At the Mauna Loa CO2 Observatory, Yet Another Terrifying, Startling Week in 2024.

[NNadir]

Two weeks ago I interrupted my standard language for my "monitoring the collapse of the atmosphere through the Mauna Loa CO₂ observatory" posts, to remark on being incredibly shocked by the numbers in 2024.

That post is here: At the Mauna Loa CO2 Observatory, a Terrifying, Startling Week and Month, New Records Everywhere.

I also had a thread with a correction to statements I made in that post: An Illuminating Error in My Recent Terrifying Mauna Loa Post.

The point of the second post, the "Illumination" is that 2024 is shaping up to be worse than the worst year ever at the Observatory ever, 2016. Regrettably that trend continues. The 2nd worst week ever in year to year comparators of weeks of the year with that of its previous year has just been observed, just two weeks after the worst was observed.

The week beginning February 18, 2024 is 5.43 ppm higher than the week beginning February 19, 2023.

Before I discuss the terrifying details of yet another astounding number in 2024, here's the standard language I use in these posts:

As I've indicated repeatedly in my DU writings, somewhat obsessively I keep a spreadsheet of the 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.

A recent post of this nature is here: At the Mauna Loa CO2 Observatory, 2024 Starts With a Fairly Disgusting Bang.

As I've been reporting over the years in various contexts, the concentrations of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide which is killing the planet fluctuate sinusoidally over the year, with the rough sine wave superimposed on a roughly quadratic axis:



Monthly Average Mauna Loa CO2

The Observatory posts on its data pages curated and reviewed averages for daily, weekly, monthly, and annual data. I maintain spreadsheets for the latter three to use in calculations.

The data for the week just ended, the week beginning February 18, 2024:

Week beginning on February 18, 2024: 425.11 ppm
Weekly value from 1 year ago: 419.68 ppm
Weekly value from 10 years ago: 398.53 ppm
Last updated: February 24, 2024

Weekly average CO2 at Mauna Loa

First and foremost. 425.11 ppm is the 2nd highest value ever reported at Mauna Loa for the concentration of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide in the planetary atmosphere, slightly less than the value recorded two weeks ago 525.83 ppm. (There is some local "noise" in these readings.)

There have been 2507 points of this type recorded going back to 1975.

This week's increase, from week 5 of 2023 to week 7 is an astounding 5.43 ppm, the 2nd greatest such week to week comparison between consecutive years ever record, by far, the (now) 3rd worst ever having occurred in week beginning July 31, 2016, when the increase was 5.01 ppm, making it one of only three to exceed a 5.00 ppm increase, two from this year, 2024, and one from 2016. 2024 is shaping up to blow 2016 out of the water as "worst ever."

The global average going back to 1975 for all 2507 weeks reported is 1.87 ppm increases in year to year weekly comparators. In the 21st century, that average is 2.20 ppm increases for all weeks in the 21st century.

There have been only seven readings for any of the 2507 weeks in the database that exceeded 424 ppm, all since January 1st, 2023, five in 2023, and two in 2024, a year which is still young. The only readings to exceed 425 ppm have come in 2024. The annual peak will take place in April or May, at the latest in early June. It is sure to be an astounding and terrifying number.

Of the top 50 highest readings out of the 2507, 12 have taken place in the last 5 years, 33 in the last 10 years, and 40 this century.

Of the ten highest comparative year to year readings that took place in the 20th century; six are found in positions 40 to 50.

Three of the first seven weeks of 2024 compared to 2023 appear in the top 50 ever observed.

The week to week comparators from ten years ago (comparators to the same week, week 7, of 2024 to that of 2014) shows an increase of 26.58 ppm, the second highest such increase ever observed after that of two weeks ago, 27.65 ppm higher than week 5 of 2014. A 52 week running average of 10 year comparators, which sort of smooths out the "noise" has reached 24.62 ppm/10 years, the highest value ever. In the seventh week of 2001, that running average was 15.25 ppm/10 years.

I am now maintaining a spreadsheet of the daily readings at the Mauna Loa CO₂. Of the top 10 readings ever going back to 1975, seven have taken place in the month of February 2024, one in January of 2024, and two in 2023. The two highest were over 426 ppm.

In spite of these ever worsening and ever more astounding numbers - people lie to each other and to themselves but numbers don't lie - you will still find people mindlessly cheering for bourgeois toys that do nothing, be they electric cars, solar cells and/or wind turbines, to address climate change, all of which are exercises in promoting the use of fossil fuels, the destruction of wilderness, and the demand for mining.

The big lie people tell themselves and each other that this pixilated reactionary scheme, electric cars, solar cells, wind turbines, blah, blah, blah is "doing something" about climate change. This is nonsense. That it is nonsense is clearly shown, again, by the numbers. The reactionary scheme of carrying on about so called "renewable energy" that led us here was never about climate change or any other environmental issue and the claim that it is is an afterthought. It was always about attacking the only realistic alternative to fossil fuels, nuclear energy.

The antinukes won and humanity, and in general the rest of the biosphere lost.

We're clueless.

Enjoy the weekend.

[CrispyQ]

1. Another number we should discuss is 8,000,000,000.

I read both your posts & appreciate your updates depressing as they are.

I think we're a little too confident in our big brains. There are a bunch of 5-10 year olds in my neighborhood right now & I try to imagine what the planet will look like when they're 60. I think it's going to be radically different.

There's a whole new genre of fiction called cli-fi. Climate fiction. I've read a few. One took place in the southwest that had no water & one in Florida that had too much water.

[SWBTATTReg]

3. It's not our brains that is the problem. It's the morons who still live in the Dark Ages, don't believe in anything

until it kicks them in the damn ass.

[CrispyQ]

4. Not sure I agree it's just the morons holding us back.

I see lots of smart people thinking one quarter ahead instead of seven generations. We're consuming our planet for the profit of a few & destroying our ecosystem along the way.

[NNadir]

6. That is precisely the major problem; we live in a culture of self absorbed short term thinkers with no...

...consideration of future generations.

It is really, really, really, really difficult to get this ethical consideration to even enter into the conversation. We hear, for instance, from nominally intelligent people who are still yet complete assholes, that nuclear energy is "too expensive," as if climate change isn't "too expensive." These same types, perhaps not intellectual morons but certainly moral morals, are in a mad rush to consume everything left to consume in terms of the best remaining ores and materials, not to mention vast land and sea areas, for a short term industrialization and development scam - so called "renewable energy" - while patting themselves on the back and declaring themselves "environmentalists."

I note that here in New Jersey, the "League of Conservation Voters" is actually the "League of Development Pushers," who for reasons I can't understand feel the need to send me emails all the time to tell me how I should tear the shit out of New Jersey's benthic ecosystem for wind turbines that will do nothing more than to assure our dependence on dangerous natural gas. Every wind turbine built in this State will be landfill less than 20 years after its construction, with the bill coming due and falling on today's toddlers.

It is rare to see anyone who recognizes this, and so thank you for noting it.

[erronis]

2. "We're clueless." - Unfortunately the world will probably only be clued in when it is too late.

Thanks for keeping us posted on the incredible/horrible continuing increase in the CO2 levels at Mauna Loa (and around the world), and the current state of alternative energy sources.

In the end we will need to accept the power of nuclear fission (and with hope, fusion) to supply our needs. The little I know of the renewable non-nuclear options, they do not supply enough to keep humankind surviving. Of course if we lose 99% of the population and move into caves again, we may survive with burning biomass as we did for 100,000s of years.

[Goddessartist]

5. Thank you

for this and your other posts. This and the collapse of the Thwaites glacier should wake people up, but it won't.

[NNadir]

7. The observatory has revised the CO2 concentration figures for last week upwards to 425.21 ppm.

This means that the week to week comparators between week 7 of 2024 and week 7 of 2023 is now 5.53 ppm higher.

Week beginning on February 18, 2024: 425.21 ppm
Weekly value from 1 year ago: 419.68 ppm
Weekly value from 10 years ago: 398.53 ppm
Last updated: February 25, 2024

Weekly average CO2 at Mauna Loa

This does not change any of positions of values in the OP in terms of comparisons with other data from the 2507 data points in the record. This is 2nd largest increase from year to year in any week on record there, after the 5.75 ppm value set two weeks earlier.