Record-breaking increase in CO2 levels in world’s atmosphere (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by itappearsthat@hexbear.net to c/earth@hexbear.net

9 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] ReadFanon@hexbear.net 11 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I'm not going to pretend to know what's going on - I'm out of the loop as a conscious choice on this.

My first hunch is that this is either a major global carbon sink being depleted/saturated, or a tipping point where carbon is being released from a source that it was previously sequestered or a carbon sink has undergone an inversion and has become a source of emissions.

For an example of a carbon sink being saturated, the ocean is a good example of dissolving a significant amount of carbon dioxide but, as it becomes more saturated, at some point it ceases to function as a sink.

An example of tipping point of carbon being released is the classic permafrost melting and the methane held under the permafrost, some of it clathrate, being emitted.

An example of a carbon sink undergoing an inversion is rainforest drying out and experiencing catastrophic forest fires, thus turning what was a sink into a source (tbh peat bogs burning are probably a more accurate example but it's less easy to grapple with as a thought experiment).

It's very dismal to spend time looking into this stuff.