“Not only is CO2 now at the highest level in millions of years, it is also rising faster than ever. Each year achieves a higher maximum due to fossil-fuel burning, which releases pollution in the form of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere,” said Ralph Keeling, director of the Scripps CO2 program that manages the institution’s 56-year-old measurement series. “Fossil fuel pollution just keeps building up, much like trash in a landfill.”
The record two-year growth rate observed from 2022 to 2024 is likely a result of sustained high fossil fuel emissions combined with El Niño conditions limiting the ability of global land ecosystems to absorb atmospheric CO2, said John Miller, a carbon cycle scientist with the Global Monitoring Laboratory.
The Mauna Loa data, together with measurements from sampling stations around the world, are incorporated into the Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network, a foundational research dataset for international climate scientists and a benchmark for policymakers attempting to address the causes and impacts of climate change.
So now we need to wait and see if it will slowly fall back or if we hit a runaway situation, basically?
Well, maybe not just wait … Some factors will fall back - e.g. El Niño is a cycle, so are sunspots, ocean patches go round in (big-slow) loops, forests can run out of tinder (for a while). But to be sure to tip the balance of those climate-carbon feedbacks we need to get the temperature down - this could be done quicker by focusing especially on emissions of shorter-lived gases - mainly methane. Cutting out aviation-induced cirrus might also help to cancel some of the warming we got from cutting shipping sulphate - the opposite effect is because low clouds cause net cooling, high clouds cause net warming (depending on angle of sun etc. …). The good news is that models already include most of these factors, the bad news is that models say we have to cut emissions much faster than we do.