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Saturday, 5 May 2018

2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #18

A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week.

Editor's Pick

Earth’s atmosphere just crossed another troubling climate change threshold 

CO2 Concentrations Mauna Loa 1958 - May3 2018 

Recent CO2 measurements at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. (Scripps Institution of Oceanography)

For the first time since humans have been monitoring, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide have exceeded 410 parts per million averaged across an entire month, a threshold that pushes the planet ever closer to warming beyond levels that scientists and the international community have deemed “safe.”

The reading from the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii finds that concentrations of the climate-warming gas averaged above 410 parts per million throughout April. The first time readings crossed 410 at all occurred on April 18, 2017, or just about a year ago.

Carbon dioxide concentrations — whose “greenhouse gas effect” traps heat and drives climate change — were around 280 parts per million circa 1880, at the dawn of the industrial revolution. They’re now 46 percent higher.

As you can see in the famed “saw-toothed curve” graph above, more formally known as the Keeling Curve, concentrations have ticked upward in an unbroken progression for many decades. But they also go up and down on an annual cycle that’s controlled by the patterns and seasonality of plant growth around the planet. 

Earth’s atmosphere just crossed another troubling climate change threshold by Chris Mooney, Energy & Environment, Washington Post, May 3, 2018


Links posted on Facebook

Sun Apr 29, 2018

Mon Apr 30, 2018

Tue May 1, 2018

Wed May 2, 2018

Thu May 3, 2018

Fri May 4, 2018

Sat May 5, 2018



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