Climatologists have announced that CO₂ levels in the atmosphere have once again reached record levels. An increase in gas concentration leads to an increase in temperature on the Earth's surface.
Data from the Mauna Loa weather observatory in Hawaii showed: in April 2018, the average concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere exceeded 410 ppm (parts per million, units per million). This is the highest figure for the entire observation period since 1958.
and over the past few years, the CO2 concentration record has been updated regularly. In 2015, the figure exceeded 400 ppm, and in 2016 it amounted to 403.3 ppm.
Carbon dioxide is one of the gases associated with the greenhouse effect, which causes the planet's temperature to rise. These substances poorly transmit infrared radiation emitted by the Earth's surface, so heat is retained above the planet without “escaping” beyond the atmosphere. The level of CO2 in the atmosphere began to rise steadily back in the 19th century, at the beginning of the industrial revolution: according to scientists, then it did not rise above 280 ppm.
Specialists at the Mauna Loa Observatory have been monitoring carbon dioxide concentrations since 1958—at that time, the CO2 content in the atmosphere was 315 ppm. Researchers note that concentrations have been rising faster in the last decade than in the early 2000s.
Rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere / © Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Fluctuations in gas levels are tracked using a Keeling plot, named after the climatologist Charles Keeling, who led the first measurements. Now his son, Ralph Keeling, is working on the project. He comments: “This is another important point in the rise of CO2 in the atmosphere. It brings us closer to truly undesirable indicators – exceeding the threshold of 450 or 500 ppm. This is quite a dangerous situation."
At the end of 2017, researchers from the Global Carbon Project said that rising carbon dioxide emissions threaten plans for the Paris Agreement, the UN document that replaced the Kyoto Protocol.