Sharp increase in carbon levels in atmosphere means global warming will speed up

An article by the Independent on Sunday's Environmental Editor, Geoffrey Lean, in today's Indie tells us that measurements of the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, which is done by the US government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration every year on Mauna Loa, have shown a sharp rise in the past year. In January 2005 they were about 376 parts per million(ppm), on Friday they hovered around 379. That's an increase of 3 ppm in a year. In the 1950s, when the measures were first taken, the average annual increase was about 1ppm, in the 1990s it was 1.6 ppm. Last year the increase had been about 1.8 ppm over the previous year, so this is a whopping increase. The Indie doesn't have a free archive, so check the story at USA Today.

From 1900-2000, the Earth heated up, on average, by 1 degree Centigrade, most of which was due to human carbon emissions. Now the rate of growth of emissions is speeding up, so will climate change, and its catastrophic effects, which have in the last year included the record-breaking (in number and intensity) hurricane season (Tropical Storm Zeta lasted into January, a full five weeks after the official end of the season), the first Atlantic cyclone to make landfall in Europe in recorded history (Tropical Storm Vince), and the accelerated melting of Arctic Sea Ice, permafrost in North America and Siberia (threatening a giant methane burp from a previously frozen peat bog), and the Greenland ice cap. There has also been drought in Southern and Eastern Africa, and unseasonable cold weather on the Indian subcontinent. Extinctions are progressing at a rate unseen for millions of years, a third of amphibian species are imminently under threat.

Why this sudden increase? Two words maybe: China and India? The fact that these two countries are developing rapidly, and in the same dirty way that we did, using their vast reserves of cheap coal, means that we in the developed North have got to get our act together, and first cut our emissions, then help them to switch to cleaner technologies. But what does the world's biggest (per capita) polluter do? Why, they join with the world's second biggest per capita polluter and host the 'Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate' in the latter's back yard. This includes China and India as well as the US and Australia (for 'twas they), which sounds like a good thing, but this 'alternative to Kyoto' sets only voluntary targets and says that the use of fossil fuels is a reality for this century. This is denial on a grand scale!