The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has reported that the amounts of atmospheric greenhouse gases reached a new high in 2013, driven by rapidly rising levels of carbon dioxide.

 

The news is consistent with trends in fossil fuel consumption. But what comes as more of a surprise is the WMO's revelation that the current rate of ocean acidification, which greenhouse gases (GHGs) help to cause, appears unprecedented in at least the last 300 million years.

 

The details of growing GHG levels are in the annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, published by the WMO - the United Nations specialist agency that plays a leading role in international efforts to monitor and protect the environment.

 

The Bulletin reports on atmospheric concentrations - not emissions - of greenhouse gases. Emissions are what go into the atmosphere, while concentrations are what stay there after the complex system of interactions between the atmosphere, biosphere (the entire global ecological system) and the oceans.

 

The Bulletin shows that between 1990 and 2013 there was a 34% increase in radiative forcing - the warming effect on our climate - because of long-lived greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide.

 

About a quarter of total emissions are taken up by the oceans and another quarter by the biosphere, cutting levels of atmospheric CO2.

 

In 2013, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 was 142% higher than before the Industrial Revolution started, in about 1750. Concentrations of methane and nitrous oxide had risen by 253% and 121% respectively.