Earth’s Carbon Concentrations Soar to Levels Not Seen in 800,000 Years

Exposing the Big Game's avatarThe Extinction Chronicles

As temperatures bust heat records across the globe and wildfires ragefrom California to the Arctic, a new report produced annually by more than 500 scientists worldwide found that last year, the carbon dioxide concentrations in the Earth’s atmosphere reached the highest levels “in the modern atmospheric measurement record and in ice core records dating back as far as 800,000 years.”

While the most significant jump was the global average for carbon dioxide (CO2)—which, at 405.0 parts per million (ppm), saw a 2.2 ppm increase from the previous yearconcentrations of other dominant planet-warming greenhouse gases, methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), also hit “record highs,” according to State of the Climate in 2017 released Wednesday.

Considering those rates, Greg Johnson, an oceanographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory…

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