July 2, 2016
CO2 concentration levels (click here) in the atmosphere have risen above 400 parts per million for the second year in succession and are likely to stay above this limit for our lifetimes, according to scientists at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, global record-keeper of carbon emissions since the 1950s.
“Our forecast supports the suggestion that Mauna Loa record will never again show CO2 concentrations below the symbolic 400 ppm within our lifetime,” said a recently-published study, conducted by scientists from UK’s Met Office Hadley Centre and Ralph Keeling of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, and published in Nature Climate Change.
CO2 levels breached 400 ppm level last year as well, but when scientists last studied the data during September and October 2015, CO2 at Mauna Loa was below 400 ppm (latest reading for week ending June 26, 2016 was 406.23).
“Knowing that CO2 levels have passed this threshold feels quite profound, showing again that humans have made their mark on the Earth’s climate,” Professor Richard Betts of the Met’s Hadley Centre and Exeter University and the lead author of the study told IndiaSpend. “My first reaction was a small sense of nostalgia and even sadness, realising that this was probably the last time those numbers would be measured there.”...
