New Weekly CO2 Concentration Record Set at the Mauna Loa Observatory, 428.38 ppm

[NNadir]

Last edited Tue Mar 25, 2025, 02:23 AM - Edit history (2)

Errata: Week 11 does not set the all time record for highest recording for CO2 concentration. Week 10 recorded 428.74 ppm.

I missed this as I was traveling to a scientific conference last weekend.

2025 will undoubtedly record higher levels still, and the apparent decrease in week 11 almost certainly represents statistical noise.

As I've indicated repeatedly in my DU writings, somewhat obsessively I keep spreadsheets of the of the daily, weekly, monthly and annual data at the Mauna Loa Carbon Dioxide Observatory, which I use to do calculations to record the dying of our atmosphere, a triumph of fear, dogma and ignorance that did not have to be, but nonetheless is, a fact.

Facts matter.

When writing these depressing repeating posts about new records being set, reminiscent, over the years, to the ticking of a clock at a deathwatch, I often repeat some of the language from a previous post on this awful series, as I am doing here with some modifications. It saves time.

My most recent post, from two weeks ago reflecting updating this on going disaster (last week) is here:

New Weekly CO2 Concentration Record Set at the Mauna Loa Observatory, 428.15 ppm & 1st daily reading to exceed 430 ppm.

This week's readings are not dramatically higher, than those recorded in the same week of 2024, week 11, "only" 2.94 ppm, which would have been extremely shocking in the 1980's or early 1990's but these days, with things getting worse faster, is only "ho hum." (From 1975 to 1980, not a single week showed an increase this high over the reading of the same week of the previous year.)

The readings are, as of this morning as follows:


Week beginning on March 16, 2025: 428.33 ppm
Weekly value from 1 year ago: 425.39 ppm
Weekly value from 10 years ago: 401.04 ppm
Last updated: March 23, 2025

Weekly average CO2 at Mauna Loa

What is worthy of remark is that 428.38 ppm is the highest ever recorded for any week going back to 1959.

Here is a post of mine from April 2023 when the highest value ever recorded was lower:

New Weekly CO2 Concentration Record Set at the Mauna Loa Observatory, 424.40 ppm.

As this is early March, the 428.38 ppm "highest ever" reading weekly reading at Mauna Loa. As I always remark in this series of posts, if one looks, one can see that the rate of accumulation recorded at the Mauna Loa CO₂ Observatory is a sine wave superimposed on a roughly quadratic axis:



Monthly Average Mauna Loa CO2

The maxima of the sine wave usually occurs later in the spring. In 2024, the then highest value ever recorded 427.94 ppm took place in the week beginning April 21, 2024, and fell thereafter. In 2023, the then highest value ever recorded 424.64 ppm took place in the week beginning May 28, 2023, and fell thereafter. In 2022, the then highest value ever recorded 421.63 ppm took place in the week beginning May 29, 2022, and fell thereafter and so on.

A startling feature of the data at Mauna Loa in recent weeks is the comparator with the reading of the same week 10 years earlier, in this case, week 11 of 2015. Since the week beginning September 1, 2024, every such comparative reading has been in the top 50 of such readings. The difference recorded this week, week 11 of 2025, is the second highest such reading ever recorded, 27.29 ppm higher than week 11 of 2015. A 52 week running average of such comparators, which I track to smooth out the noisiness of the data has reached the highest value I have ever seen in many years of tracking such data. It is 27.97 ppm/10 years. In 2015, the value of this running average was 21.09 ppm/10 years. In week 11 of the year 2000, the value was 15.14 ppm/10 years.

Things are observed to be deteriorating faster than ever before.

We may end up in 2025 seeing readings slightly lower, at, or even higher than 430 ppm in 2025. We'll probably see it by late May, assuming that the Observatory is not shut by the anti-science bigots who have seized control of our government and canceled our Constitution. The consequences, irrespective of whether the numbers are available and honestly reported, will not be subject to lies or misrepresentations by potentially thuggish liars; the planet will continue to burn, the weather will become more extreme and out of control. Oh and assholes will still carry on about how nuclear energy is "too dangerous," and the destruction of the planetary atmosphere isn't "too dangerous." These people will tell us, in a delusional counterfactual statement that so called "renewable energy" will save us.

The people who chant that "renewable energy" will save us and that nuclear energy is "too dangerous," will continue to so chant despite the observable fact that "renewable energy" has not saved us, isn't saving us, and I assert won't save us.

The reactionary impulse to make our energy supplies dependent on the weather, this precisely at the time we have destabilized the weather by lying to ourselves about our continuous and rising use of dangerous fossil fuels, was always an ignorant attack on nuclear energy. It was never about preventing the extreme global heating we now observe, never about the environment (you don't tear the shit out of wilderness to make industrial parks and declare yourself "green" ) and never about costs, since the required redundancy - while kept off the books dishonestly - is expensive, and, as it is almost always fossil fuel based, dirty.

We still have people here at DU, this late into the disaster prattling on about how so called "renewable energy" is beating out nuclear energy, even though the combined solar and wind industry combined has never, in an atmosphere of sybaritic bourgeois saturnalian enthusiasm, not once, produced as energy as nuclear energy produces routinely in an atmosphere of malign (and ignorant) criticism.

It is interesting and notable that the same people who still carry on with stupid reference to "costs" - they couldn't give a fuck about the cost of the extreme global heating we are now experiencing - and attack nuclear energy on this basis are completely and totally disinterested in attacking the unimaginable external costs of dangerous fossil fuels, costs recorded in millions of deaths each year, the destruction of vast ecosystems by fire and alternately inundation or just plain heat.

Irrespective of their inane anti-science rhetoric about batteries and hydrogen, as it disregards the laws of thermodynamics, an apologetic orgy of wishful thinking designed to make the failed solar and wind industries appear to be reliable, which they will never be, all the money spent on solar and wind is clearly wasted and ineffective. The impulse is reactionary, to make our energy supplies depend on the weather, precisely at the time we have destabilized the weather because the reactionary fantasy is not working.

How much money is it?

The amount of money spent on so called "renewable energy" since 2015 is 4.9 trillion dollars, compared to 524 billion dollars spent on nuclear energy (including a vague term the IEA calls "other clean energy" ), much of the latter to prevent the willful and deadly destruction of existing nuclear infrastructure. Presumably "other clean energy" includes fusion, which has provided zero useable energy for any purpose



IEA overview, Energy Investments.

The graphic is interactive at the link; one can calculate overall expenditures on what the IEA dubiously calls "clean energy," ignoring the fact that the expenditure on so called "renewable energy" is basically a front for maintaining the growing use of fossil fuels. One may also download a *.csv file with the data.

The Biden administration has rightly described itself as promoting "the largest sustained push to accelerate civil nuclear deployment in the United States in nearly five decades."

It is sad that we are now entering a very dark age, one in which propaganda and lies will obscure real knowledge. President did what he could do to save us; it proved to not be enough to overcome our collective ignorance.

White House holds summit on US nuclear energy deployment

My strong opinion that nuclear energy is the last best hope of the planet is not subject to change by appeals to clap trap about so called "nuclear waste," the big bogeymen at Fukushima, Chernobyl (and even more silly) Three Mile Island, blah, blah, blah...

I suggest finding someone more credulous than I to whom to chant endlessly about these points. Take a drive in your swell car out to a "no nukes" concert and convincing yourself that rock stars know more about energy than engineers and scientists. You deserve it. Whether future generations suffer in extreme poverty because of your smug pleasures and appalling selective attention is not your concern.

Oh, and of course, be sure self identify as an "environmentalist." As one who gives a shit about extreme global heating, I won't credit this self identification anymore than I credit Donold Trump's descriptions of himself as a "very stable genius" and all that, but who cares what I think? The "...but her emails..." and "...sane washed Donold Trump..." media describes antinukes as "environmentalists" after all, even if I find that absurd and delusional, so there's that.

Be sure to prattle on about your complete and total indifference to the laws of thermodynamics, laws of physics that are not subject to repeal by appeals to wishful thinking, by carrying on about energy storage, lots of battery bullshit, hydrogen bullshit, etc. as if there was enough so called “renewable energy” to store for months at a time. There hasn’t been any such "renewable energy" surfeits, to justify this junk, there aren't any and there won’t be any, but none of this should prevent you from the ruined landscapes and mining pits you leave for future generations as piles of ruins. Screw future generations. If they need resources, they can sort through our landfills and ruins.

Do all these things. Don't worry. Be happy.

Our media will declare you an “environmentalist.” Good for you.

As for me, I'm far more concerned with the collapse of the planetary atmosphere than I am with the fear that someone somewhere at sometime may die from an industrial accident involving radiation. Let me repeat: I am far more concerned with the vast death toll, extreme environmental destruction, and the global heating associated with the normal use of dangerous fossil fuels than I am about carrying on insipidly about Fukushima.

Nuclear energy is not risk free, nor will it ever be. It is simply vastly superior to all other options, which in a rational world, as opposed to the one in which we live, would be enough to embrace it.

In any case I am certainly prone to thank our last Constitutional President, Joe Biden, for his hard work to press for the expansion of nuclear energy, since very clearly we are out of time.

When our country, as precious as it has been to us, is an ancient memory, the rot we left behind in the planetary atmosphere will still persist.

History, should history exist, will not forgive us, nor should it.

Have a pleasant Sunday afternoon.

[wendyb-NC]

1. Thank you for this info

You make this easier to understand thank for all your time and expertise putting it together for ordinary people to understand. The graphs are so helpful, too. I have bookmarked and rec'd the post. Very good.

[NNadir]

2. Thank you for your attention and kind words. n/t.

[xocetaceans]

3. The 1990s-plausible goal of keeping the CO2 concentration under 400 ppm seems like it was just yesterday. n/t

[NNadir]

4. No one now living will see 400 ppm again. Indeed, no one now living will ever see 420 ppm again.

None of this reality has prevented antinuke Bill McKibben from disbanding 350.org however.

Like many of his ilk of wishful thinkers, he's rather clueless.

[xocetaceans]

5. Any ideas on how quickly 500 ppm can be "achieved"? What are the current long-term predictions for the curve's shape?

Pessimistically, I expect that the growth in human contributions to the concentration of CO2 will continue roughly in proportion to population growth, but I cannot cite anything to support that and have not spent the time studying this to the extent that it deserves.

Also, would you happen to know if anyone has done any sort of reputable study on the expected environmental effects of bitcoin mining or AI/LLM modeling? I am not sure what scale to attribute to the energy consumption of those "industries".

Really, I am just asking for what you would consider a reputable source that might discuss those issues if you know of any, so I can read through it. If you have any thoughts that you would wish to share though, I would be interested.

[NNadir]

6. An estimate...

In previous posts in this series, I have used a quadratic model derived by treating the rate of change in the 52 week running average as a second derivative, integrating twice, and using the data for the current rate of change and the current reading as boundary conditions. It's somewhat crude, but an estimate is 500 ppm around 2046, and somewhere around 520 ppm by 2050 if I recall. I'm not at my computer so I can't call up the spreadsheet. There seems to be some indication of a slightly positive third derivative as well, but it's probably trivial at this point.

I'm likely to be dead then which certainly doesn't excuse me from participating in my generation. I often state that history will not forgive us, nor should it.

[xocetaceans]

7. Thank you.

[NNadir]

8. Correction: The predicted year using the quadratic for reaching 500 ppm....

...is 2024, with 520 ppm at 2050.

I opened the spreadsheet.

[xocetaceans]

10. Did you happen to mean 2042 ? (I am supposing a transposition.) Thanks for checking out your spreadsheet. n/t

[NNadir]

11. Late night typo. 2044.

[NNadir]

9. Errata: Week 11 does not set the all time record for highest recording for CO2 concentration. Week 10...

...recorded 428.74 ppm.

I missed this as I was traveling to a scientific conference last weekend.

2025 will undoubtedly record higher levels still, and the apparent decrease in week 11 almost certainly represents statistical noise.