Ams Climate Change Audio - Environmental Science Seminar Series (esss)

The Mauna Loa CO2 Record: From the Era of Discovery to the Era of Consequences 2008 marks the 50th anniversary of the Mauna Loa and South Pole CO2 records, which are the longest continuous time series of atmospheric CO2 levels. These records have played a critical role in advancing research on global warming by establishing the reality of increasing CO2 and providing a quantitative basis to assess the impact of human activities on atmospheric CO2. From 1958 to 2008, the CO2 levels at Mauna Loa increased from 315 to 385 part-per-million. The records establish that an amount of CO2 equivalent to 56% of the global emissions of fossil-fuel burning over this period has been retained in the air. The remaining 44% has therefore been absorbed by the oceans and land plants. Our ability to predict the impact of future emissions on the CO2 loading of the atmosphere and hence future climate hinges critically not only on future CO2 emissions, but also on the behavior of these land and ocean sinks. Over the past dec