From rmg3@access2.digex.net Sun Sep 28 08:46:55 EDT 1997
Article: 38722 of sci.geo.meteorology
Path: digex!news2.digex.net!digex.net!not-for-mail
From: rmg3@access2.digex.net (Robert Grumbine)
Newsgroups: sci.geo.meteorology
Subject: Re: Atmospheric CO2 Measurements ?
Date: 28 Sep 1997 08:46:39 -0400
Organization: Under construction
Lines: 34
Message-ID: <60ljjf$dgb@access2.digex.net>
References:  <60k1k6$97a$1@craggy.unca.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: access2.digex.net
Xref: digex sci.geo.meteorology:38722
Status: O

In article <60k1k6$97a$1@craggy.unca.edu>,
Frank Douglas Strait  wrote:
>Konrad Hambrick (konrad@netcom.com) wrote:
>: all --
>: 
>: I watched the last hour of Bruce Babbit's
>: speech at UMich on CSPAN last nite and he
>: said:
>: 
>:    :
>:    Atmospheric CO2 has increased 30 %
>:    over the past 200 years  ...
>
>Incorrect. Global CO2 has increased by more than 100% in the last 100
>years, as measured by the University of Hawaii (I think...the measurements
>have been done *somewhere* in Hawaii...I'll check my source). From
>somewhere around 175 ppm in the 1880s to about 350 ppm (depending on the
>time of year).

  Ralph Keeling started the Hawaii measurements in about 1957.  Levels
then were about 315 ppm.  We are now about about 365 ppm, rising about
1.5 ppm/year.  So about 20% in the last 40 years.

  Preindustrial values are obtained by examining air trapped in ice sheets,
especially the Greenland ice sheet.  These measurements lead to the
observation that preindustrial CO2 levels were about 280 ppm.  So we
are now about 30% higher than then.  Babbit's comment is surprisingly
accurate, therefore.

-- 
Robert Grumbine rmg3@access.digex.net
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much 
evidence and ease; this great facility makes them less appreciated than they 
would be had they been presented in a more abstruse manner." Two New Sciences