Wildfires aiding CO2 rise
Carbon emissions from the wildfires that have ravaged much of southeast Australia are a major driver of what are predicted to be record worldwide atmospheric CO2 levels throughout 2020, Britain’s Met Office said Friday. The annual rise of planet-warming CO2 levels is anticipated to be among the largest since measurements began in 1958, it said. CO2 levels, taken at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii, fluctuate throughout the year due to weather patterns in the Northern Hemisphere. But the annual trend is inexorably upwards, with record CO2 levels anticipated in May of 417 parts per million (ppm). And 2020 is predicted to be the first year on record where CO2 levels do not dip below 410 ppm, with the annual average forecast to be 414.2 ppm. That’s the highest concentration in at least 800,000 years and possible in as many as three million years.
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