The level of CO2 broke only another record. Here it means
When the man first went on the moon, the carbon dioxide concentration in the Earth’s atmosphere was 325 parts per million (ppm).
By 9/11, it was 369 ppm, and when Kovid -19 shut down normal life in 2020, it shot up to 414 parts ppm.
This week, our planet ever recorded the highest level: 430 parts per million.
For 67 years, the observatory on Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano is taking these measurements daily – tracking invisible gas that is constructing in our atmosphere and changing life on Earth.
The record is known as a keeling curve. Charles David Keeling introduced recordings that were already somewhat in the world to measure the CO2 concentration over time.
His son, Ralph Kealing, who was born a year before the observatory opens, has seen a rapid growth for the first time in his lifetime.
“I was a teenager when I first began to appreciate what my father was doing and how it could be important,” Keeling told CBC News. After this it was about 330 ppm.
A GeoCEMERSIR KILILG, a Geochemistry at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at California University, San Diego, took over the research after his father’s death in 2005.
“This problem is not going away, and we are moving forward in the moving area ahead, and almost certainly, very dangerous areas.”
Why co2 matters
The formation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does not appear to the naked eye, but its concentration matters due to the greenhouse effect.
Like glass walls that stuck heat from sunlight in a real greenhouse, Gases in our environment For example, CO2 and methane also implicate heat from the sun.
At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, ice core samples show that the level of the CO2 was around 280 parts per million, but as they used to get up, there is warming Growed up by about 1.3 C On pre-industrial average.
It is leading to rising temperatures and more frequent and extreme weather, such as heat waves, Floods, Forest fire And Dried,
While many have heard of goals Limit warming 1.5 c or 2 c Efforts have also been made to return, above pre-industrial levels. CO2 level below 350 parts per millionAs an important part of limiting damage from climate change.
However the record height continues. Just in the previous year, CO2 can exceed three parts per million than reading – that contribute to many more molecules and warming of the CO2 trapped heat.
“We know why it is growing much faster than ever, it is because we are burning more fossil fuels every year,” Keeling said.
Straight link to fossil fuel
Damon Mathews, a climate scientist and professor at the University of Concorda in Cubec, says he is worried and not surprised that there are new records every year.
“If we really want to stabilize the level of CO2 in the environment, we will need to cut global emissions by more than 50 percent, and we are not close to doing so,” he said, the game has other gases, but the co2 is the main impact.
“Every May, we are going to see a new record of atmospheric CO2, until we actually make much progress on climate mitigation.”
The annual cycle, at the peak of late spring in the late spring in the northern hemisphere, is tied to planting photosynthesis – CO2 concentrations fall in summer as plants absorb gas and release oxygen.
In 2021, the International Energy Agency said that if the world wants to limit global warming and reaches the net-geiro by 2050. No new coal, oil or gas projects.
Matthew is part of Canada’s net-zero advisory body and says that it has seen some progress in reducing the co2 emissions over the years, but is not enough.
He says that Europe has been emitted Going down for decadesAnd last year CO2 emissions in China Not increasedHowever, he says that Canada is still behind other countries, and the US is trending in another way.
“There are lots of policy options, of course we will not get to focus on the expansion of oil and gas industry in Canada right now where we need to go in terms of climate,” he said.
“We just need to stop arguing about whether this is a priority and start doing things that we know will help solve the problem.”
