Hawaii site that measures global CO2 shuts down after Mauna Loa volcano eruption

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), which oversees the facility, said that power lines to the observatory have been cut and an access road to the site is now inaccessible due to the flow of lava coming from the volcano.

The upward march of CO2 levels recorded at Mauna Loa is sometimes known as the Keeling curve, named after Charles Keeling, the scientist who was the first director of the site. The levels have steadily and consistently climbed in recent decades. In June, Noaa announced that global concentration of CO2 had hit 421 parts per million, a 50% increase on pre-industrial times and the highest in millions of years.

Before the point where humans starting expelling huge volumes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels, CO2 levels were around 280 parts per million for almost 6,000 years of human civilization. The rapid rise in the heat-trapping gas threatens the world with disastrous climate breakdown in the form of severe heatwaves, floods, droughts and wildfires.