State of Environment

Indicator 11 - Atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gas species

Index - Description | Data | Custodian evaluation | Related resources | Parameters

Sunset from South Depot (AAD Photo 2676/ D3) by G.W. Johnstone, 1975

Indicator Definition

Measurement of air samples for values of the primary greenhouse gases (carbon
dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide) and associated species (carbon monoxide,
hydrogen and isotopes of carbon dioxide) in the Southern Hemisphere atmosphere.

Responsible
Organisation

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (details)

Custodians

DAVID ETHERIDGE david.etheridge@csiro.au	INVESTIGATOR TECHNICAL CONTACT	CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research Private Bag #1 ASPENDALE Victoria 3195 Australia Ph +61 3 9239 4590
PAUL KRUMMEL paul.krummel@csiro.au	TECHNICAL CONTACT	CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research Private Bag #1 Aspendale Victoria 3195 Australia Ph +61 3 9239 4568
PAUL STEELE paul.steele@csiro.au	INVESTIGATOR	Private Bag #1 CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research Aspendale Victoria 3195 Australia Ph +61 3 9239 4578

Theme Area

Atmosphere

Indicator Type

Condition Pressure

Criteria the
Indicator Satisfies

The following 13 out of 15 criteria

1.	Serve as a robust indicator of environmental change
2.	Reflect a fundamental or highly-valued aspect of the environment or an important environmental issue
3.	Be either national in scope or applicable to regional environmental issues of national significance
4.	Provide an early warning of potential problems
5.	Be capable of being monitored to provide statistically verifiable and reproducible data that shows trends over time and, preferably, apply to a broad range of environmental regions
6.	Be scientifically credible
7.	Be easy to understand
8.	Be monitored with relative ease
9.	Be cost-effective
10.	Have relevance to policy and management needs
11.	Contribute to monitoring of progress towards implementing commitments in nationally important environmental policies
13.	Contribute to the fulfillment of reporting obligations under international agreements
15.	Where possible and appropriate, be consistent and comparable with other countries’ and state and territory indicators

For details of indicators, see the State of Environment Bibliography entries 16336 and 16337

Date Input

Monthly measurements

Monitoring Location

Mawson (details) Cape Grim (details) Macquarie Island (details) Casey (details) South Pole, Antarctica (details)

Geographic Coverage is

Rationale For Indicator Selection

Over the last century the concentration of greenhouse gases has risen in the
atmosphere. The average rise is about half that expected from human
activities, predominantly the burning of fossil fuel. Thus observations of the
concentration of these gases provides a measure of anthropogenic greenhouse
forcing in the atmosphere, and for example, monitors the effectiveness of
oceans and terrestrial biomes in removing the excess CO2.

Measurements of long-lived trace gas levels in Antarctic air generally provide
an accurate integration of global exchanges between the surface and the
atmosphere. The climate-influencing gases of main interest are gases released
as a result of human activity, as well as from (climate-driven) physical,
chemical and biological processes in both land and oceans. The Antarctic
monitoring, in concert with other global network results, exploits trace gas
ratios to identify and locate globally significant exchanges.

Design and Strategy For Indicator Monitoring Program

Spatial Scale: High latitude Southern Hemisphere air samples are collected
from AAD sites by BoM personnel at Mawson station, Casey station and Macquarie
Island, and by NOAA staff at South Pole. These complement CSIRO supervised
sites at Cape Grim, Tasmania and ~7 other globally distributed locations.

Frequency: Typical sites collect ~4 flasks of air per month for subsequent
analysis at CSIRO.

Measurement Technique: Various chemical analysis techniques (Francey et al.
1996).

Research Issues

For global trace gas monitoring, improvements are sought in network
intercalibration and in increased sampling, e.g. continuous CO2 monitoring,
vertical profiles, continental sites. More generally, improved coordination of
atmospheric composition modeling, surface flux measurements and atmospheric
transport representations are sought to serve new "multiple-constraint
modeling frameworks".

Data

Timespan: May-1984 to December-2006.
Number of data points: 5041.

To view or download any of the data, you must be logged into the Data Centre Portal. If you return to this indicator, you will find a Search Data link that will allow you to view or extract the data for this indicator.

Cape Grim: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide concentration

Cape Grim: Atmospheric methane concentration

Cape Grim: Atmospheric nitrous oxide concentration

Cape Grim: Atmospheric Hydrogen concentration

Cape Grim: Atmospheric Carbon Monoxide concentration

Cape Grim: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide - C13 isotope concentration

Casey: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide concentration

Casey: Atmospheric methane concentration

Casey: Atmospheric nitrous oxide concentration

Casey: Atmospheric Hydrogen concentration

Casey: Atmospheric Carbon Monoxide concentration

Macquarie Island: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide concentration

Macquarie Island: Atmospheric methane concentration

Macquarie Island: Atmospheric nitrous oxide concentration

Macquarie Island: Atmospheric Hydrogen concentration

Macquarie Island: Atmospheric Carbon Monoxide concentration

Macquarie Island: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide - C13 isotope concentration

Mawson: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide concentration

Mawson: Atmospheric methane concentration

Mawson: Atmospheric nitrous oxide concentration

Mawson: Atmospheric Hydrogen concentration

Mawson: Atmospheric Carbon Monoxide concentration

Mawson: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide - C13 isotope concentration

South Pole, Antarctica: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide concentration

South Pole, Antarctica: Atmospheric methane concentration

South Pole, Antarctica: Atmospheric nitrous oxide concentration

South Pole, Antarctica: Atmospheric Hydrogen concentration

South Pole, Antarctica: Atmospheric Carbon Monoxide concentration

South Pole, Antarctica: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide - C13 isotope concentration

Data Quality, Interpretation and
Analysis of Indicator Data

Because all these gases have long lifetimes in the atmosphere, the measurements at mid-to-high southern latitudes are representative of global values (after allowance for seasonal differences and transport between hemispheres). Trends in these gases would be recorded and compared with emission rates. The values should also be compared with pre-industrial levels.

CSIRO sites contribute to integrated global networks as part of the WMO Global Atmospheric Watch program. The small differences between sites are used, along with atmospheric transport models and prior (independent) information on regional processes, to monitor regional contributions to the global changes. The southern hemisphere sites in particular need to be reconciled with CO2 partial pressure measurements (from ships) and monitored for possible Southern Ocean circulation changes due to global warming.

Data Usage Constraints

Please follow instructions listed in the citation reference provided at the URL below when using these data.

Data Distribution

DATA OFFICER AADC
metadata@aad.gov.au

Australian Antarctic Division
203 Channel Highway
Kingston
Tasmania 7050
Australia
Ph +61 3 6232 3244

Data Access Constraints

See the URL below for State of the Environment indicator 11 for access to these data.

A copy of the raw data are also available for download from the URL given below.

Custodian Evaluation

Date entered

Evaluation

8-May-2002

The three gases carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) together contribute around 70% of the anthropogenic greenhouse forcing. All three gases have lifetimes much longer than interhemispheric mixing and the major source and sink regions are in the northern hemisphere. Thus detection of coherent changes at high southern latitudes is an unambiguous indication of global change. The following report describes data from the CSIRO network including Mawson, Casey, Macquarie Island (also Cape Grim, South Pole). Since 1999, there has been has been a dramatic slowdown at all southern sites in the annual growth of methane that is unprecedented in the last two decades of monitoring. The growth rate is actually negative in 2001/2002, and remains zero or less over the last three years. The annual average level in 2001 was 1706 ppb. Over the last 8 years, global CO2 has increased at 1.75 ppm/year, significantly above the 1.5 ppm/year of the previous decade. Record growth rates in 1997/98 attributed in part to huge tropical biomass burning, contribute to this increased long-term growth. The annual average level in 2001 was 368.3 ppm. The N2O trends share many features with CO2. Over the last 8 years the increase has been 0.8 ppb/year with higher growth around the 1997-1998 period. The annual average level in 2001 was 316 ppb.

11-Nov-2002

Condition scale - 0 - cannot be set

1 - the environment degraded to the point where rehabilitation is impossible

0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7

7 - the environment is pristine, in perfect condition, no anthropogenic influences

Pressure scale - 6

1 - undetectable external pressure on the environment

0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7

7 - extreme external pressure on the environment, degradation accelerating

State of Knowledge scale - 4 - Fair

1 - Poor

0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7

7 - Excellent

For definitions of the Scale categories, consult the Explanation of the Status Categories

Related resources

Metadata SOE_greenhouse_gas - Air sampling for greenhouse gas concentrations and associated species

Project 98 - Antarctic and Southern Ocean atmospheric aerosol study

Project 1133 - The consequences of elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations on inorganic carbon acquisition and photosynthetic performance of Antarctic macroalgae

Project 2282 - Atmospheric sulfur species at high southern latitudes

Scientific Bibliography 17284 - Francey, Roger J., Paul (L.P.) Steele, Ray L. Langenfelds, Marco Lucarelli, Colin E. Allison, David J. Beardsmore, Scott A. Coram, Nada Derek, Fred de Silva, David M. Etheridge, Paul J. Fraser, Reg J. Henry, Brian Turner and Emily D. Welch (1996). Global Atmospheric Sampling Laboratory (GASLAB) (1993) supporting and extending the Cape Grim trace gas programs, Baseline Atmospheric Program (Australia) 1993. (eds. R.J.Francey, A.L.Dick and N.Derek) Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research, Melbourne, pp 8-29.

Scientific Bibliography 17285 - Francey, R.J., P.J. Rayner and C.E. Allison (2001) Constraining the global carbon budget from global to regional scales - the measurement challenge. In: Global Biogeochemical Cycles in the Climate System, Academic Press, New York, p245-252.

SOE Indicator 1 - Monthly mean air temperatures at Australian Antarctic Stations

SOE Indicator 2 - Highest monthly air temperatures at Australian Antarctic Stations

SOE Indicator 3 - Lowest monthly air temperatures at Australian Antarctic Stations

SOE Indicator 4 - Monthly mean lower stratospheric temperatures above Australian Antarctic Stations

SOE Indicator 12 - Noctilucent cloud observations at Davis

SOE Indicator 14 - Midwinter atmospheric temperature at altitude 87km

Parameters

The properties link can be used to view details of the parameters measured for this indicator.

Parameter Name	Unit of measure	Properties
Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide - C13 isotope concentration	per mil	(properties)
Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide concentration	ppm	(properties)
Atmospheric Carbon Monoxide concentration	ppb	(properties)
Atmospheric Hydrogen concentration	ppb	(properties)
Atmospheric methane concentration	ppb	(properties)
Atmospheric nitrous oxide concentration	ppb	(properties)

The following parameters and/or sensor notes are from the metadata record.

Parameters -
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > AIR QUALITY > EMISSIONS
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY > CARBON AND HYDROCARBON COMPOUNDS
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY > CARBON AND HYDROCARBON COMPOUNDS
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY > CARBON AND HYDROCARBON COMPOUNDS
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY > NITROGEN COMPOUNDS
EARTH SCIENCE > ATMOSPHERE > ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY > TRACE GASES/TRACE SPECIES

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SIMR - (State of Environment)

State of Environment

Indicator 11 - Atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gas species