Paesta Podcasts

You Asked, We Answered! Transcript for the podcast We know that atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide have been increasing because we have the data! The story of collecting CO2 data begins in 1958, when a geochemist from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Dr. Charles Keeling, started collecting measurements of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at an observatory located over 11,000 feet in elevation on the Mauna Loa volcano on the big island of Hawaii. These systematic measurements Dr. Keeling started have become the most widely recognized record of human impact on Earth, linking rising levels of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels to the warming of the planet. In fact, this carbon dioxide data set is so significant, the Mauna Loa Observatory was named a National Chemical Historic Landmark in 2015! Although the measurements started in Hawaii, the Mauna Loa Observatory is currently one of several global locations, from Alaska to the South Pole, that collects and analyzes CO2 levels in air sam