June 5 (Reuters) – Carbon dioxide levels measured at the top of a Hawaiian volcano posted their record increase in 2023, reaching levels more than 50% higher than at the start of the industrial age, US scientists said on Monday. informed to
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said CO2 at the Mauna Loa Atmospheric Base Observatory reached 424 parts per million in May, 3 ppm higher than last year and continuing to approach the million-year-old age limit. United States and The Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
The average NOAA measurement was 424.0 ppm. Scripps, which holds an independent record, posted an average of 423.78 ppm in May, up 3.0 ppm from a year earlier. The measurements are made in May because this is the month in which CO2 reaches its maximum in the Northern Hemisphere.
The Mauna Loa outpost has measured atmospheric CO2 since 1958, when levels were below 320 ppm, and has seen a steady increase since then in what NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad called “a direct result of human activity.”
The upward trend is known as the Keeling Curve because of the way the increase is represented on the graph and is named after David Keeling, who introduced the measurement for Scripps in 1958. NOAA began collaborating with Scripps on the measurements in 1974.
The Scripps program is now run by Keeling’s son, geochemist Ralph Keeling.
“What we would like to see is the curve level off and even go down, as carbon dioxide is not as high as 420 or 425 parts per million,” Keeling said in the NOAA statement. “It shows that as much as we have done to try and reduce emissions, we still have a long way to go.”
NOAA said this year’s measurements were taken from a temporary site because lava flows cut off access to the Mauna Loa observatory in November 2022.
(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing in Spanish by Aida Peláez-Fernández)
