Analyzing the Mauna Loa CO2 Dataset
I’ve done an analysis of the CO2 concentrations measured at the Mauna Loa observatory since 1958, in order to correct some claims made about the data. More on that below, but first I’ll share the notebook so that you may see it and interact with or extend it if desired.
If you have a google account, you can view the Colab notebook here:
https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1ZkoeyNr8rNcPEEIwr9pvlZp-2WaHr2U2?usp=sharing
If not, I’ve also uploaded to GitHub and it can be viewed here:
https://github.com/kahliburke/LinkedInDataScience/blob/main/CO2_Growth.ipynb
Why did I decide to show these results?
A recent post from Alex Wang shared a visualization created by NASA of the global temperature increase from 1850 to now. I imagine they wanted to show an interesting form of visualization, but since the topic was climate change it elicited a large number of comments.
I was surprised (especially on LinkedIn which should represent a more educated population) by how many of these comments expressed skepticism and doubt over the idea that climate change was real, that the data produced and used by climate scientists was accurate or relevant, or that humans play a direct role in the warming of the climate due to our emissions of greenhouse gases. Many comments were rather derisive in tone.
I side with the overwhelming majority of climate scientists on the conclusions reached based on huge amounts of data collected over decades in addition to ice core data and geologic data that extends our understanding with good resolution and confidence back hundreds and even hundreds of thousands to millions of years. The consensus is that climate change is a real, severe, human caused crisis that needs to be addressed in the strongest ways possible and with utmost urgency. This is a view echoed by over 99.9% of scientists in the field based on multiple surveys of journal papers over the past decade (https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac2966). It is hard to imagine a more solid consensus than this. This is why I am so shocked that non climate scientists express skepticism or just flat out reject these conclusions at such a high rate.
I felt motivated to correct inaccuracies and provide data and references for my claims, where these comments did not. In one exchange this Mauna Loa dataset was referenced and a claim made that the CO2 increase was linear over the span of the data. I found that to be inaccurate just visually inspecting it, but the claim of linearity was insisted upon. So I wanted to provide quantitative proof that the increase year by year has been growing. It is not a straight line, it is curved.
I hope some of you find it interesting, if not for the particular dataset then perhaps the method and thinking I used to justify my claim. I welcome any feedback or corrections as you see fit.
