In a previous post I was giving general information but not a lot of precise data. I take the opportunity here to give some more concerning carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. This summary reported a worsening in the climate change situation, and this for several reasons.
Concerning carbon dioxide :
“Carbon dioxide is the most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas (…). The global atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has increased from a pre-industrial value of about 280 ppm to 379 ppm in 2005.(…) The annual carbon dioxide concentration growth-rate was larger during the last 10 years (1995 – 2005 average: 1.9 ppm per year), than it has been since the beginning of continuous direct atmospheric measurements (1960–2005 average: 1.4 ppm per year) although there is year-to-year variability in growth rates.”
on carbon dioxide emissions:
According to this summary for policymakers, the annual fossil carbon dioxide emissions also increased. From 6.4 gigatons of Carbon per year in the 1990s, it rose 7.2 gigatons of Carbon per year between 2000 and 2005. This indeed represents a huge escalation in the emission of carbon dioxide.
On methane, another important greenhouse gas :
“The global atmospheric concentration of methane has increased from a pre-industrial value of about 715 ppb (note : parts per billion) to 1732 ppb in the early 1990s, and is 1774 ppb in 2005. The atmospheric concentration of methane in 2005 exceeds by far the natural range of the last 650,000 years (320 to 790 ppb) as determined from ice cores.”
On the global average temperature:
“Paleoclimate information supports the interpretation that the warmth of the last half century is unusual in at least the previous 1300 years.”
Source
Well, it is a smaller post than the first one, but to my opinion only a few important data was missing. However, this data truly shows an aggravation in pollution.
I do hope this summary (as well as other scientific data that will come in the next months) will quickly drive people and governments alike into strong action against climate change, as strong and fast action is now dearly needed.
I will probably do in the coming days/weeks a commentary on Socolow and Pacala’s stabilization wedges theory. This theory indeed brings very interesting ideas on how to decrease our greenhouse gases emissions as well as other data.
Meanwhile, I plan to write articles on biofuels and still news articles. So stay tuned !