Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
John Daley ReportingEvery time we drive our cars or use electricity to power our lights, we're burning fossil fuels, usually gasoline or coal. That creates carbon dioxide, which goes up into the atmosphere. How much is up there? Utah researchers are keeping track and watching it rise.
On a sizzling, Salt Lake summer day there's a murky haze. Up on a rooftop at the University of Utah, instruments measure what's in the air. Tubing runs across the roof and down into a lab filled with strange looking glass bottles and a computer that charts the carbon dioxide in the air.
The gear is sophisticated, but the goal is simple.
Andy Schauer, Lab Technician: "This research documents the rise of carbon dioxide and its sources."
The only place in the world posting real time carbon dioxide readings is at the University of Utah in Jim Ehleringer's biology lab, where they're seeing a clear trend in the data.
Jim Ehleringer, Professor of Biology: "The first is that CO2 concentration is going up."
And that's a problem because carbon dioxide is a primary gas, which builds up in the atmosphere, preventing solar radiation from escaping, causing a warmer world.
Jim Ehleringer: "Every single year is a record level. We burn so much fossil fuel that the CO2 levels will continue to increase with no signs of decreasing."
Carbon dioxide, whether from you car exhaust or a power plant, is odorless and colorless, but once it's released it goes into the sky, into the atmosphere. In a way it's like a landfill, the CO2 never goes away and the amount of it in the atmosphere is continuing to pile up.
Ehleringer says warmer temperatures will bring noticeable changes.
Jim Ehleringer, Professor of Biology: "It might be in the form of increased hurricane frequencies. It might be in the form of increased nighttime temperatures. It might be in the form of shortened winters."
In his office Ehleringer marks rising CO2 levels with milestones in his son's life.
Jim Ehleringer, Professor of Biology: "He's only 23-years old so he's already seen a 15 to 20 percent change in CO2 in his lifetime alone. Scary? Disturbing. Because until we get control on the problem. We can't begin to think about how to sustain life in the future."
