Still getting worse, which means global warming is too.

Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, where CO2 measurements are made annually, including the new record-breaking ones NOAA

Climate scientists have reported the highest levels of carbon dioxide ever recorded in the atmosphere. The latest in a long line of record-breaking years saw the world hit a grim new milestone of 50 percent higher than pre-industrial levels, a concentration not seen in over 4 million years.

Measurements made by the Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory in Hawaii revealed that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere peaked at 420.99 parts per million (ppm) in May. An independent team of scientists at the Scripps Institute was in close agreement, recording a monthly average of 420.78 ppm.

This is the highest CO2 concentration ever recorded in human history – and if that statement sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve been consistently breaking that record over the last few years. In May 2021 the record was set at 419.13 ppm, up from 416.21 ppm in May 2020, and 415.26 ppm in May 2019. For reference, scientists consider 350 ppm a safe level, as reflected in the name of the climate-focused non-profit organization 350.org.

A graph illustrating the mean monthly carbon dioxide measured at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii since the 1950s NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory, Scripps Institute of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego

Having breached the 420 ppm milestone for the first time, atmospheric CO2 levels are now 50 percent higher than pre-industrial levels, which consistently hovered around 280 ppm for the almost 6,000 years of human civilization. In fact, Earth hasn’t seen CO2 levels this high for over 4 million years, during a period known as the Pliocene Climatic Optimum.

The relentless increase of carbon dioxide measured at Mauna Loa is a stark reminder that we need to take urgent, serious steps to become a more Climate Ready Nation. Rick Spinrad, NOAA

At that point, average temperatures were 3.9 °C (7 °F) higher than the pre-industrial baseline, and sea levels were between 5 and 25 m (16 and 82 ft) higher than today. And since it looks like our record-breaking won’t be slowing down any time soon, we might be headed that way again, with disastrous consequences.

“The science is irrefutable: humans are altering our climate in ways that our economy and our infrastructure must adapt to,” said NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad. “We can see the impacts of climate change around us every day. The relentless increase of carbon dioxide measured at Mauna Loa is a stark reminder that we need to take urgent, serious steps to become a more Climate Ready Nation.”

https://newatlas.com/environment/atmospheric-co2-50-percent-higher-pre-industrial-levels/

Hasn’t even got bad yet, going to be fun when climate change really kicks in

Lies

Mauna Loa was originally chosen as a monitoring site because, located far from any continent, the air was sampled and is a good average for the central Pacific. Being high, it is above the inversion layer where most of the local effects are present and there was already a rough road to the summit built by the military. The contamination from local volcanic sources is sometimes detected at the observatory, and is then removed from the background data

I was wondering if it was high up and remote which it it.
So it could even be giving us a best worse case scenario of CO2 levels

It’s really zooming huh

Well the population is probably 50% higher.

Peak Warming Man said:

Well the population is probably 50% higher.

OMG it looks like……….gulp………..it looks like a hockey stick.

Peak Warming Man said:

Peak Warming Man said:

Well the population is probably 50% higher.

OMG it looks like……….gulp………..it looks like a hockey stick.

It is going to start coming back down again pretty soon.

Peak Warming Man said:

Well the population is probably 50% higher.

Have a think, man.

And temperatures are what, 1 degree C higher?

mollwollfumble said:

And temperatures are what, 1 degree C higher?

The internet says about 1.3 degrees since 1860.

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

And temperatures are what, 1 degree C higher?

The internet says about 1.3 degrees since 1860.

So only 1.7 degrees left to dooom.

roughbarked said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

And temperatures are what, 1 degree C higher?

The internet says about 1.3 degrees since 1860.

So only 1.7 degrees left to dooom.

By which time world forests will double their growth rate because they are no longer starving due to lack of atmospheric CO2.

mollwollfumble said:

roughbarked said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

The internet says about 1.3 degrees since 1860.

So only 1.7 degrees left to dooom.

By which time world forests will double their growth rate because they are no longer starving due to lack of atmospheric CO2.

Trees and forests need water on a regular basis, but with global warming there will be more floods and drought that on their own will change the ecology of the forests, but the extra co2, although a fertilizer, it will mainly advantage fast growing and generally short lived vegetation to the disadvantage of slower growing species that will be smothered and die by the faster growing species. So forests and probably their entire ecosystems will change and not for the better. That is assuming the bushfires from increased temperatures and drier conditions do not wipe them out beforehand.

PermeateFree said:

mollwollfumble said:

roughbarked said:

So only 1.7 degrees left to dooom.

By which time world forests will double their growth rate because they are no longer starving due to lack of atmospheric CO2.

Trees and forests need water on a regular basis, but with global warming there will be more floods and drought that on their own will change the ecology of the forests, but the extra co2, although a fertilizer, it will mainly advantage fast growing and generally short lived vegetation to the disadvantage of slower growing species that will be smothered and die by the faster growing species. So forests and probably their entire ecosystems will change and not for the better. That is assuming the bushfires from increased temperatures and drier conditions do not wipe them out beforehand.

I wonder if rapid tree growth is something we could do with genetically modified trees to speed up reforestation.

Cymek said:

PermeateFree said:

mollwollfumble said:

By which time world forests will double their growth rate because they are no longer starving due to lack of atmospheric CO2.

Trees and forests need water on a regular basis, but with global warming there will be more floods and drought that on their own will change the ecology of the forests, but the extra co2, although a fertilizer, it will mainly advantage fast growing and generally short lived vegetation to the disadvantage of slower growing species that will be smothered and die by the faster growing species. So forests and probably their entire ecosystems will change and not for the better. That is assuming the bushfires from increased temperatures and drier conditions do not wipe them out beforehand.

I wonder if rapid tree growth is something we could do with genetically modified trees to speed up reforestation.

There would be a lack of biodiversity due to the limited number of tree species, that would reflect on animal species attracted to the fast growth forests. Not good.

PermeateFree said:

Cymek said:

PermeateFree said:

Trees and forests need water on a regular basis, but with global warming there will be more floods and drought that on their own will change the ecology of the forests, but the extra co2, although a fertilizer, it will mainly advantage fast growing and generally short lived vegetation to the disadvantage of slower growing species that will be smothered and die by the faster growing species. So forests and probably their entire ecosystems will change and not for the better. That is assuming the bushfires from increased temperatures and drier conditions do not wipe them out beforehand.

I wonder if rapid tree growth is something we could do with genetically modified trees to speed up reforestation.

There would be a lack of biodiversity due to the limited number of tree species, that would reflect on animal species attracted to the fast growth forests. Not good.

> it will mainly advantage fast growing and generally short lived vegetation

NO!

Exactly the opposite. Look up “C3 vs C4 photosynthesis” on the web. The C4 plants are the fastest growing. The C3 plants are the slowest growing. It’s the slow growing C3 plants that benefit from increased CO2, not the fast growing C4 plants.

mollwollfumble said:

PermeateFree said:

Cymek said:

I wonder if rapid tree growth is something we could do with genetically modified trees to speed up reforestation.

There would be a lack of biodiversity due to the limited number of tree species, that would reflect on animal species attracted to the fast growth forests. Not good.

> it will mainly advantage fast growing and generally short lived vegetation

NO!

Exactly the opposite. Look up “C3 vs C4 photosynthesis” on the web. The C4 plants are the fastest growing. The C3 plants are the slowest growing. It’s the slow growing C3 plants that benefit from increased CO2, not the fast growing C4 plants.

Key points:

Photorespiration is a wasteful pathway that occurs when the Calvin cycle enzyme rubisco acts on oxygen rather than carbon dioxide. The majority of plants are C3\text C_3C3​start text, C, end text, start subscript, 3, end subscript plants, which have no special features to combat photorespiration. C4\text C_4C4​start text, C, end text, start subscript, 4, end subscript plants minimize photorespiration by separating initial CO2\text {CO}_2CO2​start text, C, O, end text, start subscript, 2, end subscript fixation and the Calvin cycle in space, performing these steps in different cell types. Crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) plants minimize photorespiration and save water by separating these steps in time, between night and day.

Comparisons of C3\text C_3C3​start text, C, end text, start subscript, 3, end subscript, C4\text C_4C4​start text, C, end text, start subscript, 4, end subscript, and CAM plants
C3\text C_3C3​start text, C, end text, start subscript, 3, end subscript, C4\text C_4C4​start text, C, end text, start subscript, 4, end subscript and CAM plants all use the Calvin cycle to make sugars from CO2\text {CO}_2CO2​start text, C, O, end text, start subscript, 2, end subscript. These pathways for fixing CO2\text {CO}_2CO2​start text, C, O, end text, start subscript, 2, end subscript have different advantages and disadvantages and make plants suited for different habitats. The C3\text C_3C3​start text, C, end text, start subscript, 3, end subscript mechanism works well in cool environments, while C4\text C_4C4​start text, C, end text, start subscript, 4, end subscript and CAM plants are adapted to hot, dry areas.
Both the C4\text {C}_4C4​start text, C, end text, start subscript, 4, end subscript and CAM pathways have evolved independently over two dozen times, which suggests they may give plant species in hot climates a significant evolutionary advantage5^55start superscript, 5, end superscript.
Type Separation of initial CO2\text {CO}_2CO2​start text, C, O, end text, start subscript, 2, end subscript fixation and Calvin cycle Stomata open Best adapted to
C3\text C_3C3​start text, C, end text, start subscript, 3, end subscript No separation Day Cool, wet environments
C4\text C_4C4​start text, C, end text, start subscript, 4, end subscript Between mesophyll and bundle-sheath cells (in space) Day Hot, sunny environments
CAM Between night and day (in time) Night Very hot, dry environments.

link

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Attribution:
This article is a modified derivative of “Photosynthetic pathways,” by Robert Bear and David Rintoul, OpenStax CNX, CC BY 4.0. Download the original article for free at http://cnx.org/contents/d0b6df3d-22b7-411f-8f28-5eeed0e1c82d@9.
The modified article is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
Works cited:

Walker, Berkeley J., VanLoocke, Andy, Bernacchi, Carl J., and Ort, Donald R. (2016). The cost of photorespiration to food production now and in the future. Annual Review of Plant Biology 67, 107. ://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev-arplant-043015-111709. Reece, J. B., Urry, L. A., Cain, M. L., Wasserman, S. A., Minorsky, P. V., and Jackson, R. B. (2011). Alternative mechanisms of carbon fixation have evolved in hot, arid climates. In Campbell biology (10th ed.) San Francisco, CA: Pearson, 201. Crassulacean acid metabolism. (2016, May 29). Retrieved July 22, 2016 from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crassulacean_acid_metabolism#Biochemistry. Raven, Peter H., Johnson, George B., Losos, Mason, Kenneth A., Losos, Jonathan B., and Singer, Susan R. (2014). Photorespiration. In Biology (10th ed., AP ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 165.

5.Guralnick, Lonnie J., Amanda Cline, Monica Smith, and Rowan F. Sage. (2008). Evolutionary physiology: the extent of C4 and CAM photosynthesis in the genera Anacampseros and Grahamia of the Portulacaceae. Journal of Experimental Botany, 59(7), 1735-1742. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jxb/ern081.
References:
Bareja, B. (2015). Plant types: II. In C4 plants, examples, and C4 families. Retrieved from http://www.cropsreview.com/c4-plants.html.
Berg, J. M., Tymoczko, J. L., and Stryer, L. (2002). The Calvin cycle synthesizes hexoses from carbon dioxide and water. In Biochemistry (5th ed., section 20.1). New York, NY: W. H. Freeman. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22344/.
Bowsher, C., Steer, M., and Tobin, A. (2008). Photosynthetic carbon assimilation. In Plant biochemistry (pp. 93-141). New York, NY: Garland Science.
C4 carbon fixation. (2015, September 26). Retrieved October 26, 2015 from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C4_carbon_fixation.
Crassulacean acid metabolism. (2015, September 16). Retrieved October 26, 2015 from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crassulacean_acid_metabolism.
De, D. (2000). Crassulacean acid metabolism. In Plant cell vacuoles: an introduction (pp. 186-187). Collingwood, VIC: CSIRO Publishing.
Guralnick, Lonnie J., Amanda Cline, Monica Smith, and Rowan F. Sage. (2008). Evolutionary physiology: the extent of C4 and CAM photosynthesis in the genera Anacampseros and Grahamia of the Portulacaceae. Journal of Experimental Botany, 59(7), 1735-1742. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jxb/ern081.
Koning, R. E. (1994). Photorespiration. In Plant physiology information website. Retrieved from http://plantphys.info/plant_physiology/photoresp.shtml.
Photorespiration. (2015, September 4). Retrieved October 26, 2015 from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photorespiration.
Photosynthesis – an overview. (n.d.) In Biomes. Retrieved fromhttp://w3.marietta.edu/~biol/biomes/photosynthesis.htm.
Purves, W.K., Sadava, D., Orians, G.H., and Heller, H.C. (2003). Photosynthesis: energy from the sun. In Life: the science of biology (7th ed., pp. 145-162). Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, Inc.
Raven, Peter H., Johnson, George B., Losos, Mason, Kenneth A., Losos, Jonathan B., and Singer, Susan R. (2014). Photorespiration. In Biology (10th ed., AP ed., pp. 163-165). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Reece, J. B., Urry, L. A., Cain, M. L., Wasserman, S. A., Minorsky, P. V., and Jackson, R. B. (2011). Alternative mechanisms of carbon fixation have evolved in hot, arid climates. In Campbell biology (10th ed., pp. 201-204). San Francisco, CA: Pearson.
RuBisCO. (n.d.) In Combining algal and plant photosynthesis. Retrieved from https://cambridgecapp.wordpress.com/improving-photosynthesis/rubisco/.
Trueman, Shanon. (n.d.). CAM plants: survival in the desert. In History of botany. Retrieved from http://botany.about.com/od/HistoryBotany/a/Cam-Plants-Survival-In-The-Desert.htm.
Walker, Berkeley J., VanLoocke, Andy, Bernacchi, Carl J., and Ort, Donald R. (2016). The cost of photorespiration to food production now and in the future. Annual Review of Plant Biology 67, 107-129. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev-arplant-043015-111709. Vascular bundle. (2015, October 19). Retrieved October 26, 2015 from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vascular_bundle.
Are you a student or a teacher?

mollwollfumble said:

PermeateFree said:

Cymek said:

I wonder if rapid tree growth is something we could do with genetically modified trees to speed up reforestation.

There would be a lack of biodiversity due to the limited number of tree species, that would reflect on animal species attracted to the fast growth forests. Not good.

> it will mainly advantage fast growing and generally short lived vegetation

NO!

Exactly the opposite. Look up “C3 vs C4 photosynthesis” on the web. The C4 plants are the fastest growing. The C3 plants are the slowest growing. It’s the slow growing C3 plants that benefit from increased CO2, not the fast growing C4 plants.

>>Difference Between C3 and C4 Plants
C3 plants are defined as plants that exhibit the C3 pathway. These plants use the Calvin cycle in the dark reaction of photosynthesis. The leaves of C3 plants do not show Kranz anatomy. Here the photosynthesis process takes place only when the stomata are open. Approximately 95% of the shrubs, trees, and plants are C3 plants.

On the other hand, C4 plants are defined as the plants that use the C4 pathway or Hatch-Slack pathway during the dark reaction. The leaves possess kranz anatomy, and the chloroplasts of these plants are dimorphic. About 5% of plants on earth are C4 plants.<<

https://byjus.com/biology/difference-between-c3-and-c4-plants/

The C4 plants are mainly herbaceous plants that do not sequester much co2 when compared to C3 plants that make up the majority of species, especially in forests.

Still spreading misinformation PF

PermeateFree said:

mollwollfumble said:

PermeateFree said:

There would be a lack of biodiversity due to the limited number of tree species, that would reflect on animal species attracted to the fast growth forests. Not good.

> it will mainly advantage fast growing and generally short lived vegetation

NO!

Exactly the opposite. Look up “C3 vs C4 photosynthesis” on the web. The C4 plants are the fastest growing. The C3 plants are the slowest growing. It’s the slow growing C3 plants that benefit from increased CO2, not the fast growing C4 plants.

>>Difference Between C3 and C4 Plants
C3 plants are defined as plants that exhibit the C3 pathway. These plants use the Calvin cycle in the dark reaction of photosynthesis. The leaves of C3 plants do not show Kranz anatomy. Here the photosynthesis process takes place only when the stomata are open. Approximately 95% of the shrubs, trees, and plants are C3 plants.

On the other hand, C4 plants are defined as the plants that use the C4 pathway or Hatch-Slack pathway during the dark reaction. The leaves possess kranz anatomy, and the chloroplasts of these plants are dimorphic. About 5% of plants on earth are C4 plants.<<

https://byjus.com/biology/difference-between-c3-and-c4-plants/

The C4 plants are mainly herbaceous plants that do not sequester much co2 when compared to C3 plants that make up the majority of species, especially in forests.

Yes. The man was talking about food production. Not forests.