PATRICK SCHULTZ

My friend Andy Jacobson, who works at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Boulder, CO, has put together an amazing animation of the rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide since the beginning of the industrial revolution (if the movie doesn’t play directly in your browser, you can download it here):

In case you were wondering what causes the fluctuations in the Northern hemisphere (the bouncing dots towards the right of the animated graph), it’s the effect of the terrestrial biosphere. Since most of the continental landmass is concentrated north of the equator, atmospheric CO2 decreases noticeably in the Northern hemisphere during the growing season as a result of photosynthetic uptake by plants. During the winter months, decay of organic material exceeds photosynthetic uptake of CO2, and atmospheric concentrations increase.