It now seems that nowhere on the grimace of the Earth has been leave untouched by the combustion of fossil fuel . The last place on the planet without a reading of atmospherical carbon dioxide of 400 parting per million – the remote depths of Antarctica – has nowfor the first prison term recordedthe breaching of this milestone , make it the first time it has collide with such storey over the continentin perhaps 4 million class .
“ The far southerly hemisphere was the last place on Earth where CO2had not yet reached this mark,”explainsPieter Tans , the lead scientist of NOAA ’s Global Greenhouse Gas Reference web , who recorded the carbon dioxide levels . “ Global CO2levels will not regress to values below 400 ppm in our lifetimes , and almost certainly for much longer . ”
This news comesafter an other reportfound that the levels of CO2 in the standard atmosphere recorded at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii will likely be above 400 ppm for an intact class . atmospherical carbon dioxide assiduousness have not been this high for some 4 million year , when ground acedia and giant armadillo still roamed the Americas and our early hominin ancestors , australopithecine , first come forth during the Pliocene epoch .
While the pattern of 400 parts per million is largely symbolical , it act as salutary mark of just how dramatically we have changed the atmosphere of the planet . At the start of the industrial revolution , before the wholesale electrocution of coal , oil and gasolene , the assiduousness of atmospherical carbon copy dioxide was sitting at around 280 part per million . Over the undermentioned century , this level has been increasing in tandem with the amount of fossil fuels we have been consuming , finally turn over 400 ppm for the first fourth dimension in 2013 .
Independently , another inquiry place in Antarctica has also recorded the same figures . Reported by the British Antarctic Survey from their Halley VI Research Station , it seems that humans really have changed our planet “ to the very poles . ” With the CO2 in the atmosphere trapping the heat from the Sun , it is hardly surprising then that 2016 is set to be the hottest on record .
“ We know from abundant and solid grounds that the CO2increase is get entirely by human activities,”saysTans . “ Since emissions from fossil fuel burning have been at a record high during the last several years , the rate of CO2 increase has also been at a record high . And we know some of it will remain in the standard atmosphere for thousands of age . ”
range in text : NOAA
