UN Study Shows Record-High Increases For Atmospheric CO2 In 2013

Figures released Tuesday by a United Nations advisory body reveal that 2013 saw new recorded highs for both carbon dioxide and methane, as well as the largest year-over-year rise in carbon dioxide since 1984, reflecting continuing worldwide emissions from human sources but also the possibility that natural sinks (oceans and vegetation) are near their capacity for absorbing the excess. From the Washington Post's account: The latest figures from the World Meteorological Organization’s monitoring network are considered particularly significant because they reflect not only the amount of carbon pumped into the air by humans, but also the complex interaction between man-made gases and the natural world. Historically, about half of the pollution from human sources has been absorbed by the oceans and by terrestrial plants, preventing temperatures from rising as quickly as they otherwise would, scientists say. “If the oceans and the biosphere cannot absorb as much carbon, the effect on the atmosphere could be much worse,” said Oksana Tarasova, a scientist and chief of the WMO’s Global Atmospheric Watch program, which collects data from 125 monitoring stations worldwide. The monitoring network is regarded as the most reliable window on the health of Earth’s atmosphere, drawing on air samples collected near the poles, over the oceans, and in other locations far from cities and other major sources of pollution. The new figures for carbon dioxide were particularly surprising, showing the biggest year-over-year increase since detailed records were first compiled in the 1980s, Tarasova said in an interview. The jump of nearly three parts per million over 2012 levels was twice as large as the average increase in carbon levels in recent decades, she said.

Comments

Re:Meanwhile in the real world...

[i kan reed]

Some "hiatus" with 2013 and 2012 and 2010 and 2009 and 2008 and 2007 and 2006 and 2005 and 2004 and 2003 all making the list of top 10 hottest years since we started measuring.

Not that it matters, because you repetitive dolts have exactly zero null hypotheses that you've got any hope of establishing.

One themometer won't do

[mdsolar]

You need a global array. Last December-January-February together were the seventh warmest on record globally. http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gist...

Re:Talking Point

[GameboyRMH]

You haven't reviewed the data, you can't, its not public, so stop acting like you know any better than I do what the truth is.

This data?

http://www.realclimate.org/ind...

Looks public to me.

Re:Nearly 3 parts in a million

[Robear]

Here's how it's measured at the Mauna Kea site. Accuracy is to within 0.2ppm, 1 standard deviation is 0.26ppm.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/about/co2_measurements.html

So yeah, we know it's accurate because it's using the same techniques and technology used all over the world to measure gas fractions per mole of various gasses in many different applications. If the CO2 measurements for climate were wrong as you suspect - "rounding errors" or the like - then people would be dying left and right due to anesthesiology mismeasurements; chemical manufacturing would have far higher error rates; and other very visible and common manufacturing processes would be far less reliable than they are today. This is solid measurement technology.

Human civilization developed at about 275ppm of CO2. It took us from the dawn of civilization (first use of fire, you could argue, so over 400,000 years) to the early 19th century to budge the needle beyond small natural variations from 275ppm. From the 1820's to 1910, just under a century, we gained 25ppm. From 1910 to 1950 - 40 years - we gained 40ppm more. From 1950 to today, we've gained another 50ppm and are currently increasing at about 2ppm per year. 400,000 years - tiny amounts of change. 190 years - 33% increase; that's got to register, since CO2 drives the atmospheric temperature as the greenhouse gas with the most effect.

The problem is that we are now entering a climate regime which humanity has never been in before. Our entire civilization has been built on stable climates, and that's true of the past, too. We have many, many records of civilization which did poorly and even failed when their climate changed by an amount that is a small fraction of what we're doing now. Civilization will not collapse tomorrow, or in a decade, or in a century. It will simply become more expensive, dangerous, uncomfortable, impoverished and unstable than it is today. If you're comfortable with that as the future to leave to your grandchildren, well, more power to you. I hope you build your bunker deep.

Ignoring a problem that will lead to massive changes in the world is perhaps the least conservative action possible. The fact that we are uncertain as to the total effects of these changes down the line, but we know we're messing with the entire planet, means that inaction is even *more* dangerous, because of the possible consequences. So the claim that we need to wait before doing anything is a radical, not conservative, approach.

Re:Talking Point

[dywolf]

You haven't reviewed the data, you can't, its not public, so stop acting like you know any better than I do what the truth is.

All of the data. ALL OF IT. Is public. You are an idiot.

http://www.noaa.gov/climate.ht...
http://www.skepticalscience.co...

Or even just google of wikipedia for it. It's all out there.