WMO - CO2 Buildup 2 Continue In Atmosphere "At A Slightly Slower Pace", Thanks To COVID. That's All
Global greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 will drop by 4 percent to 7 percent in 2020 because of the response to the coronavirus pandemic, but that decline won't stop the continued overall buildup of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The carbon dioxide level will continue to increase, "though at a slightly reduced pace," according to the annual greenhouse gas bulletin, published today by the World Meteorological Organization. The impact on CO2 concentrations from pandemic-related economic disruptions is no bigger than the normal year-to-year fluctuations from natural ocean or plant cycles, the report concluded.
The bulletin is based on global average figures for 2019, but 2020 data from individual stations in the greenhouse gas monitoring network show that atmospheric CO2 continued to increase this year. At sampling sites on Mauna Loa in Hawaii, and Cape Grim in Australia, the average September 2020 CO2 concentrations rose by about 2 parts per million from the previous year, passing 410 parts per million for the first time on record.
That level of atmospheric CO2 is associated with a time in Earth's past when the global temperature was 2 degrees to 5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer, and sea levels were 20 meters higher than today, said Oksana Tarasova, head of the WMO's atmospheric research division.
Pieter Tans, senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's global greenhouse gas monitoring lab, said that real-time measurements helped show day to day how restrictions on travel, commerce and other activities affected greenhouse gas emissions. "The 2019 global average level set a new record and when we started looking at 2020, the shutdowns had no impact on the concentration of greenhouse gases that have been accumulating for more than a century," she said. The WMO projections for an emissions decline of 4 percent to 7 percent is based on a study by the Global Carbon Project, she added.
EDIT
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/20112020/covid-19-coronavirus-shutdowns-greenhouse-gas-emissions
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