For 1st Time In 4 Million Years, Antarctic CO2 Hits 400 ppm - Last Weather Station To Hit That Level
Carbon dioxide has been steadily rising since the start of the Industrial Revolution, setting a new high year after year. There’s a notable new entry to the record books. The last station on Earth without a 400 parts per million (ppm) reading has reached it.
A little 400 ppm history. Three years ago, the world’s gold standard carbon dioxide observatory passed the symbolic threshold of 400 ppm. Other observing stations have steadily reached that threshold as carbon dioxide spreads across the planet’s atmosphere at various points since then. Collectively, the world passed the threshold for a month last year.
In the remote reaches of Antarctica, the South Pole Observatory carbon dioxide observing station cleared 400 ppm on May 23, according to an announcement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Wednesday. That’s the first time it’s passed that level in 4 million years (no, that’s not a typo).
There’s a lag in how carbon dioxide moves around the atmosphere. Most carbon pollution originates in the northern hemisphere because that’s where most of the world’s population lives. That’s in part why carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hit the 400 ppm milestone earlier in the northern reaches of the world.
But the most remote continent on earth has caught up with its more populated counterparts. “The increase of carbon dioxide is everywhere, even as far away as you can get from civilization,” Pieter Tans, a carbon-monitoring scientist at the Environmental Science Research Laboratory, said. “If you emit carbon dioxide in New York, some fraction of it will be in the South Pole next year.”
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http://www.climatecentral.org/news/antarctica-co2-400-ppm-million-years-20451
= new reply since forum marked as read
[font size=4]June 15, 2016 The Earth passed another unfortunate milestone May 23 when carbon dioxide surpassed 400 parts per million (ppm) at the South Pole for the first time in 4 million years.[/font]
[font size=3]The South Pole has shown the same, relentless upward trend in carbon dioxide (CO₂) as the rest of world, but its remote location means it’s the last to register the impacts of increasing emissions from fossil fuel consumption, the primary driver of greenhouse gas pollution.
“The far southern hemisphere was the last place on earth where CO₂ had not yet reached this mark,” said Pieter Tans, the lead scientist of NOAA's Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network. “Global CO₂ levels will not return to values below 400 ppm in our lifetimes, and almost certainly for much longer.”
Over the course of the year, CO₂ levels rise during fall and winter and decline during the Northern Hemisphere’s summer as terrestrial plants consume CO₂ during photosynthesis. But plants capture only a fraction of annual CO₂ emissions, so for every year since observations began in 1958, there has been more CO₂ in the atmosphere than the year before.
Last year’s global CO₂ average reached 399 ppm, meaning that the global average in 2016 will almost certainly surpass 400 ppm. The only question is whether the lowest month for 2016 will also remain above 400.
Upward trend continues
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[font size=1]Daily average carbon dioxide readings at the South Pole from 2014 to present, as recorded by NOAA's greenhouse gas monitoring network. (NOAA)[/font][/center]
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