Climate change is happening.

Though an incredibly complex issue, climate change is primarily occurring due to the unnatural addition of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere caused by human activities. These gases trap heat within the planetary system that would have otherwise escaped into space. There are a few different greenhouse gases that trap heat that we as humans emit. The main culprit of climate change is carbon dioxide (CO2), which is produced from the burning of fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide is also more of an issue, than say methane (MH4), because it stays in the atmosphere for a longer period of time. Methane has an atmospheric lifetime of roughly 12 years while carbon dioxide can remain in the atmosphere anywhere from 300 to 1,000 years [NASA.gov, 2024]. With this additionally trapped heat, we are seeing increasingly severe changes to weather patterns, such as droughts, floods, heat waves, and much more.

The Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii is part of the U.S. National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration’s network of global monitoring laboratories. Since 1958, this lab has been recording atmospheric gas measurements within incredible rigor and high standards. The graph to the right, using their measurements, display the growing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere in parts per million (PPM).