CO2 Records

Details
Last Updated: 13 April 2021 13 April 2021

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Highest-Ever

Mauna Loa CO2 Levels

in recorded human history and beyond* 

 Averages

NOAA MLO 

Scripps MLO 
Daily
CO2

421.36 ppm

Apr 8 2021

NOAA  

419.21 ppm

Feb 4 2021

Twitter
Weekly
CO2

419.28 ppm

Apr 4- 10 2021 

data 

416.91 ppm

Feb 6 - 12, 2021

data to Feb 19 2021
Monthly
CO2

417.64 ppm

March 2021

data

 

417.16 ppm

May 2020

data

417.14 ppm

March 2021

KC Tw
Yearly
CO2

 414.24 ppm

2020

data

413.94 ppm

2020

monthly data averaged

Marking the latest CO2 records is not an act of celebration, but of bearing witness.  

The achievements are a sobering reminder of the chemical changes that we humans are collectively making to the atmosphere--changes with disruptive impacts that affect every living being in the biosphere.  When a new record is reached, it is is marked here with an invitation for people to take notice, reflect on the transformation that is going in the wrong direction, and resolve to reverse these trends.

Reversing the trend is not something that any one person can achieve on their own.  But individuals and groups can build on this CO2 Earth initiative by taking steps that help make the CO2 indicator for planetary health as ubiqutious as our stock market updates and weather reports.  Consider sharing the CO2 Earth updates and records with people and groups that are part of your information-sharing circle.  

 

 

A New Daily High Each Year

The graphic below from Teem Earth partner @NumberLens presents NOAA CO2 readings since 1999 to show the seasonal peak for daily CO2 readings at Mauna Loa.  It shows that CO2 levels usually peak in April or May, a phenomena discovered by Charles David Keeling in the late 1950s and early 1960s when he began what became the world's longest-running, high preceision record of direct measurements of CO2 in background air.  

2020 06 01 dly co2 high since 1999 mlo noaa

 

 

*Atmospheric CO2 is higher now than at any time in the past 200,000 years of human history.  In fact, studies of past CO2 levels have accumulated evidence of CO2 levels being lower than 400 ppm for the past 23 million years.  That makes the CO2 records on this page the highest in human history plus a period that's a hundred times short 200,000-year time that homo sapiens have graced the earth.   The higher levels of this planet-heating gas is just one part of the problem.    The other is the speed of the changes, more than a hundred times pre-human times, and faster than many ecosystems can adapt to.  

 

 

Related Links

Science Daily Jun 2020 | Today's atmospheric CO2 levels greater than 23 million-year record 

Geology 2020 | A 23 m.y. record of low atmospheric CO2  

CO2 Earth | Daily CO2

CO2 Earth | CO2 Proxy Data

CO2 Earth | CO2 Acceleration