious, but it seems the West has inherited a monotheistic dogma about man being full of original sin, and sometimes it shows up in environmentalism.

      Humans are creative intelligent creatures full of potential for empathy and freedom. But rather than champion our better qualities, some think we should persecute starving Africans for being born.

  9. climate sensitivity estimate-good news by ishmaelflood · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Actually that's some nice numbers, roughly 2.5 doublings of CO2 content, and a 3 degree C temperature rise, give about 1.2 deg C per doubling, in line with the 1.0 deg C per doubling you'd actually expect from CO2's measured properties, and a far cry from the IPCC publicised figures of 2-4.5 generated from GCMs of dubious accuracy.

    So what does this tell us? The feedbacks are NOT strong, and not very positive.

    So, with a climate sensitivity of 1.2 we can look forward to a slightly warmer climate for the next couple of centuries, which as the IPCC agrees, will be good for humankind. Good news if you like people, bad news if you are trying to impose a global government or whatever the climate crybabies want.

  10. Re:Bit to belabor the obvious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes, I'm 100% sure that they just walked up there, plopped it down, and it didn't even *occur* to anyone at NOAA to consider the volcano thing.

    Jesus fucking fuck, what the hell IS it with you people on slashdot who think that the first "insight" you have five seconds after thinking of something for the first time in your life hasn't occurred to people who do it for a living? Here's a hint: If you were *that* smart you wouldn't be talking shit on Slashdot.

  11. Re:Milestone my ass by rmdingler · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Every year, it seems more and more like I'm on the planet Krypton and the scientists are arguing with the politicians in a language the pols do not well understand.

    Ordovician... Jurassic... at too long an interval, we are all doomed to repeat what we have no chance to remember.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

  12. Re:Milestone my ass by khallow · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The Sun is a stable G2 dwarf, and over the short term (millenia/eons) its power output is stable to parts per ten thousand.

    Sure, I really would like that to be true too. But that "fact" doesn't explain the Maunder minimum which appears to be a fluctuation in solar power output considerably greater than the threshold your assertion. I notice that some researchers are actually claiming that a 0.2 W per square meter change in solar output somehow causes climate changes on par with a supposed 2 W per square meter heating today from greenhouse gases (other than water vapor).

    I think this is typical of the current silliness in climate research that one can assert without supporting evidence that solar output doesn't change significant on the scale of millennia while ignoring the only known solar fluctuation which correlates with significant climate variations of the time.

  13. Re:"The Polar Bears will be fine" by Biff+Stu · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Linus Pauling was very smart and a good man. He has Nobel prizes in Chemistry and Peace to prove it. As a general rule, if Linus Pauling didn't understand something, you don't, either. Yet, toward the end of his life, he had some odd ideas regarding megadoses of vitamin C that haven't ever been proven in clinical studies. The point is that a great scientist can, at times, be wrong about things--especially when they are outside his field of specialization. The big difference between Linus Pauling and Freeman Dyson is that Linus Pauling's ideas regarding vitamin C were mostly harmless, while Freeman Dyson's claims on climate change can be quite catastrophic if we take them seriously.

  14. Re: Meh by Bruha · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Led lights, fuel efficient cars. We have choices to help fix things. But you fuckers get bent out of shape just trying to get you to use a different light bulb.

  15. Re:Bit to belabor the obvious by itzly · · Score: 3, Insightful

    More importantly, it's a sampling site in the middle of the ocean, far away from human influences. When the wind is coming from the ocean, it is very clean. When the wind is coming from the direction of an active volcanic vent, they throw out the data.

    Of course, anybody who's in doubt could take a sample of air at a location of their own choice, and send it to a lab for CO2 analysis.

  16. Re:"The Polar Bears will be fine" by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The problem with focusing on the fringe like this is that the fringe rapidly becomes a straw man argument for environmentalists. If you actually go to the Greenpeace web site and read their policies they don't suggest any of the stuff you mention, but every debate on Slashdot about environmental issues claims that they do.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  17. Re:Thus showing CO2 is hardly related to warming by riverat1 · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Warming is obviously a lot more complex than CO2 levels, because warming has continued to basically flatline as it has for decades now.

    You can only say that if you only look at the atmosphere and cherry pick the extremely hot year of 1998 (that was 2 sigmas above the temperature curve). As I calculated above if all of the heat that accumulated in the oceans between 2003 and 2012 were in the atmosphere instead we would have had over 16 degrees Celsius of temperature rise.

    Not only that but if you do a statistical analysis of surface temperatures it's not possible to even show there's even been a slowdown in temperature rise. Tamino, a statistician by trade tried a number of different methods to show a slowdown statistically and failed. You can read about it here.

    There is obviously plenty of complexity in the system but the underlying accumulation of heat energy continues unabated.

  18. Re:Meh by itzly · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes, but the people deciding today will be long dead by then.