Celebrating the 50-year-old Keeling Curve

If you've spent any time reading about greenhouse gases and climate change, or if you've watched Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth, this is a graph you should be extremely familiar with.

This week marks 50 years ago that Charles David “Dave” Keeling of the Univ. of California, San Diego began taking precise, live measurements of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere from the summit of Mauna Loa in Hawaii, forming the now infamous Keeling Curve.

The resulting data serves as the primary touchstone for climate change scientists. Dave has since passed away, but his son Ralph has taken up the torch.

More CO2 by the numbers:

• Volcanos, oft maligned for CO2 production, are only responsible for 145-255 million tons of CO2 per year.
• Human respiration contributes to 1.3 billion tons of CO2 per year.
• Both of these figures pale in comparison to the 26 billion tons (and rising) of CO2 generated from worldwide human activity each year.

According to the US Department of Energy:

• A billion Indians would have produced 1.04 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2004.
• A billion Chinese would have produced 3.62 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2004.
• A billion Germans would have produced 10.46 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2004.
• A billion Americans would have produced 20.18 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2004.