English: This image shows the distribution and amount of carbon dioxide in Earth's mid-troposphere in July 2008 as measured by NASA's Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument. The overlying graph is the seasonal variation and interannual increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide recorded at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii.

The AIRS data reveal the average concentration (parts per million) over an altitude range of 3-13 kilometers (1.8 to 8 miles), whereas the Mauna Loa data show the concentration of carbon dioxide at an altitude of 3.4 kilometers (2.1 miles) and its annual increase at a rate of approximately 2 parts per million (ppmv) per year.

This image is the final frame of a visualization showing the time-series of AIRS's measurements of mid-tropospheric carbon dioxide from 2002 to 2008. The 30-second visualization is available at http://airs.jpl.nasa.gov/story_archive/CO2_Increase_Sep2002-Jul2008/ and http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003500/a003562/index.html.

The AIRS instrument flies on NASA's Aqua satellite and is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, under contract to NASA.