Carbon dioxide levels averaged more than 410 parts per million in April and May at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory, surging past yet another climate milestone. This is the sixth consecutive year of steep global increases in concentrations of the greenhouse gas, scientists from NOAA and Scripps Institution of Oceanography announced today.

Carbon dioxide levels are tracked closely by the world’s scientists as a measure of how human activity is changing the planet’s atmosphere. The concentration of CO₂  in the atmosphere increases every year, and the rate of increase is accelerating. While it averaged about 1.6 ppm per year in the 1980s and 1.5 ppm per year in the 1990s, the growth rate increased to 2.2 ppm per year during the last decade.

"CO₂ levels are continuing to grow at an all-time record rate because burning of coal, oil, and natural gas have also been at record high levels,” said Pieter Tans, lead scientist of NOAA's Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network. "Today's emissions will still be trapping heat in the atmosphere thousands of years from now."

Read more at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

Image Credit: NOAA

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