Heritage Talks: Monitoring of CO2 at Baring Head

This CO2 continuous monitoring station, set up by DSIR’s Institute of Nuclear Sciences in the early 1970s, was the first south of the Equator, and tied in with American research to investigate the increase in the global rise of greenhouse gases. The programme continues today, under NIWA, and provides the longest-running monitoring record in the Southern Hemisphere. It tied in both with earlier DSIR research on radiocarbon measurements, and related developments.

Our speaker was the junior scientist who set up Baring Head, and became internationally recognised leading research into atmospheric CO2, CH4 and other greenhouse gases. He was a lead author of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize-winning IPCC Assessment Report on climate change, and has worked around the world. In May 2021, he recounted his career in his book The Alarmist.