The levels of the crucial heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere reached historic highs last year, growing at near-record fast paces, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Carbon dioxide, the most important and abundant of the greenhouse gases caused by humans, rose in 2023 by the third highest amount in 65 years of record keeping, NOAA announced Friday. Scientists are also worried about the rapid rise in atmospheric levels of methane, a shorter-lived but more potent heat-trapping gas. Both jumped 5.5% over the past decade.
The 2.8 parts per million increase in carbon dioxide airborne levels from January 2023 to December, wasn’t as high as the jumps were in 2014 and 2015, but they were larger than every other year since 1959, when precise records started. Carbon dioxide’s average level for 2023 was 419.3 parts per million, up 50% from pre-industrial times.
Get ready for in about ten years we’ll see — even more than right now — how much methane pulled from the earth is screwing us. By then I feel like national news sources will finally start talking about how wasteful methane is and how much is leaking (and not used just wasted) from pipes all day every day that isn’t accounted for. I,mean, I guess that’s exactly what this article is about. But we need more talk about this all the time.
Climate Town had a great video about this that came out last week.
https://youtu.be/K2oL4SFwkkw?si=3WvFyjvIkHwLOJ_d