A rapid increase of greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere has been detected this April alone and scientists warn that if this continues, climate change is impossible to control.
The Scripps Institution of Oceanography of the University of California in San Diego reported that CO2 levels reached its record high of 401.33 parts per million (ppm), the highest rate in the last 800,000 years.
The readings remained above 400 ppm the whole month, says Scripps. These readings were two months early than last year when the concentration of CO2, for the first time in human history, exceeded 400 ppm on May 9.
The figures will grow, with an average of 2 ppm recorded in the span of ten years. At this pace, Scripps warned, Earth will have jam-packed 450 ppm of the toxic gas in its atmosphere well before year 2038.
"400 ppm is not a tipping point [but] a milestone, marking the fact that humans have caused carbon dioxide concentrations to rise 120 ppm since pre-industrial times, with over 90 percent of that in the past century alone," said James Butler, Ph.D., Director of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Global Monitoring Division.
To gauge CO2 concentrations of the atmosphere, scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography use an instrument called "Keeling curve," a machine invented by Charles Keeling in 1958 and has since been keeping track of the CO2 concentrations in the air.
Located at the NOAA's Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, the graph is now overseen by son Ralph Keeling, a professor of geochemistry and head of the Scripps CO2 Research Group.
When Keeling first began measuring in Mauna Loa, the amount of carbon dioxide was 313 ppm. Prior to the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, CO2 levels read 280 ppm. The levels were lower in the ice ages when it only recorded 200 ppm. The rapid growth in readings was due to the large amounts of fossil fuels burned for factories and machineries.
Unbeknownst to many, there is a natural "greenhouse effect" but human-induced conditions, such as uncontrollable production of CO2, worsens the overall effect. Trees and plants contribute to the problem, too, as presented in the study that revealed Amazon Basin releasing more CO2 than they absorb.
Too much CO2 can lead to myriad of problems including global warming and climate change. Researchers also point to CO2 as the likely culprit of high ocean acidification that is recently reported to dissolve the shells of a species of pteropods in the West Coast.
