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Comment- No time to waste: now is the best time to record daily air quality across the globe

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  • Jun 13th, 2020 6:17 pm
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Mar 27th, 2020 9:27 am
SepTick [OP]
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Mar 15, 2020
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Mar 27th, 2020 9:27 am

Comment- No time to waste: now is the best time to record daily air quality across the globe

The air quality people have always wished for a reference point for determining it's present state. Now that they have most of the globe isolated away "9 to 5" jobs from burning fossil fuels to get to work, and airlines are cutting flights, (therefore not burning 20000 liters per flight), it's the best time to record daily air quality across the globe.

It's probably the best opportunity the world will ever get.
Last edited by SepTick on Mar 27th, 2020 9:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Mar 27th, 2020 11:48 am
mkjr
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gave up on rfd for g…

Mar 27th, 2020 11:48 am

I totally agree. I've seen sound studies for paris. Lots of great opportunities to gather scientific data in many different areas of environmental impact on cities.
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Mar 27th, 2020 12:11 pm
MexiCanuck
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Mar 27th, 2020 12:11 pm

One of the standard places for measuring CO2 is the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii. It is far enough away from major sources of CO2 production that it is not highly affected by nearby industrial activities.

Image

https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/

Daily CO2 readings are interesting, but it is the longer-term averages that are more significant. There is an annual cycle, so comparison to the reading on the same date of previous years is more useful than comparison to recent dates.

Image

The world is a big place. It may take a long time for changes in China, Europe, etc. to be reflected in daily readings.

https://www.co2.earth/weekly-co2
Last edited by MexiCanuck on Mar 27th, 2020 12:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Mar 27th, 2020 12:14 pm
Chickennbeans
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Mar 27th, 2020 12:14 pm

Absolutely! The level they track now is a realistic target to shoot for over the next 5-10 year horizon. If it weren't for the reduced air and cruise emissions, I'd even dare to say this is what we should aim for in less than 5 years.
Mar 27th, 2020 6:29 pm
spiritsBB
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Mar 27th, 2020 6:29 pm

What we humans called Coronavirus is medicine for Earth to rid us human-bacteria/viruses from producing toxic gaseous metabolites and slowing down our rates of building rectangular plaques onto it. This giant blue sphere is a petri dish for human-bacteria.
Mar 27th, 2020 6:41 pm
CocoJambo
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Mar 27th, 2020 6:41 pm

spiritsBB wrote: ↑ What we humans called Coronavirus is medicine for Earth to rid us human-bacteria/viruses from producing toxic gaseous metabolites and slowing down our rates of building rectangular plaques onto it. This giant blue sphere is a petri dish for human-bacteria.
Very philosophical, hard hitting and somewhat true
Apr 15th, 2020 1:30 pm
MexiCanuck
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Apr 15th, 2020 1:30 pm

Chickennbeans wrote: ↑ Absolutely! The level they track now is a realistic target to shoot for over the next 5-10 year horizon. If it weren't for the reduced air and cruise emissions, I'd even dare to say this is what we should aim for in less than 5 years.
The level we have now is the highest recorded at Mauna Loa. Changes in human behaviour do not result in immediate environmental or climate changes. That is part of what is insidious about short term human thinking, long term environmental damage, and climate change initiatives. People think, "We should wait until it gets worse before we do anything."

Here is current information from Mauna Loa.

Daily CO2
Apr. 14, 2020: 416.09 ppm
Apr. 14, 2019: 414.56 ppm

March CO2
Mar. 2020: 414.50 ppm
Mar. 2019: 411.97 ppm

We can see that both the March 2020 average and the April 14 daily readings are higher now than they were last year.

Image
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." Upton Sinclair

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Apr 15th, 2020 3:01 pm
Chickennbeans
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Apr 15th, 2020 3:01 pm

I'm certainly not an expert on global environmental monitoring, but given most urban shutdowns only began in late Feb and March, I doubt the the change will be captured for a while yet, but this is when enhanced collection should start so we capture the whole change. While remote monitoring locations may paint a better picture of broader shifts that have been achieved (and imo, with significant lag), I would expect monitoring closer to urban centres to be of primary importance in forecasting what potential change is achievable and what tunes our immediate actions.

I'd go further and say that while changes in human behaviour do not result in immediate climate changes, they most certainly can and do result in immediate environmental changes.
MexiCanuck wrote: ↑ The level we have now is the highest recorded at Mauna Loa. Changes in human behaviour do not result in immediate environmental or climate changes. That is part of what is insidious about short term human thinking, long term environmental damage, and climate change initiatives. People think, "We should wait until it gets worse before we do anything."

Here is current information from Mauna Loa.

Daily CO2
Apr. 14, 2020: 416.09 ppm
Apr. 14, 2019: 414.56 ppm

March CO2
Mar. 2020: 414.50 ppm
Mar. 2019: 411.97 ppm

We can see that both the March 2020 average and the April 14 daily readings are higher now than they were last year.

Image
Apr 15th, 2020 4:50 pm
Conquistador
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Apr 15th, 2020 4:50 pm

Chickennbeans wrote: ↑ Absolutely! The level they track now is a realistic target to shoot for over the next 5-10 year horizon. If it weren't for the reduced air and cruise emissions, I'd even dare to say this is what we should aim for in less than 5 years.
Yup, and all it requires is shutting down the entire planet, putting tens of millions of people out of work, and crashing the global economy! Huzzah!
Apr 15th, 2020 5:20 pm
Pardon
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Apr 15th, 2020 5:20 pm

Conquistador wrote: ↑ Yup, and all it requires is shutting down the entire planet, putting tens of millions of people out of work, and crashing the global economy! Huzzah!
Less than a minute between posts (from the travel forum) you stated this below as being glass half full guy.

"Comments here indicate a lot about peoples' personalities. Not hard to pick out the glass-half-full from the glass-half-empty people. One has to believe that the current situation will some day mitigate. It's just a question of when and what it looks like when we come out the other side."
Apr 15th, 2020 7:23 pm
Conquistador
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Apr 15th, 2020 7:23 pm

Pardon wrote: ↑ Less than a minute between posts (from the travel forum) you stated this below as being glass half full guy.

"Comments here indicate a lot about peoples' personalities. Not hard to pick out the glass-half-full from the glass-half-empty people. One has to believe that the current situation will some day mitigate. It's just a question of when and what it looks like when we come out the other side."
One minute or twenty-one minutes?

Either way, yours is a nice apples to aardvarks comparison. :rolleyes:

Listen, if you think that what's going on with the planet right now is the recipe for what some see as a problem with the climate, with any concrete results yet to be noticed, please share with us just how you think that you're going to maintain that recipe while also getting the entire planet re-started, putting tens of millions of people back to work, and getting the economy jump-started.

Aaaaaaaaand go!

People will be flying and cruising long before you come up with your plan and THAT'S a glass FULL outlook.
Jun 12th, 2020 9:07 pm
RSole
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Jun 12th, 2020 9:07 pm

Don't forget the reduction in airplane contrails (chemtrails for the tinfoil hat people) which are artificial clouds that can linger for hours at times, and contribute to weather change.

Did You Know: A slight change in altitude by jets can eliminate contrails and there is serious study on how to effect this.
Jun 13th, 2020 2:50 am
MexiCanuck
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Jun 13th, 2020 2:50 am

Covid is not saving us from poisoning our children.
May 2020 hit a record high, 417 parts per million (ppm) carbon dioxide as measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory, which has continually measured CO2 in the atmosphere since 1958.
Image

https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace ... deea4b229f
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." Upton Sinclair

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Jun 13th, 2020 6:43 am
vazilioz
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Jun 13th, 2020 6:43 am

Let's plant trees and stop cutting them.
Jun 13th, 2020 3:40 pm
RSole
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Jun 13th, 2020 3:40 pm

vazilioz wrote: ↑ Let's plant trees and stop cutting them.
Let's address the real "elephant in the room" and drastically reduce our population. The planet cannot sustain our numbers. Our population will be reduced, either voluntarily or by war/disease/environmental collapse, probably all three. Up until the 1800's there was always a new frontier for people to move to. No longer. Another big problem is that our economic models are like inverted pyramids where future, larger populations are expected to pay our debts.
Have a nice day!
Jun 13th, 2020 6:17 pm
MexiCanuck
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Jun 13th, 2020 6:17 pm

RSole wrote: ↑ Let's address the real "elephant in the room" and drastically reduce our population. The planet cannot sustain our numbers. Our population will be reduced, either voluntarily or by war/disease/environmental collapse, probably all three. Up until the 1800's there was always a new frontier for people to move to. No longer. Another big problem is that our economic models are like inverted pyramids where future, larger populations are expected to pay our debts.
Have a nice day!
The issue is not the number of people; the issue is the amount of resources those people consume and the amount of GHG they produce in the process. We in the west are the huge contributors to that issue.

Image

https://populationmatters.org/the-facts ... onsumption

Saying that we need to reduce the number of people is the easy way out. Each person can say, “There is nothing I can do about whether people in some far off country have more children, so I have no responsibility for climate change.”

It’s a cop out. The Canadian couple with one child, two ICE SUVs, having a 4000 sq foot concrete house built, heated by fossil fuels, where they can eat their beef four times a week can do more to reduce climate change than the Vegetarian farm worker couple In India who are having a third child.

Every person contributes to climate change. Every person can contribute to addressing climate change.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." Upton Sinclair

“Our house is on fire.” Greta Thunberg

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