Microproduct data guidebeginner

NOAA GML Mauna Loa CO2

Monthly atmospheric carbon dioxide measurements from Mauna Loa for building climate-trend monitors and educational concentration trackers.

Start the guide Open official source

At a glance

Difficulty
Beginner — comfortable for a first prototype
Size
Tiny · ≤0.001 GB
Formats
CSV, Text
Access
Download
API key
Not required
Provider
NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory
Updates
Monthly
Data terms
U.S. Government public data / NOAA disclaimer

From source to product signal

Test a product idea in four steps

NOAA GML publishes monthly mean carbon dioxide mole fractions from the Mauna Loa observatory as a small CSV. Start with the in-situ monthly file. These values represent one high-altitude Pacific site after quality control, not a global average or a local urban concentration.

1

Check the setup

  • Python 3.10 or newer
  • A notebook environment such as Jupyter or Google Colab
  • An internet connection
2

Access the data

  1. 1.Open the Trends in CO2 data page and identify the Mauna Loa monthly mean CSV.
  2. 2.Load the file, skipping comment rows that begin with a hash.
  3. 3.Keep year, month, and the seasonally adjusted monthly mean.
Open official source
3

Run the Python example

Install the packages, then run the notebook cell.

python -m pip install pandas

import pandas as pd

co2 = pd.read_csv(
    "https://gml.noaa.gov/webdata/ccgg/trends/co2/co2_mm_mlo.csv",
    comment="#",
)
co2["date"] = pd.to_datetime(
    dict(year=co2["year"], month=co2["month"], day=1)
)
print(co2[["date", "average", "deseasonalized"]].tail())
4

Test a useful signal

Chart Mauna Loa monthly CO2

Test whether the monthly file can power a simple concentration-trend monitor.

  1. 01Drop rows where the monthly average is a missing-value sentinel.
  2. 02Plot the monthly average and the deseasonalized series over the full record.
  3. 03Explain that Mauna Loa is one background site and is not a global or city-level CO2 product.

Dataset details

NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory is a government source. Last verified 2026-08-18. Temporal coverage: 1958-present.

Theme

Environment & Hazards

Domains

ClimateEnvironmental Science

Data types

Time SeriesTabular

Tasks

Trend AnalysisClimate Monitoring

Geography

Global

Formats

CSVText

Provider

NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory

Data terms

U.S. Government public data / NOAA disclaimer