The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere peaked - BBC Russian

Observatory on Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii collects data on the level of CO 2 in the atmosphere since 1958

level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for the first time in the history of the measurements exceeded 400 parts per million, ie 400 molecules of the gas per million molecules of air.

This was stated by the American Meteorological Laboratory of the Killing of the Hawaiian Islands.

The last time this level of carbon dioxide, which is considered to be one of the causes of global warming has existed on Earth about 3.5 million years ago, before the last ice age.

U.S. scientist Charles Keeling began measuring carbon dioxide levels at Mauna Loa in 1958. Then this level is 315 parts per million.

Usually meteorologists observe fluctuations in the annual cycle in the winter months when the CO2 rises and then falls in the summer. In the northern hemisphere, it corresponds to the period of activation of plants which absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Overall, however, the trend is leading to an increase in the content of this greenhouse gas.

James Butler directs the Laboratory for the study of geosystems in the observatory at Mauna Loa, which is owned by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration of the United States.

“Observatory at the South Pole and at Mauna Loa volcano collect observations since 1958. Last year, all of our stations in the Arctic showed a level of 400 h / m But in the Southern Hemisphere, we see such a high figure for the first time.”

want to examine very relict air bubbles preserved in the fossil samples of ice produced during the drilling of the ice sheet of Antarctica. So they got an idea of ??the dynamics of changes in the level of carbon dioxide over the past 800,000 years.

These data indicate that over time the level of the gas in the atmosphere was 200-300 hours / m

British geophysicist Professor Joanna Haigh believes that by itself this indicator is rather symbolic.

“For us, more important than the indicator itself, which is a little difference in the physics of the atmosphere, and the general trend of its growth,” – she says.