The History of Carbon: Tracking Greenhouse Gases Through Time

In this special Earth Day Lab & Lunch Program, Jim Butler, the director of NOAA's Global Monitoring Division will take us through a brief history of atmospheric carbon dioxide, describing events and their atmospheric consequences from almost a million years ago through the industrial age to the present day. He'll use animated data from NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) to show the ups and downs of carbon dioxide and discuss how human activities have affected our planet's atmosphere and climate.

ESRL monitors trends in greenhouse gases by keeping track of  carbon dioxide sources (emissions to the atmosphere) and sinks (removal from the atmosphere) around the world. NOAA scientists use measurements from a host of collaborators and atmospheric observatories, combined with calculations of carbon exchange between the earth and atmosphere, to estimate how CO2 concentrations change over time.

Jim Butler is Director of Global Monitoring at NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory (NOAA/ESRL) in Boulder, Colorado. For over 20 years, Dr. Butler has conducted research on climate forcing and ozone depletion. He oversees the nation's continuing measurements of atmospheric constituents that affect the world's climate, including greenhouse and ozone-depleting gases, aerosols, and surface radiation.