Charles Keeling & Measuring Atmospheric CO2
    by John Leaf
Text (PDF) || Activities || THINK Exercises   

VISUALS

    title
  1. 1950s' home
  2. Charles "Dave" Keeling, around 1955 [courtesy of Keeling family & Scripps Institution of Oceanography]
  3. manometer
  4. Keeling's instrument
  5. Big Sur State Park
  6. West Coast sampling sites
  7. Charles Keeling (1958) [courtesy of Keeling family & Scripps Institution of Oceanography]
  8. Gilbert Plass
  9. Harry Wexler
  10. Roger Revelle
  11. Charles Keeling (1958) [courtesy of Keeling family & Scripps Institution of Oceanography]
  12. Mauna Loa -- map
  13. Mauna Loa observatory (1956)
  14. infrared analyzer
  15. infrared analyzer -- diagram
  16. Keeling at Mauna Loa, 1958
  17. early CO2 data, 1960
  18. earth vegetation
  19. Mauna Loa
    Keeling (1964) [courtesy of Keeling family & Scripps Institution of Oceanography]
  20. smog, New York City [Life magazine]
  21. CO2 data through 1964
  22. smog, (Pasadena highway, 2007)
  23. CO2 data through 1969
  24. Keeling (1967) [courtesy of Keeling family & Scripps Institution of Oceanography]
  25. NOAA (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration)
    drought [Richard Lord, UMCOR]
  26. NSF (National Science Foudation)
  27. CO2 data through 1976
  28. DOE, NOAA, NSF & SIO
  29. isotope results
  30. glacier
  31. collecting CO2 sample [NOAA, 1982]
  32. Ronald Reagan
  33. Al Gore
  34. Keeling & measuring instrument [date?]
  35. Mauna Loa station
  36. the "Keeling Curve"

  37. Keeling's sources of funding, 195
  38. Keeling's instruments
  39. political context
  40. Keeling's collaborators and supporters
  41. Keeling, young and old

Activities [student data sheets]

THINK exercises:
  1. THINK: reasons for variable CO2 measurements
  2. THINK: role of precision in Keeling's 1955-56 findings
  3. THINK: comparing measurements of different instruments
  4. THINK: role of precision in Keeling's 1958-60 findings
  5. THINK: benefits of collaborating on CO2 measurements
  6. THINK: interpreting CO2 data 1957-1964
  7. THINK: interpreting CO2 data 1957-1969
  8. THINK: concerns about calibration and competing researchers
  9. THINK: interpreting CO2 data 1957-1976
  10. THINK: political context of funding science