CO2 Hits Record Levels, Researchers Find

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0320-11.htm

MAUNA LOA OBSERVATORY, Hawaii - Carbon dioxide, the gas
largely blamed for global warming, has reached record-high
levels in the atmosphere after growing at an accelerated pace
in the past year, say scientists monitoring the sky from this
2-mile-high station atop a Hawaiian volcano.

The United States, the world’s biggest carbon dioxide
emitter, signed the agreement but did not ratify it, and the
Bush administration has since withdrawn U.S. support, calling
instead for voluntary emission reductions by U.S. industry
and more scientific research into climate change.

The reason for the faster buildup of the most important
"greenhouse gas" will require further analysis, the U.S.
government experts say.

"But the big picture is that CO2 is continuing to go up,"
said Russell Schnell, deputy director of the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration’s climate monitoring
laboratory in Boulder, Colo., which operates the Mauna Loa
Observatory on the island of Hawaii.

Carbon dioxide, mostly from burning of coal, gasoline and
other fossil fuels, traps heat that otherwise would radiate
into space. Global temperatures increased by about 1 degree
Fahrenheit (0.6 degrees Celsius) during the 20th century, and
international panels of scientists sponsored by world
governments have concluded that most of the warming probably
was due to greenhouse gases.

The climatologists forecast continued temperature rises that
will disrupt the climate, cause seas to rise and lead to
other unpredictable consequences - unpredictable in part
because of uncertainties in computer modeling of future
climate.

Before the industrial age and extensive use of fossil fuels,
the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere stood
at about 280 parts per million, scientists have determined.

Average readings at the 11,141-foot Mauna Loa Observatory,
where carbon dioxide density peaks each northern winter,
hovered around 379 parts per million on Friday, compared with
about 376 a year ago.

That year-to-year increase of about 3 parts per million is
considerably higher than the average annual increase of 1.8
parts per million over the past decade, and markedly more
accelerated than the 1-part-per-million annual increase
recorded a half-century ago, when observations were first
made here.

Asked to explain the stepped-up rate, climatologists were
cautious, saying data needed to be further evaluated. But
Asia immediately sprang to mind.

"China is taking off economically and burning a lot of fuel.
India, too," said Pieter Tans, a prominent carbon-cycle
expert at NOAA’s Boulder lab.

Another leading climatologist, Ralph Keeling, whose father,
Charles D. Keeling, developed methods for measuring carbon
dioxide, noted that the rate "does fluctuate up and down a
bit," and said it was too early to reach conclusions. But he
added: "People are worried about `feedbacks.’ We are moving
into a warmer world."

He explained that warming itself releases carbon dioxide from
the ocean and soil. By raising the gas’s level in the
atmosphere, that in turn could increase warming, in a
"positive feedback," said Keeling, of San Diego’s Scripps
Institution of Oceanography.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects that,
if unchecked, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations by
2100 will range from 650 to 970 parts per million. As a
result, the panel estimates, average global temperature would
probably rise by 1.4 to 5.8 degrees Celsius (2.7 and 10.4
degrees Fahrenheit) between 1990 and 2100.

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol would oblige ratifying countries to
reduce carbon dioxide emissions according to set schedules,
to minimize potential global warming. The pact has not taken
effect, however.

The United States, the world’s biggest carbon dioxide
emitter, signed the agreement but did not ratify it, and the
Bush administration has since withdrawn U.S. support, calling
instead for voluntary emission reductions by U.S. industry
and more scientific research into climate change.

The Associated Press