Happy Birthday, Keeling Curve! 50 Years Since Global CO2 Survey System Started On Mauna Loa

Fifty years ago the U.S. Weather Bureau, predecessor of NOAA’s National Weather Service, helped sponsor a young scientist from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography to begin tracking carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere at two of the planet’s most remote and pristine sites: the South Pole and the summit of the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii. This week NOAA, Scripps, the World Meteorological Organization, and other organizations will celebrate the half-century anniversary of the global record of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere—often referred to as the “Keeling Curve” in honor of that young scientist, Charles David Keeling.

Science, business, and policy leaders will gather Nov. 28-30 in Kona, Hawaii, at an international carbon dioxide conference to examine wide-ranging issues and concerns that have arisen from the CO2 record. Among the topics are the effects of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide on land and ocean ecosystems, energy alternatives to fossil fuels, economic effects of climate change, and the role of climate change in national security. Carbon dioxide is the most important of the greenhouse gases produced by humans and very likely responsible for the observed rise in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century. The Mauna Loa and South Pole data were the first to show the rate of CO2 buildup in the atmosphere. In 1974, NOAA began tracking greenhouse gases worldwide and continued global observations as the planet warmed rapidly over the past few decades.

The famous graph of increasing carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere has taken its place alongside E=mc2, the Double Helix, and other scientific icons. The jagged saw-tooth slope, climbing upward to the right while sharply rising and falling with the seasons, is recognized around the world as the symbol of global climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

“Because of the CO2 record, we now understand how we are changing the natural climate,” said Dr. Richard W. Spinrad, NOAA assistant administrator of oceanic and atmospheric research. “That profound realization is influencing important decisions about energy alternatives, land use, transportation, and other behaviors that will shape the future for generations.”

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