Atmospheric carbon dioxide records from Alert

Graphics Digital Data

T.J. Conway and P.P. Tans

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory, 325 Broadway, Boulder, Colorado 80303, U.S.A

Period of Record

1985-1997

Alert, Northwest Territories, Canada
82°27' N, 62°31' W
210 m above MSL

Trends

The NOAA/CMDL sampling site at Alert is operated in cooperation with the Atmospheric Environment Service (AES) of Environment Canada. The NOAA/CMDL flask data from Alert show an increase in the annual mixing ratio from 348.4 parts per million (ppm) in 1986 to 357.6 ppm in 1992. Conway et al. (1994) reported a mean global growth rate of 1.4 ppm per year based on the NOAA/CMDL flask network data from 1981 to 1992. Trivett and Higuchi (1989) reported an annual growth rate of 1.49 ppm based on the AES flask sampling program at Alert. Alert is the northernmost site in the NOAA/CMDL network. The Alert data are consistent with previous results (Komhyr et al. 1985a; Conway et al. 1988) showing that annual mean CO2 mixing ratios are highest at high northern latitudes and decrease toward the equator.

CITE AS: Conway, T.J. and P.P. Tans. 1999. Atmospheric CO2 records from sites in the NOAA/CMDL air sampling network. In Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, Tenn., U.S.A.

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September 1999