The first daily reading above 420 ppm this year has appeared at the Mauna Loa CO2 observatory. [View all]

[NNadir]

Here's the carbon dioxide readings from the last 5 days:

Mauna Loa Carbon Dioxide Observatory Accessed 1/27/2022.

January 26: 420.52 ppm
January 25: 419.19 ppm
January 24: 419.80 ppm
January 23: 418.96 ppm
January 22: 417.51 ppm
Last Updated: January 27, 2022

It's a little early in the year for the data to break the previous year's record. In weekly data, the time of year that the concentrations pass that of the previous year in a February time frame. For example, in 2021, the record data for 2020, 417.43 ppm recorded for the week beginning May 25, 2020, was not passed until the week of February 28, 2021, when it was 417.97 ppm, going on to rise to 420.01 ppm for the week beginning April 25, 2021.

The data above is daily data, and the weekly data will be an average of as many daily data points are available for the week. If the weekly average exceeds 420.01 ppm in early February, part of the reason may be involved with the European reliance on coal this week given surges in the prices of natural gas. (Recorded european carbon dioxide reductions in recent years are tightly involved with the substitution of Russian gas for coal; the wind blowing regularly also had some] effect, counterbalanced by the German decision to close nuclear plants.)

I have been checking in informally all week on the Electricity Map data for Germany at different points of the day an night. The German carbon intensity for electricity for the entire time, with no exceptions, has been in the high 400s g CO2/kwh to low 500s g CO2/kw, generally running 400% to 500% higher than the carbon intensity of heavily nuclearized France. (Four large French nuclear reactors are off line to replace borated water feed lines as a result of findings in a routine inspection. They are expected to come back on line on March 31.)

There is no joy in the Energiewende world today: The current German carbon dioxide intensity is now (01/27/2022, 12:50P EST (US)) is 475 g CO2/kwh, with coal producing 25.6 GW of electrical power, wind producing 6.20 GW of electricity - 9.68% capacity utilization - and solar producing 0.413 GW of electricity - 0.71% capacity utilization.

France is at 99 g CO2/kwh at this time.

It's not going to be pretty in the climate change data world in 2022. Look for bad times ahead.