Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Greenhouse gas levels hit new high, says UN

Surging levels of carbon dioxide sent greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to a new record in 2013, while oceans, which absorb the emissions, have become more acidic than ever, the UN said on 9th September. Concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide all broke fresh records in 2013, said the report. 

Global concentrations of CO2, the main culprit in global warming, soared to 396 parts per million last year, or 142 percent of pre-industrial levels, defined as before 1750. That marked a hike of 2.9 parts per million between 2012 and 2013 alone, the largest annual increase in 30 years, according to the Greenhouse Gas Bulletin. 

The report also showed that so-called radiative forcing, or the warming effect on our climate attributed to greenhouse gases like CO2, increased 34 percent from 1990 to 2013. A quarter of emissions are absorbed by the oceans, while another quarter are sucked into the biosphere, naturally limiting rates of warming gases in the atmosphere. But CO2 remains in the atmosphere for hundreds of years and in the oceans for even longer. 

The gases stored in the oceans also have "far-reaching impacts," WMO warned, since more CO2 in the water leads to increased acidity, altering the ocean ecosystem. Every day, the world's oceans absorb some four kilos (8.8 pounds) of CO2 per person each day, WMO said, calling current ocean acidification levels "unprecedented at least over the last 300 million years."

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