Climate Change: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide

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🗞️ Driving the news: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported in its 2022 annual report that the global average atmospheric carbon dioxide reached a new high of 417.06 parts per million (ppm), marking an increase of 2.13 ppm from 2021

🔭 The context: Since the middle of the 20th century, annual emissions from fossil fuels have increased every decade, from close to 11 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year in the 1960s to an estimated 36.6 billion tons in 2022

🌎 Why it matters for the planet: Carbon dioxide is Earth’s most important greenhouse gas and it absorbs and radiates heat, causing the global temperature to rise
• This concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing at a rate about 100 times faster than previous natural increases, supercharging the natural greenhouse effect and causing global temperature to rise

⏭️ What's next: If the global energy demand continues to grow rapidly, and it's met primarily with fossil fuels, carbon dioxide emissions could reach 75 billion tons per year or more by the end of the century
• This could push atmospheric carbon dioxide to levels not seen on Earth for close to 50 million years

💬 One quote: "The more we overshoot what natural processes can remove in a year, the faster the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide rises." (NOAA’s Global Monitoring Lab)

📈 One stat: Over the past half century, the global growth rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide has tripled, reaching 2.4 ppm per year during the 2010s
• This increase is approximately 100 times faster than previous natural increases

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