CO2 levels reach record high for the same time last year

Experts issue warning after finding global average concentration in March was 4.7ppm higher than same period last year

Summary

Ralph Keeling, director of the CO2 Program at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, has highlighted the unprecedented pace of rising CO2 levels, which have seen record increases in the first four months of this year.(2024). CO2 measurements now show global concentrations at around 426ppm, a 50% increase from pre-industrial levels.

This surge in the heat-trapping gas, primarily due to fossil fuel emissions, is driving severe climate impacts, including heatwaves, floods, and wildfires. Experts warn that the rapid escalation poses a significant threat to global climate stability.

Background

“It’s really significant to see the pace of the increase over the first four months of this year, which is also a record,” said Ralph Keeling, director of the CO2 Program at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “We aren’t just breaking records in CO₂ concentrations, but also the record in how fast it is rising.”

The global CO₂ readings have been taken from a station perched upon the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii since the measurements began in 1958 under Keeling’s father, Charles. The concentrations of CO₂ have increased each year since, as the heat-trapping gas continues to progressively accumulate due to rampant emissions from power plants, cars, trucks and other sources, with last year hitting a new global record in annual emissions.

In June, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that global concentration of CO₂ had hit 421ppm, a 50% increase on pre-industrial times and the highest in millions of years. The latest reading from Mauna Loa shows the world at around 426ppm of CO₂.

Before the point where humans starting expelling huge volumes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels, CO₂ levels were around 280ppm for almost 6,000 years of human civilization.

The rapid rise in the heat-trapping gas threatens the world with disastrous climate breakdown in the form of severe heatwaves, floods, droughts and wildfires. Recent research has suggested that CO₂ levels were last this high around 14m years ago, causing a climate that would appear alien to people alive today.

The previous record annual rise in CO₂ took place in 2016, amid another El Niño event, which temporarily causes a spike in global temperatures. A more standard annual increase of around 2-3ppm will likely return following the end of this latest El Niño, but this is little cause for comfort, according to Keeling.

Source: Guardian, Journalist Arther Milman