Atmospheric GHG Break Record

Concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached record high in 2010: WMO

The atmospheric GHG rose faster in 2010 than the decadal average.

Disaster Calendar 2011 – November 21

[November 21, 2011]  Mass die-offs resulting from human impact and the planetary response to the anthropogenic assault could occur by early 2016.  SYMBOLIC COUNTDOWN: 1,577 Days Left to the ‘Worst Day’ in Human History

• Global Mega Disasters. The concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached record high in 2010, according to WMO. The atmospheric GHG rose faster in 2010 than the decadal average.
• Carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration has risen by 39 percent to 389 parts per million (ppm) since 1750.
• Methane (CH4) concentration has climbed by 158 percent since 1750 to a record high of 1,808 parts per billion(ppb), and up by 5 ppb since 2009.
• Nitrous oxide (N2O) levels were 20 percent higher at 323.2ppb   than the pre-industrial era.
• According to the latest Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, the seventh in the series that began in 2004, there has been a 29 percent rise in radiative forcing from greenhouse gases between 1990 and 2010.
• The atmospheric CO2 rose by 2.3ppm in 2010 compared to 2.0ppm in the previous year and the annual average of 1.5 ppm in the 1990s.
• “The atmospheric burden of greenhouse gases due to human activities has yet again reached record levels since pre-industrial time,” said WMO Secretary-General.
• “Even if we managed to halt our greenhouse gas emissions today, and this is far from the case, they would continue to linger in the atmosphere for decades to come and so continue to affect the delicate balance of our living planet and our climate,” he added.

Recent monthly mean carbon dioxide globally averaged over marine surface sites. Source: NOAA

Weekly average CO₂ at Mauna Loa

• Week of November 13, 2011:     390.32 ppm
• Weekly value from 1 year ago:     388.40 ppm
• Weekly value from 10 years ago:     369.79 ppm

Related Links

• The First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities  (EDRO Forecast)
• 2011 Much More Disastrous: FIRE-EARTH Forecast
• Global Disasters in 2011 Could Impact 1/3 to 1/2 of the Human Population  (FIRE-EARTH Forecast)
• Back to the Primordial Future
• Mass Die-offs  (FIRE-EARTH Forecast)

• 2010 Disaster Calendar 
• 2011 Disaster Calendar

GHG Concentration at Record Level: WMO

Brief History of Mankind

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at record levels: the World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

The average mixing ratios of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) reached record level in 2009,WMO reported.

• CO2 concentrations ~ 386.8 ppm
• CH4 ~ 1,803 ppb
• N2O ~ 322.5 ppb

These values are greater than the corresponding atmospheric concentrations in pre-industrial times (~1750) by 38%, 158% and 19%, respectively.

In the twenty year period between 1990 and 2009, the combined radiative forcing—the balance between atmosphere’s incoming and outgoing radiation—for all persistent greenhouse gases increased by 27.5%, with CO2 accounting for about 80% of the increase, according to the NOAA Annual Greenhouse Gas Index.

Source: WMO GHG Bulletin

Carbon Dioxide (CO2)

Carbon dioxide is the single most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, contributing 63.54 %2 to the overall global radiative forcing. It is responsible for 85% of the increase in radiative forcing over the past decade and 83% over the last five years. For about 10 000 years before the industrial revolution, the atmospheric abundance of CO2 was nearly constant at ~ 280 ppm (ppm = number of molecules of the gas per million molecules of dry air). This level represented a balance among the atmosphere, the oceans and the biosphere. Since 1750, atmospheric CO2 has increased by 38%, primarily because of emissions from combustion of fossil fuels (8.7 Gt carbon in 2008, http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/), deforestation and landuse change. High-precision measurements of atmospheric CO2 beginning in 1958 show that the average increase in CO2 in the atmosphere (airborne fraction) corresponds to ~ 55% of the CO2 emitted by fossil fuel combustion. WMO

Source: WMO GHG Bulletin

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• CO2e

Ocean Deserts Source of GHG

Dead zones contribute to climate change

Hypoxic Waters Elevate Greenhouse Gasses in the Atmosphere

A University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science oceanographer says  that the increased amount of nitrous oxide (N2O) produced in aquatic dead zones, low-oxygen (hypoxic) waters, increases concentrations of the potent GHG in the atmosphere, worsening the impacts of global warming and contributing to the widening of ozone “holes” that allow harmful UV radiation through.

Eutrophication in the Sea of Azov.  Eutrophication is caused by human activity. (Source: NASA).

“As the volume of hypoxic waters move towards the sea surface and expands along our coasts, their ability to produce the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide increases,” explains Dr. Codispoti of the UMCES Horn Point Laboratory. “With low-oxygen waters currently producing about half of the ocean’s net nitrous oxide, we could see an additional significant atmospheric increase if these ‘dead zones’ continue to expand.”

N2O, a highly potent greenhouse gas, is present in minute concentrations in Earth’s atmosphere, and is now a major factor in the destruction of the stratospheric ozone layer. “For the past 400,000 years, changes in atmospheric N2O appear to have roughly paralleled changes in carbon dioxide CO2 and have had modest impacts on climate, but this may change. Just as human activities may be causing an unprecedented rise in the terrestrial N2O sources, marine N2O production may also rise substantially as a result of nutrient pollution, warming waters and ocean acidification. Because the marine environment is a net producer of N2O, much of this production will be lost to the atmosphere, thus further intensifying its climatic impact,” a UMC news release said.

As dissolved oxygen levels decline in coastal waters, the N2O production increases. “Under well-oxygenated conditions, microbes produce N2O at low rates. But at oxygen concentrations decrease to hypoxic levels, these waters can increase their production of N2O.”

Shallow suboxic and hypoxic waters produce high rates of N2O “because respiration and biological turnover rates are higher near the sunlit waters where phytoplankton produce the fuel for respiration.”

“When suboxic waters (oxygen essentially absent) occur at depths of less than 300 feet, the combination of high respiration rates, and the peculiarities of a process called denitrification can cause N2O production rates to be 10,000 times higher than the average for the open ocean. The future of marine N2O production depends critically on what will happen to the roughly ten percent of the ocean volume that is hypoxic and suboxic.

“Nitrous oxide data from many coastal zones that contain low oxygen waters are sparse, including Chesapeake Bay,” said Dr. Codispoti. “We should intensify our observations of the relationship between low oxygen concentrations and nitrous oxide in coastal waters.”

The article “Interesting Times for Nitrous Oxide” appears in the March 12, 2010 edition of the journal Science.

University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science

Related Links:

• Eutrophication and Hypoxia
• Our oceans are dying
• The Eight Steps that Help Kill More of Our Fish