Dear Editor:

As we leave our children a world filled with excessive rain (Sarasota,Florida, 19 inches, Hurricane Debby), drought followed by wild fires (California) and sea level rise (Maine), it’s not advisable or helpful to call climate change a hoax. Instead of repeating political talking points, why not look up scientific studies at NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (noaa.gov)? NOAA scientists collect samples of air from 60 sites around the world, which are fed into machines called spectrometers. The web-site Global Monitoring Laboratories, (gml.noaa.gov) describes 3 types of carbon isotopes that are analyzed in air samples, carbon-12, carbon-13 and carbon-14. Decaying plant matter, (oil, gas and coal), has a special isotopic fingerprint, as do emissions from the ocean, atmosphere and the living world.

Historically, Dr Charles Keeling started to measure CO2 in 1958 at an observatory at Mauna Loa, Hawaii. Today a CO2 analyzer, called CRDS, uses lasers to measure wavelengths of light which are absorbed at different rates, by gases, including CO2. Fun fact: Republican President George W. Bush presented Dr Charles Keeling with the National Medal of Science in 2002 in the East Room, for his contribution to the understanding of global warming and the global carbon cycle.

Lastly, measurements of CO2 on Earth are now verified by a satellite launched by NASA IN 2019, called the OCO-3 satellite, (jpl.nasa.gov). It measures the intensity of reflected sunlight off Earth’s surface at specific wavelengths, since gas molecules, like CO2 and methane, absorb, vibrate and transmit sunlight at specific wavelengths and have their own fingerprint.

It’s time to put aside partisan differences and work together for a better future. As a fishing community, we must guard against additional uptake of CO2 by the ocean, which causes acidity, or carbonic acid, (H20 + CO2 = H2CO3) and will prevent our lobsters and oysters from forming shells, if emissions continue to rise.

Marcia Annenberg

Boothbay Harbor