Atmospheric CO2 Keeps Rising

If you've visited the site in the last couple of months, you may have noticed this small widget sitting on the sidebar:

It's pretty self-explanatory - it details the current CO₂ levels, updated every month.

With all the volcanic ash in the atmosphere disrupting airline flights across Europe, I've been waiting impatiently to see what effect this would have on the emissions data.

Would the emissions increase more slowly compared to previous years? Would we even see a small decrease? Would there be no effect at all?

Well I've crunched the numbers...oh, okay, I did the taking-away sums...and here's the answer:

In April 2008, CO₂ increased by 1.22 parts per million (ppm)

In April 2009, CO₂ increased by 0.69 ppm

In April 2010, CO₂ increased by 1.33 ppm

That's a larger increase than the previous two Aprils!

Of course it is the long-term trend that we should be keeping an eye on, but it does beg the question - just how big would the increase have been if flying had been normal?