Graph of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations from another cool data package

I feature another cool self-updating data package, this time of concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide recorded from the well-known Mauna Loa Observatory, in Hawaii. Graphs of this data are perhaps the most iconic images of anthropogenic climate change.

This post features the atmospheric carbon dioxide data package. Again, it is one of the Open Knowledge International (OKFN) Frictionless Data core data packages, that is to say it is one of the

"Important, commonly-used datasets in high quality, easy-to-use & open form".

The data is known as the Keeling Curve after the American chemist and oceanographer Charles Keeling. It is an iconic image for anthropogenic climate change.

Like the global temperature data package, the atmospheric carbon dioxide data package is open and tidy and self-updating and resides in an underlying Github data package .

Similarly, the data package can be downloaded as a zip file and unzipped into a folder. That will include the data files in .csv format, an open data licence, a read-me file, a json file and a Bash script that updates the data from source.

I can run the Bash script file on my laptop in an X-terminal window and it goes off and gets the latest data and formats it into 'tidy' csv format files.

Here is a screenshot of the script file updating and formatting the data.

Here is my chart.

Here is the R code for the chart.