Carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than ever before, putting hopes of limiting warming in jeopardy.
Carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than ever before, putting hopes of limiting warming in jeopardy.
For more than 60 years, scientists at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii have been tracking the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which is measured in parts per million. Last year saw the biggest one-year jump on record, with carbon dioxide levels rising by 3.58 parts per million.
The figure exceeds the most pessimistic predictions of the U.K. Met Office, which says that even record-high emissions from fossil fuels cannot fully explain the surge in carbon dioxide.
U.K. scientists note that increasingly severe heat and drought mean that trees and grasses are drawing down less carbon dioxide than in the past, while desiccated soils are also releasing more carbon back into the atmosphere. Conditions were particularly poor last year owing to a very warm El Niño — when warm waters pool in the eastern Pacific Ocean — which fueled hotter, drier weather across much of the tropics.
Read more at Yale Environment 360
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