Hawaii's volcano eruption disrupts operations of premier climate change observatory

The eruption of Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii has incapacitated the premier observatory housed on the island thatmeasures heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Officials, however, showed confidence that operational disruption to the Mauna Loa observatory was only temporary.

The USgovernment is reportedly looking for a temporary alternate site on the Hawaiian island and is also consideringflying a generator to the Mauna Loa observatory to get its power back, according to the officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Global Monitoring Lab in Colorado that operates the station.

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The Hawaiian station was established in 1958 and is the site for the famous Keeling Curve that shows rising carbon dioxide levels from burning of coal, oil and natural gas that tracks with rising temperatures.

Levels of carbon dioxide at Mauna Loa have increased 33 per centsince 1958.

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"This is sort of our flagship station,"Colm Sweeney, the monitoring lab’s associate director was quoted as saying by Associated Press. “The scientific value of Mauna Loa is really in what it stands for. It also is one of the cleanest signals that we have.”

That’s because the observatory is locatedon a mountain away from heavy populations and vegetation and is so high that it is like “poking your finger up in the atmosphere” to measure levels in the troposphere without contamination from local activity,Ariel Stein, the monitoring lab’s director said.

"There are more than 300 stations worldwide, including more than 70 operated by NOAA, so the global measurement of greenhouse gases will continue," Sweeney is further quoted as saying

During the 1984 Mauna Loa eruption, the station could not operate for 36 days but the global monitoring continued and long-term records are still complete.

Mauna Loa’s eruption at the moment does notappearto be giving outnearly enough aerosols and its carbon dioxide emissions are nothing compared to the burning of fossil fuels.

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