Talk:Keeling Curve

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Estimation of yearly time series
As the time series plot suggests exponential rather than just linear growth of yearly CO2, I suggest that an estimate of this curve be supplied along with the relevant reference. Does anyone know of a reference we could use?Lee De Cola (talk) 03:49, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Graph
This page seems to demand actual pictures of said "graph". Can somebody please provide them? --84.178.200.21 08:00, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Done! Jamesg 08:15, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Why is the graph that is shown here using the standard technique of graphical distortion? Please see Edward Tufte's book "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" for a full discription of "lie factors" and how to distort information using graphics.

There is no excuse for using a graph where the baseline has been moved to 310 rather than 0. This serves the purpose of distorting the information and exaggerating the changes in the data by approximately a factor of 5. This is simply biasing the subject and is inappropriate for any balanced and accurate description.

First, please sign your posts using four tildes. Second, I do not see that as a lie factor. Anyone who is seriously examining the graph should note the scales. It would be a lie if the scales were removed - otherwise it just shows a laziness on the part of a reader not to observe these scales. I agree that there is a lot of information around biasing the subject one way or another, but this graph is not - the scale is right there for all to see. 81.100.182.131 (talk) 11:55, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

No, it is perfectly acceptable (and indeed recommended) scientific practice to start the axis of a graph at a sensible number. This avoids wasting space and cramming all the data in one part of the graph and leaving the rest blank. Take a look at any scientific journal or even school textbook. Booshank (talk) 21:30, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

header?
66.183.212.147 This graph was used because that is all the data that has been collected. It is not using a technique of graphical distortion - measurements only started in 1958, at 315ppmv; hence the graph starts there. There are many other graphs on atmposheric CO2 levels involving geologically much longer timeframe which use "0" baselines.

As a side note, if you're informed at all about global warming and climate change, you'll know there's no exaggeration required. The facts are shocking enough. Mikesnowcat 66.183.212.147 04:52, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

The practice of rescaling is common enough in the sciences (despite Tufte's admonition), and its validity depends on what you want to highlight. I will sometimes do as done here if I want to draw attention to details of the annual cycles or the differences between northern and southern hemispheres (the South Pole data are not shown here, though). But if the intention is to highlight the increase over pre-industrial levels -- as seems to be the case here -- then I would agree that the graph should be re-scaled so that zero is the origin on the y-axis. It does NOT involve adding new data. C Stevenson 10:05, 19 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Pre-industrial levels were 280, not zero! And this graph is about the Keeling data, not pre-ind. If you want to see that, then Image:Carbon Dioxide 400kyr-2.png is good William M. Connolley 10:11, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

While it is common to rescale, I agree that it can be misleading, but also unnecessary. A more proper way to present this data would be to normalize it, or better yet, present it as a percent change from a baseline value. I found the raw data at: http://cdiac.esd.ornl.gov/ftp/maunaloa-co2/maunaloa.co2  If the average CO2 level for the first year with complete data were used as the baseline (1959), then the trend that is desired can be shown without any distortion of the axes. In fact, I think it shows the trend to be even more impressive than what is shown here.--Jbaylor 20:05, 1 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm rather baffled why the current representation isn't what you want. Why rescale it, or present it as % change - whats the point? William M. Connolley 20:30, 1 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I was concurring with the argument that data in general ought to be plotted on a scale that includes zero so the scale and absolute change is readily obvious. Highlighting changes in data by distorting the axes on which they are plotted can be arbitrary.  Since the purpose for showing this data as it is presented is to visualize the change in CO2, then calculating and plotting a change in CO2 would be most accurate and show the same trend just as dramatically.  Also, for someone who is not familiar with what the concentration should be, seeing a percent change over the years can have a more significant impact.  That being said, if the purpose for this Wiki page is to preserve the plot itself as Keeling presented it and not the data, then it ought not be changed (assuming this is how he presented it).  But if this page is about the data and the change in CO2 over the years it was collected, then from a data visualization perspective I suggest the change in CO2 be plotted.--Jbaylor 17:34, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I am shocked ( well not really ) that this graoh is the one we always see - walking down the hall just barely and I ran into it. This is the graph you would whip out if you wanted to scare the begeesus out of someone who didn't have much of a math/science background ( and a lot who do ). Starting at zero the graph would not be very convincing, unless of course you made it really really really.. narrow. Likewise, going all the way back to 1958 must almost make a climatologist roll on the ground with laughter. ie If there is a seasonal fluctuation, I'll bet there is asseveral other longer term fluctuations - the only question is where and on which fluctuation we are at this point in time. The whole curve would be more interesting if it preceded warming and didn't follow ( hard to be a perdictor when you arrive after the party).159.105.80.141 (talk) 14:14, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Error Bars
Can we get error bars on this graph?


 * Reasonable question. I think the answer is that they are too small to worry about. Looking at the Scipps site they quote values to 5 sig figs which is perhaps more than the accuracy, but I don't know William M. Connolley 21:48, 7 August 2007 (UTC)


 * The measurement error is well below the size of the annual wiggle, and so would basically be imperceptible. Dragons flight 22:35, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Our duplicate flask measurements were usually tight within 0.2 ppm User:Justin Lancaster; Feb 2018 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.20.123.115 (talk) 10:18, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

Mauno Lao is a volcano
The keeling curve is supposed to measure the concentration of CO2 emitted by man in the atmosphere, however, this measurement was done near a volcano which is situated atop one of the biggest volcanic hot spot on earth. One of the major emissions of volcanoes is CO2. Shouldn't this be discussed in this article on the keeling curve. It seems possible that the keeling curve would only be a good measure of the recent volcanic activity in Mauna Loa.
 * This is thoroughly addressed in the current version of the article. Kaldari (talk) 22:18, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * One sentence is NOT thorough, but it is there: "Keeling and his collaborators measured the incoming ocean breeze above the thermal inversion layer to minimize local contamination from volcanic vents" + citation in Analytical Chemistry User:ScotXW t@lk 08:37, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Seconding the call to discuss: Mauna Loa is an *active* volcano
In fact, Mauna Loa is described as the largest active volcano on Earth (Wikipedia). We all know volcanoes emit an enormous amount of CO2. So there are 2 questions: 1. Why on Earth would you strive to measure CO2 levels with the goal of correlating it to human activity, atop one of the largest single natural sources of C02? 2. Can this increase in CO2 concentration be recreated in measurements made elsewhere? For example, let's not make the measurement at Mauna Loa. Let's try another mountain, a non-volcanic mountain. Can this be reproduced?

These questions need to be answered to add credibility to the Keeling Curve.
 * The Mauna Loa record is the oldest real-time record of CO2 changes. However, there have been countless records collected all over the planet since that time (including at the South Pole) which have corroborated the data. Kaldari (talk) 19:29, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I have added a new paragraph at the bottom of the article to address this. Kaldari (talk) 19:40, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Question 1: What has been the original hypothesis of Keeling to set up the measurements? Why Mauna Loa? Farhad Taghibakhsh (talk) 19:08, 31 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Because its a long way away from anthropogenic contamination William M. Connolley (talk) 19:41, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

But what you said doesn't sound right. A couple of examples showing the Mauna Loa is not far from anthropogenic contamination: Hawaiian islands have more than 10 active airports with air traffic of (2007): + 36,000,000 passengers (8.9% increase from 2006), + 610,000 tons of cargo (0.9% increase), + 1,000,000 aircraft takeoff and landings (4.7% decrease). See: http://www6.hawaii.gov/dot/airports/publications/cysmallone.pdf The main source of energy for electricity in Hawaiian islands is petroleum, with + 9,000,000 metric tons of CO2 released in 2006. See: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/st_profiles/hawaii.html Add to this all the ships and motor boats around the islands and all other contamination sources associated with an active touristic and military area in Hawaiian islands (the distance between Mauna Loa and Honolulu is less than 350km). If 350km looks long way away, Kona and Hillo international airports in the Hawaii island are less than 50km away from Mauna Loa Observatory, with air traffic of + 4,800,000 passengers (~9% increase) and + 240,000 aircraft operations in 2007! (same Ref. as above). So, Mauna Loa Observatory cannot be considered far from anthropogenic contamination as you said. Distances were estimated from Google Map. Farhad Taghibakhsh (talk) 21:33, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Ermmm... why are you asking about K's original setup, in the early 1950's, but quoting airports from 2007? Do you think him unusually prescient? (some might argue he was, but in other ways). Also, the top of ML gets its air from well above the ground, so probably misses most of that local stuff. Also, all this is relative: its still a lot less than continental US William M. Connolley (talk) 21:54, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * (ec) If you make measurements on the incoming ocean breeze (which is what they do), then you avoid contamination from the island activity and the volcanoes. Besides, other sites in Antarctica, the Aleutians, American Samoa, etc. get the same numbers and the same trend to within a few ppmv, and that reproducibility largely makes the question of contamination moot. Dragons flight (talk) 21:59, 7 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Dragonsflight, William M. Connolley: Do you have any evidence for this claim? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.44.149.39 (talk) 09:52, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
 * If you're referring to the claim that other sites corroborate the Mauna Loa data, I linked to the studies only a few paragraphs above. Besides, the whole issue is a red herring. The data is normalized for contamination. Kaldari (talk) 16:31, 28 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I remove the claim Mauna Loa not an active volcano. As mentioned in my edit summary, I didn't read the ref so I don't know what it said but it obviously couldn't say in 1978 that Mauna Loa was inactive in 2013. At the time of my edit summary I missed a section in the Mauna Loa article which describes the activity in more detail after 1950 it entered a period of dormancy with a small event in 1975 (before the ref) and then a more major eruption in 1984 (and nothing since). Our article suggests it's generally considered active and I suspect this was always the case 1958, 1978 and now, but of course the terminology is somewhat unscientific with no clear definition anyway and ultimately seems unimportant. May be the ref was saying the volcano was not actively eruption unlike the neighbouring Kīlauea volcano which of course was true for most of the time the monitoring was carried out but either way, I'm not sure how important this is since the main thrust is it doesn't matter (which is good, since it seems possible the situation for Mauna Loa could change sometime in the near future although you could perhaps then show there was no sudden change when this happened although as per Talk:Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere/Archive 1, some people are already complaining about the effect of Kīlauea). Nil Einne (talk) 15:16, 13 May 2013 (UTC)


 * On the issue of Dave sampling at Mauna Loa, as mentioned above, this was owing to the ability to get above the boundary layer at that site, which is important to get a good representation of the well-mixed air over the mid-Pacific. The sampling was always selected to be upwind of any emissions at the site, with intake restricted/selected based on wind direction.  The other stations certainly corroborate the picture we saw at Mauna Loa, however there is a phasing to the signal as you move south from the main input latitudes.  This is fairly well understood by analyzing with mixing and transport models that utilized isotopic tracers to improve ability to discern the dynamics.

User:Justin Lancaster; Feb, 2018 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.20.123.115 (talk) 10:29, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

First appearance of the Keeling Curve
I was trying to find out when the Keeling Curve made its first appearance. Looks like it was probably: But I haven't been able to verify that. Kaldari (talk) 20:03, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * J. C. Pales and C. D. Keeling, The Concentration of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide in Hawaii, Journal of Geophysical Research, 70, 6053-6076, 1965.
 * According to other sources it was probably several years before this. Kaldari (talk) 22:20, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The Keeling's famous article is C. D. Keeling, The Concentration and Isotopic Abundances of Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere, Tellus, 12, 200-203, 1960. This is the first year when an observation of the year-on-year increase became possible - and Keeling has made the observation. Dimawik (talk) 05:48, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikiproject Earth
Hello i have recently proposed the Wikiproject Earth. This Wikiproject`s scope includes this article. This wikiproject will overview the continents, oceans, atsmophere and global warming Please Voice your opinion by clicking anywhere on this comment except for my name. --IwilledituTalk :)Contributions —Preceding comment was added at 15:38, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Housekeeping
I added a bit of news, but I malformed the footnote & don't know how to code it correctly. Would someone please clean up after me? TIA. The Sanity Inspector (talk) 14:57, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Maybe a picture of Ralph Keeling himself while he was working at the field station could be applied to this article? Price793 (talk) 21:53, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

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Lack of information and examples
Information in this article seems sparse and the sources do not seem well-utilized. Furthermore, the article is filled with jargon and may serve to confuse the reader by assuming the reader knows more than he or she actually does. The measurements at Mauna Loa are well discussed throughout the article, but the other examples listed in the introduction where the measuring was actually perfected are virtually absent in the rest of the article. Mauna Loa was of course very important in giving the Keeling Curve and its creator scientific legitimacy; however, more information could definitely be given to illuminate how the process came about and the data that was recorded before the CO2 measurements at Mauna Loa were taken. Njl tredita (talk) 03:35, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Bibliography:

Betts, Richard A; Jones, Chris D; Knight, Jeff R; Keeling, Ralph F; Kennedy, John J (2016). “El niño and a record CO2 rise”. Nature climate change. 6(9): 806-810. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3063

Golden, Barry; Grooms, Jonathon; Sampson, Victor; Oliveri, Robin(2012). “Generating arguments about climate change”. Science scope. 35(7): 26-34. https://search.proquest.com/docview/927534580/fulltextPDF/95967460DCF547C5PQ/1?accountid=11107

Harris, Daniel C (2010). “Charles David Keeling and the story of atmospheric CO2 measurements”. Analytical chemistry. 82(19): 7865-7870. https://doi.org/10.1021/ac10011492

Nisbet, Euan (2007). “Cinderella science”. Nature. 450(7171): 789-790. https://doi.org/10.1038/450789a

Pataki, D E; Ehleringer, J R; Flanagan L B; Yakir, D; Bowling, D R; Still, CJ; Buchmann, N; Kaplan, J O; Berry, J A (2003). “The application and interpretation of Keeling plots in terrestrial carbon cycle research”. Global biogeochemical cycles. 17(1). https://doi.org/10.1029/2001GB001850

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 15:22, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Ralph Keeling, Charles D. Keeling's son.png

Ice core measures
This article is about the Keeling Curve, but I strongly suggest to nontheless keep a section "Ice core" in the article with some explanations and links to other projects which try to measure CO2 in the atmosphere, since, I guess, most people want rather that the only the Keeling Curve. Even more important is the questions whether more data is collected today! In Micronesia, Himalaja or wherever. User:ScotXW t@lk 17:04, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
 * The paragraph you added is not encyclopaedic. In contains a sentence "Read about x", there is an exclamation mark, and on the whole, it just gives your opinion that the Keeling curve is missing something. --Hob Gadling (talk) 19:33, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

Needs more graphs
Needs graphs to show IPCC high, low, and medium case.

e.g. SHARP DROP IN HALF FOLLOWED BY SLOW STEADY REDUCTION RESULTS IN FREEZING AT CURRENT LEVELS https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/wp-content/plugins/sio-bluemoon/graphs/stable_scenario.png

BUT: If CO2 frozen at current levels, doesn't the temperature continue to rise rapidly, as it has been doing at these or lower levels?

Graphs are needed with CO2 levels, high, low, and medium case for CO2 reductions, with projected temperature increase for each, and pointers to likely outcomes globally.

https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/wp-content/plugins/sio-bluemoon/graphs/RCP6_scenario.png — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ocdctx (talk • contribs) 00:38, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

COVID-19 effect?
Theoretically, carbon dioxide emissions should be abnormally low in part of 2020 because of so much being shutdown (less driving, for one thing). When data for 2020 is available, the article will need to be updated to indicate whether the rate of increase was less than normal.47.139.46.148 (talk) 05:08, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

What is "Curve" capitalised?
What is "Curve" in the title capitalised? Shouldn't it be "Keeling curve"? --Mortense (talk) 12:17, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Agreed.  J947  † edits 23:28, 21 July 2022 (UTC)