"How has CO2 concentrations changed over the past century?"
Why CO2 Concentrations?
CO2 levels in the atmosphere have risen significantly due to human activities like burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas), deforestation, and industrial processes. Monitoring CO2 helps scientists directly link these activities to climate change.
CO2 is a major greenhouse gas, meaning it traps heat in the Earth's atmosphere. This trapped heat leads to global warming, which causes a wide range of environmental impacts, including melting ice caps, rising sea levels, and more frequent extreme weather events. High CO2 levels can also trigger feedback loops that makes matters worse for climate change. For instance, as temperatures rise, permafrost melts, releasing more CO2 and methane into the atmosphere, which in turn leads to even higher temperatures. CO2 is absorbed by the oceans, where it forms carbonic acid. This process, known as ocean acidification, can harm marine life, particularly organisms with calcium carbonate shells or skeletons, like corals and some shellfish. This impacts biodiversity and the health of marine ecosystems.
Lastly, tracking CO2 concentrations informs climate policy and mitigation strategies. Accurate data on CO2 levels help governments and organizations set targets for reducing emissions, develop renewable energy sources, and implement carbon capture technologies. Also, by studying ice cores and other geological records, scientists have found that current CO2 levels are higher than they've been in at least 800,000 years. This historical context underscores the urgency in creating plans to slow down the effects of climate change.
Global vs Mauna Loa CO2 Concentrations
This graph shows the annual growth rate of CO2 concentrations in PPM. It highlights the changes in CO2 levels globally and at Mauna Loa. From the graph we can see that both Mauna Loa and global growth rates for CO2 concentrations have been steadily increasing throughout the years starting with a low .5 ppm rising all the way up to a high of ~2.8 with Mauna Loa reaching over 3 in 2023.
Judging off the growth rate of each decade and using a linear regression model, I predict that it will increase to ppm in the 2020s, ppm in the 2030s, ppm in the 2040s, and ppm in the 2050s. Below is a bar graph of the average growth rate for each decade in ppm.