The amount of carbon dioxide continues to increase even after the authorities have forced stricter emission standards for vehicles.
More than 402 ppm (parts per million) levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (a green house gas that modifies climate change) have been recorded through a special monitoring equipment placed atop the Hawaiian mountain.
This is the highest recorded level of atmospheric carbon dioxide ever.
The data was reported by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California–San Diego, under the daily record of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
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Another high level of about 400 ppm or 0.04%, was recorded in mid-May, 2013. With the new record it is anticipated that the annual CO2 peak will be higher in the mid of May as compared to last year’s figure.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations were at 313 ppm when efforts were initially made to record CO2 levels atop Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano in the year 1958.
The chart that documents the rise of carbon dioxide concentrations in detail is called the Keeling Curve. It is named after the founder of CO2 monitoring program, Scientist Charles David Keeling, at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
On April 7, an increase in the level of CO2 was recorded at 402.20 ppm, which is slightly different from the level that was presented by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) at 402.11 ppm.
There has not been any consensus on the level of CO2 concentrations matching to this year’s record. But some estimates show, that the records match CO2 concentrations of 800,000 to 15 million years ago, based on the analysis conducted on the air bubbles recovered in Antarctica’s ice cores.
Since billions of years, the Earth has experienced higher CO2 levels, caused mainly by environmental factors, that usually include variations in the solar-energy output and planet’s orbit. But it must be noted that at the time there weren’t 7 billion human beings inhabiting the Earth.
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