![]() ![]() Since the middle of the 20th century, annual emissions from burning fossil fuels have increased every decade, from an average of 3 billion tons of carbon (11 billion tons of carbon dioxide) a year in the 1960s to 9.5 billion tons of carbon (35 billion tons of carbon dioxide) per year in the 2010s, according to the Global Carbon Update 2021.Ĭarbon cycle experts estimate that natural “sinks”-processes that remove carbon from the atmosphere-on land and in the ocean absorbed the equivalent of about half of the carbon dioxide we emitted each year in the 2011-2020 decade. ![]() Fossil fuels like coal and oil contain carbon that plants pulled out of the atmosphere through photosynthesis over many millions of years we are returning that carbon to the atmosphere in just a few hundred. NOAA image, based on data from NOAA Global Monitoring Lab.Ĭarbon dioxide concentrations are rising mostly because of the fossil fuels that people are burning for energy. The long-term trend of rising carbon dioxide levels is driven by human activities. The seasonal cycle of highs and lows (small peaks and valleys) is driven by summertime growth and winter decay of Northern Hemisphere vegetation. This graph shows the station's monthly average carbon dioxide measurements since 1960 in parts per million (ppm). The modern record of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels began with observations recorded at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. ![]()
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