Stuff papers to publish NZ’S daily carbon count

As of today, this paper is introducing the country’s carbon level readings to its daily weather report.

The daily readings now feature on the weather page in all of Stuff’s metropolitan and regional newspapers, making Stuff the first New Zealand media organisation to regularly provide such information to readers.

The same data will soon also appear in the online daily weather forecasts on Stuff, the website.

Stuff editorial director Mark Stevens said the introduction of daily carbon readings was another sign of the company’s commitment to concerted and meaningful coverage of climate change, in line with audience expectations.

The data – which measures two main greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and methane, as well as isotopes and other gases – is collected from Niwa’s climate station at Baring Head Lighthouse near Wellington.

Niwa atmosphere and ocean scientist Dr Sara Mikaloff-fletcher said: ‘‘It gives you a really clear picture of not just the New Zealand story but the global story.’’

She said the addition would help track our ‘‘global progress on the goals of the Paris Agreement’’, as well as ‘‘separate talk about low carbon to action’’.

She described the process of collecting carbon readings as taking a ‘‘fingerprint of the air’’.

The information published by Stuff will include the latest daily average in parts per million (ppm), as well as the count from one year ago, a decade ago, and the preindustrial level.

Mikaloff-fletcher said that, while the daily changes can be ‘‘quite variable’’, the past and pre-industrial levels are used ‘‘as a reference point’’.

‘‘We’re really at the beginning of making serious changes, right now, you don’t quite expect to see a lot of change . . . but if the global community is serious about the promise of living up to the Paris Agreement . . . then you need to see the shape of that curve changing.’’

The new feature works in conjunction with Niwa’s latest programme, Carbonwatch.

The project – a collaboration with GNS Science, Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research, Auckland Council and the University of Waikato – also works to determine where these gases came from, how much carbon is being absorbed by our forests, and what’s happening with agricultural CO and methane emissions.