Earth's CO2 levels hit 800,000-year high
According to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, CO2 has just reached its highest level in human history at 410 PPM, compared to the time before the start of the industrial revolution when this concentration never exceeded 300 PPM.
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"This index has reached its highest level in the last 800,000 years. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has also increased by 30% since 1958," said scientist Scalpp Keeling.
According to the World Meteorological Organization, CO2 is the "culprit" that increases the greenhouse effect and is responsible for 63% of the Earth's warming. Not only CO2, the increase of gases such as methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (NO) is also promoting climate change and making "our planet more extreme".
CO2 is also known as a greenhouse gas because it is the most common of all greenhouse gases produced by human activities. The burning of oil, gas, coal and other fossil fuels, if not reduced, will lead to an increase in the emission of gases that are harmful to the Earth's temperature.
“The CO2 level in the late 1800s was 280 PPM,” added Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University. “Although CO2 levels fluctuate up and down from year to year, this peak is unprecedented.
As a scientist, what I'm most concerned about is not the rise and fall of the numbers, but rather the fact that human behavior is pushing the planet further toward destruction."
Ralph Keeling and his late father, Charles David Keeling, have been keeping CO2 measurements at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii for 60 years.