Record surge in atmospheric CO2 seen in 2016
Last week the BBC carried another scare story on climate change, this time citing a report on CO2 from the World Meteorological Organisation:
“Concentrations of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere surged to a record high in 2016, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
Last year’s increase was 50% higher than the average of the past 10 years.
Researchers say a combination of human activities and the El Niño weather phenomenon drove CO2 to a level not seen in 800,000 years.
Scientists say this risks making global temperature targets largely unattainable.”
Since this reporting is from the BBC, my default reaction is to treat it with a good deal of scepticism. So I decided to check out the numbers.
To my surprise the “50% higher than the average of the past 10 years” appears to be correct (Figure 1). The mean dCO2 2006-2015 was 2.1 ppm. The 2016 figure of 3.4 ppm is indeed 62% higher than the prior 10 year mean. We need to ask the serious question if this is a cause for concern?
Figure 1 Annual dCO2 from Mauna Loa based on monthly data downloaded from WoodForTrees. Annual means were calculated and annual dCO2 equals arithmetic difference from year to year.
The arrows on Figure 1 point to strong to very strong El Niño events. The very strong El Niño of 1982 / 83 does not register a CO2 spike, but the CO2 spike of 1988 does coincide with a strong El Niño. We are on fairly safe ground saying that the three marked and one unmarked CO2 spikes are linked to El Niño. We know that ocean surface warming will lead to reduced capacity to absorb CO2.
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