BRENT: NOAA reports that the growth rate of greenhouse gas concentration has reached an all-time high.According to recent data collected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Earth’s monthly global average concentration of carbon dioxide has exceeded the highest level ever recorded, with greenhouses gases measuring 400 parts per million.
“It was only a matter of time that we would average 400 parts per million globally,” Pieter Tans of NOAA’s Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network said. “We first reported 400 ppm when all of our Arctic sites reached that value in the spring of 2012. In 2013 the record at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Observatory first crossed the 400 ppm threshold. Reaching 400 parts per million as a global average is a significant milestone.”
Scientists believe the recent rise in greenhouse gases is due to human industry. Even though worldwide emissions from fossil fuel use leveled out in 2014, carbon dioxide continued to collect in the atmosphere at increasing rates. According to NOAA, the average growth rate of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere was 2.25 ppm per year from 2012 to 2014, the highest ever recorded three-year rate rise.
The surpassing of the global 400 ppm mark indicates the significant impact of global fossil fuel use. “This marks the fact that humans burning fossil fuels have caused global carbon dioxide concentrations to rise more than 120 parts per million since pre-industrial times,” Tans said. “Half of that rise has occurred since 1980.”
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