A Weekly Cycle in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide

Published

January 1, 2002

Author(s)

R S. Cerveny, Kevin Coakley

Abstract

We present a new statistic called the Mean Symmetrized Residual (MSR) for detection and quantification of a weekly cycle in measured daily atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂). At the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, we conclude that CO₂ concentrations, on average, are significantly lower (0.022 parts per million by volume, ppmv) on weekends (Saturday-Sunday) than during the rest of the week. Over the past twenty-five years, the variation of the mean values of MSR (as a function of day of the week) has been relatively stable. We speculate that the observed weekday/weekend variation in CO₂ at Mauna Loa is the result of anthropogenic emissions on Hawaii and nearby sources. We do not detect a weekly cycle in daily CO₂ concentration measured at South Pole, Antarctica. This methodology has applicability to a variety of datasets.

Citation

Geophysical Research Letters

Volume

29

Issue

No. 2

Pub Type

Journals

Keywords

atmospheric carbon dioxide, bootstrap, stochastic modeling, subsampling, time series, trend detection, weekly cycle

Citation

Cerveny, R. and Coakley, K. (2002), A Weekly Cycle in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide, Geophysical Research Letters (Accessed April 24, 2024)