(January 19, 2019 at 8:43 am)Thoreauvian Wrote:(January 19, 2019 at 7:50 am)Jehanne Wrote: It happened on January 12, 2019 with a peak of 413.45 ppm:
Daily CO2 now
The sawtooth pattern of the increase of CO₂ in the atmosphere since 1958 is called the Keeling Curve. CO₂ varies about 8 ppm on a seasonal cycle, due to deciduous trees taking up CO₂ in the spring and releasing it in the fall in the northern hemisphere.
In other words, the winter peaks are not representative of the average for the whole year. I'm not sure what the average is right now, but it's somewhere above 405 ppm anyway.
The average is increasing about 2.5 ppm per year. Since 450 ppm will lead to 2 degrees C of warming over the preindustrial, we have less than 20 years of business-as-usual burning of fossil fuels before critical positive feedback loops kick in in big ways.
Look at the data more closely, if you would; CO2 levels worldwide typically peak around April or May, which means that the recent high here in January will be broken.
