Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Atmospheric CO2 Levels: Green, Orange, Red...

Since 412,000 BCE, atmospheric CO2 levels ranged; in a cyclical motion, from 182-299 ppmv. CO2 levels started an upward trend after 1604 and rose above the maximum historic threshold of 300 ppmv in 1912. A most recent recording of CO2 level from the Mauna Loa Observatory was at 381.9 ppmv in 2006.


I assembled the data in a Google Doc from the following sources:

Recent CO2 records:
- Mauna Loa Observatory atmospheric CO2 Data [1958 - present]

Historical paleoclimatic CO2 records:
- Law Dome, Antarctica DE08, DE08-2, and DSS ice cores [1006 - 1978]
- Vostok ice core Data in thousands of years BCE [-412,080 - -337]

Internet Search Queries on CO2 Levels (Source Google Insights for Search):



Internet Search Queries on Global Warming (Source Google Insights for Search):


Acknowledgments:
- Rafal Raciborski, Ph.D. candidate, Department of Political Science, Emory University - for scaling the x-axis

1 comment:

  1. Very intriguing findings.

    "A most recent recording of CO2 level from the Mauna Loa Observatory was at 381.9 ppmv in 2006"

    That's insane! How are we ever going to keep it from rising in the same way?

    - Jason, Resveratrol Researcher

    ReplyDelete