The largest ever recorded leap in the amount of carbon dioxide laden in the world’s atmosphere has just occurred, according to researchers who monitor the relentless accumulation of the primary gas that is heating the planet.

The global average concentration of carbon dioxide in March this year was 4.7 parts per million (or ppm) higher than it it was in March last year, which is a record-breaking increase in CO2 levels over a 12-month period.

“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.”

Look we may not have solved all of climate change but we're heading in the right direction, okay?

"We must be as radical as reality itself." -Lenin

  • asg101 [none/use name, comrade/them]
    ·
    7 months ago

    30 years ago I asked a Scripps Institution of Oceanography lecturer on computer climate models why they were not including permafrost/methane feedback in the models and got told "we decided to focus on other things". Maybe they wouldn't be so shocked now if they had looked at all of the inputs.