Carbon Dioxide Archives

Density scatter plots comparing estimated versus observed OCO-2 and OCO-3 XCO₂ concentrations for the Stage-1 baseline model (left) and the Stage-2 full Goes model (right). The color gradient denotes local data point density, with warmer colors (yellow/green) indicating regions of higher data concentration. In each panel, the dashed gray line represents the 1:1 line of perfect agreement. -- physics.ao-ph

Quantification Of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide From The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES East)

by Keith CowingMay 27, 2026May 27, 2026

Editor’s note: One way to search for habitable – and possibly inhabited – worlds in our solar system and in other star systems is to examine planetary atmospheres for chemical […]

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Fossils & Paleontology, Habitable Zones, Press Release

How Rock Removes CO2 From The Atmosphere

by Keith CowingApril 30, 2026April 30, 2026

Rocks can bind carbon dioxide — and much faster than previously thought. For a long time, it was assumed that the transformation of CO2 into carbonate rock depends on very […]

No words, no numbers—just a powerful visual capturing our planet’s warming. The latest update adds a new dark red stripe for 2024—a color first introduced last year when 2023 shattered all previous records. -- World Meteorological Organization

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Press Release, Terraforming & Geoengineering, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Heating Our Home World: NASA Confirms 2024 Was The Warmest Year on Record

by Keith CowingJanuary 10, 2025January 10, 2025

Earth’s average surface temperature in 2024 was the warmest on record, according to an analysis led by NASA scientists.

Caption: At left: Steel is seen to corrode into siderite (FeCO3) when immersed in subcritical liquid carbon dioxide (LCO2). At right: Samples of albite (a plagioclase feldspar) and a sandstone core are observed to form red rhodochrosite (MnCO3) when exposed to supercritical CO2 in the presence of a water solution with potassium chloride and manganese chloride, with particularly strong reaction near the interface of the two solutions. In both experiments, water saturation is provided by floating LCO2 on the water. Under the lower pressure conditions characteristic of early Mars, the water would float on the LCO2. Credits: Photos courtesy of Todd Schaef/PNNL (left) and Earl Mattson/Mattson Hydrology (right).

Analog Studies, Arctic / Antarctic / Alpine, Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Cryobiology, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Mars, Origin & Evolution of Life, Press Release, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Liquid On Mars Was Not Necessarily All Water

by Keith CowingDecember 7, 2024December 7, 2024

Dry river channels and lake beds on Mars point to the long-ago presence of a liquid on the planet’s surface, and the minerals observed from orbit and from landers seem […]

CO2 reservoir sizes of the atmosphere (Patm) (a–c), and the fractional habitability (fhab) (d–f) calculated with respect to different obliquity and total exchangeable reservoir size (Ptot) under present solar luminosity (a, d), different solar luminosity and Ptot under an obliquity of 10˚ (b, e), and different obliquity and Ptot under solar luminosity of 0.75 times relative to the present value (c,f). The region “NP only” represents the solution with the permanent ice only at the north pole. The Patm values shown in a, b, and c are the maximum value that is possible in each condition. -- astro-ph.EP

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Mars, Status Report

Behaviors of Martian CO2-driven Dry Climate System and Conditions for Atmospheric Collapses

by Keith CowingNovember 14, 2024November 14, 2024

The present Martian climate is characterized by a cold and dry environment with a thin atmosphere of carbon dioxides (CO2).

“At this time in Mars’ history, we think CO2 is everywhere, in every nook and cranny, and water percolating through the rocks is full of CO2 too,” Joshua Murray says. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Mars, Press Release, Terraforming & Geoengineering

Mars’ Missing Atmosphere Could Be Hiding In Plain Sight

by Keith CowingSeptember 27, 2024September 27, 2024

Mars wasn’t always the cold desert we see today. There’s increasing evidence that water once flowed on the Red Planet’s surface, billions of years ago. And if there was water, […]

Comparing CO2 exosphere to surface properties on Ganymede’s leading hemisphere. A) Vertical CO2 gas column density (unit of 1018 m−2 , this work, see also Fig. O.2); B) Depth of CO2-solid absorption band (Paper I); C) Central wavelength of CO2-solid absorption band (Paper I); D) Reflectance at 3.65 µm (Paper I); E) Central wavelength of H2O Fresnel peak (Paper I); F) Relative amplitude of the maximum reflectance between 3.5 and 4 µm (H2O interband amplitude, Paper I). The north pole of the leading hemisphere possesses the most red-shifted absorption band center of solid CO2, consistent with CO2 trapped in amorphous H2O ice (Paper I). It also has the higher reflectance at 3.65 µm and H2O interband amplitude, indicative of a higher density of facets in H2O ice for the photons (i.e., smaller grains and/or more internal defects and/or higher micro-roughness/porosity), and the most blue-shifted central wavelength of the H2O Fresnel peak due to a higher proportion of amorphous water ice (Mastrapa et al. 2009). -- astro-ph.EP

Astrochemistry, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Cryobiology, Ganymede, Icy Worlds, Jupiter, Status Report

A Patchy CO2 Exosphere On Ganymede Revealed By The James Webb Space Telescope

by Keith CowingSeptember 23, 2024September 23, 2024

Jupiter’s icy moon Ganymede has a tenuous exosphere produced by sputtering and possibly sublimation of water ice. To date, only atomic hydrogen and oxygen have been directly detected in this […]

By examining the shell chemistry of these ancient organisms, scientists can learn about Earth’s climate long before humans ever walked the planet—and get insight into how climate changed in the past. -- Science

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Extinction events, Fossils & Paleontology, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Origin & Evolution of Life, Press Release, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Carbon Dioxide Has Driven Drastic Changes In Earth’s Global Temperature Over The Past 485 Million years

by Keith CowingSeptember 20, 2024

A new study co-led by the Smithsonian and the University of Arizona offers the most detailed glimpse yet of how Earth’s surface temperature has changed over the past 485 million […]

Images of forams created by a scanning electronic microscope. Credit: Dustin Harper

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Extinction events, Fossils & Paleontology, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Press Release

What Microscopic Fossilized Shells Tell Us About Ancient Climate Change

by Keith CowingAugust 27, 2024August 27, 2024

At the end of the Paleocene and beginning of the Eocene epochs, between 59 to 51 million years ago, Earth experienced dramatic warming periods, both gradual periods stretching millions of […]

Global CO2 ppm for January-March of 2020 -- NASA

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Status Report, Terraforming & Geoengineering, Video, Audio, Webcasts, Podcasts

Watch Carbon Dioxide Move Through An Inhabited World’s Atmosphere

by Keith CowingJuly 23, 2024July 24, 2024

Editor’s note: As we begin to mount Astrobiology expeditions to other worlds with potential habitable zones, understanding a world’s global climate will be important. Short term trends (“weather”) as well […]