The release of carbon, mostly carbon dioxide
from human activities like driving cars, flying planes, and industrial burning
of fossil fuels is responsible for the majority of climate change.
Carbon exists in stores underground,
as oil, gas and coal.
When we burn it, we release it into our atmosphere, where it traps
excess heat coming from
the Sun, raising the temperature.
We’ve known for more than a century
that carbon dioxide added to our atmosphere traps
additional heat and is a major contributor
to the greenhouse effect.
So we can also track the
concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere,
the primary cause of the current climate change.
Both from space -- using NASA satellites like
the Orbiting Carbon Observatories 2 and 3 -- and from the ground.
If you’ve heard of the Keeling Curve, you’re familiar with one of these records.
Researchers have been taking daily
measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide from Mauna Loa, Hawaii,
since the 1950s.
From space and the ground,
the signal is clear:
There’s a lot more carbon in the atmosphere than there used to be.