From BBC website - We need more trees!

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Carbon dioxide continues its rise

By David Shukman

BBC science correspondent

 

 

 

Many ice bodies from the poles to the tropics are in retreat

Levels of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide have reached a new high,

according to US researchers.

 

The figures were gathered by a laboratory in Hawaii, regarded by

experts as one of the most reliable in climate research.

 

The rise in the past year is smaller than it was in the previous two

years.

 

But the trend remains upwards, as it has for every year since this

set of measurements started near half a century ago.

 

Scientists at the Mauna Loa volcano laboratory found an increase in

CO2 to a record level of 378 parts per million (ppm).

 

The research was carried out by the US government's Climate

Monitoring Diagnostics Laboratory, part of the National Oceanic and

Atmospheric Administration (Noaa).

 

'CO2 rising since 1958'

 

The laboratory's director, Dr Pieter Tans, told the BBC: " The most

striking thing about the data is that we've seen an increase in

carbon dioxide levels every single year since 1958. "

 

At an altitude of 3,500 metres (11,500ft), the research station must

rank as the one of the world's most spectacular and most remote

scientific outposts.

 

Reaching it involves leaving the tropical heat and humidity of the

Hawaiian coast and climbing up a narrow road that twists through

barren fields of solidified lava.

 

The thin Pacific air is ideal for this research since it is " well-

mixed " , meaning that there is no obvious nearby source of pollution

such as a heavy industry or a natural " sink " such as forest which

would absorb CO2.

 

For that reason the data from Mauna Loa has come to be seen as the

benchmark by which atmospheric data is judged.

 

According to Dr Tans, one significant finding is that the annual rate

at which the CO2 is rising has itself increased.

 

The growth rate over the past decade was about twice as fast as that

found in the 1960s.

 

He says that variations in the growth rate year by year can be

explained by natural factors, for example, changes in the rate at

which plants and the oceans soak up carbon dioxide.

 

But he and his colleagues conclude that the steady rise overall can

be attributed to man-made emissions of carbon.

 

Dr David Hoffman, director of Noaa's Climate Monitoring and

Diagnostics Laboratory, said: " Even though man's contribution is not

increasing dramatically - in fact it's steady - it is adding up,

there's a cumulative increase " .

 

In the year that the long-awaited Kyoto Treaty finally came into

force, with its aim of lowering greenhouse gases, the latest evidence

highlights what a challenge that will be.