By Elmer Beauregard

Minne Loa is still Lower Than Mauna Loa

With all the wailing and gnashing of teeth going on over CO2 hitting 400ppm for the "first time in a million years" at Mauna Loa, I figured I would measure and see what CO2 levels are in doing here in Minne Loa and found they are quite a bit lower than they are in Hawaii.

The day started out at 405ppm but the sun was shining brightly and all the new budding trees and young green grass started to gobble up all of that extra CO2 and that number dropped quite a bit, in fact at about 6:45 in the afternoon it dropped way down to 362ppm. The average for the day was 394ppm.

I call this the Photosynthesis Effect and it is just starting to kick in here in the north country because we have had such a late spring. The trees are just starting to bud and the farmers are just beginning to plant but when summer grows into full bloom and the days start getting longer I expect to see CO2 levels drop to that magical 350ppm probably around mid-June.

I think it's problematic measuring the entire planets CO2 levels from one station in Mauna Loa Hawaii. CO2 levels vary all over the planet just like temperature, plus, the ocean is the largest emitter of CO2 on the planet. Measuring CO2 levels from a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific might just be measuring the natural off-gassing of the ocean.

Another problem is Mauna Loa is a volcanic mountain plus there is a lot of volcanic activity in the Hawaiian islands which also produce natural CO2. If Mauna Loa is measuring man's contribution to atmospheric CO2 it is down wind from China and could just be measuring the industrialization of China over the last 50 years.

Minnesota is in the middle of the continent, far from any ocean or volcano or China, and there is a lot of hungry plant between us and the west coast. By the time CO2 gets carried here by the prevailing winds our vegetation is more than happy to gobble up any extra C02 molecule it can find.

Maybe the whole theory is flawed

Another problem is with CO2 levels at record highs Minnesota is experiencing one of the coldest springs ever. Could it be that the 1970's theory was correct that more CO2 in the atmosphere causes global cooling not global warming? If you think about it, CO2 is the weakest greenhouse gas and if more and more of the atmosphere is CO2 isn't it replacing more powerful greenhouse gasses such as methane and water vapor? You can't more than a million parts in a million so if you have are adding more of one element don't you have to subtract from another? If you are subtracting methane and replacing it with CO2 for instance wouldn't that cause cooling? Plus, increased levels of CO2 usually produce more oxygen so its a double whammy.

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