MAUNA LOA, HI – NOVEMBER 28: The Big Island’s Mauna Loa Volcano erupts on November 28, 2022 on the … [+]
A key record of increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and cornerstone of climate change data stalled the day after the Hawaiian volcano, Mauna Loa, began erupting.
The Keeling Curve gets its name from Charles David Keeling, the scientist who began recording atmospheric carbon dioxide levels at the Mauna Loa observatory in 1958. Over the past 60 years, it has been a stalwart indicator of how human activity is increasing carbon dioxide levels to a level not seen on this planet in nearly three million years (despite issues with funding, disruptions in power, and another eruption in 1984).
Carbon dioxide concentration at Mauna Loa Observatory, full recording ending on Dec. 1, 2022.
The Mauna Loa observatory was selected as the location for this record because it was far enough away from major land masses and the volcano was devoid of plants that could tamper with its readings. Nevertheless, the Keeling Curve’s iconic stair-step shape comes from the annual rise and fall of carbon dioxide levels as Northern hemisphere plants die-off during the winter and then return in the spring to take up carbon dioxide for photosynthesis.
While lava flows coming out of Mauna Loa observatory have slowed, the eruption is currently threatening a major highway on the Big Island. But, it still remains unclear what the state of the monitoring equipment is or if Mauna Loa remains the best venue for documenting ongoing climate change. So, researchers at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who have maintained the equipment generating the Keeling Curve since its conception, are now considering moving it to a new, possibly permanent, location.
