ourclimate

The State of Our Climate

The State of Our Climate System

The site for vital climate data in monthly images

ACCELERATING PLANETARY EMERGENCY SIGNS

Atmospheric
greenhouse gases
Jan 2020
CO2 412 ppm
CH4 1880 ppb
N2O 332.58ppb

Already committed future warming
and climate change

The radiative heat forcing of today's atmospheric GHGs (above) commits the world to a global warming of 1.5C by 2030-2040 (IPCC AR5 WG1 Figure 11.6) and full equilibrium warming of 2.0C.

'The current RF(radiative forcing) from GHGs maintained indefinitely (i.e., the commitment from constant greenhouse gas concentrations) would correspond to approximately 2°C warming.' (IPCC AR5 WG1 12.5.4.2)

Site maintained by Peter Carter

Atmospheric CO2 is at a 3-5 million year and rising at an
unprecedented rate)

and possibly at a 20 milliion year high
(Sc.Am. Mar 2015)

The 1992 UN climate change convention requires safe levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases

Mar 2016 Nature The terrestrial biosphere as a net source of greenhouse gases

Carbon clock

March 2020

EARTH GHG EMERGENCY

> All GHG emissions increasing fast

> CO2 emissions accelerating
> All atmospheric GHGs increasing fast
> Accelerating atmospheric CO2
> Accelerating global (& recent increase) warming

> Accelerating ocean heat
> Accelerating ocean acidification
> Accelerating ocean de-oxygenation

Rate of warming headed for
10X faster than
the past 65 M years

CO2

CH4

N2O

Feb 2020 WMO State of the Climate in 2019

Accelerating atmospheric CO2 at a 3-5 million year high, has been increasing at a rate over "the past 70 years of nearly 100 times larger than that at the end of the last ice age ... such abrupt changes in the atmospheric levels of CO2 have never before been seen".
WMO Oct 2017

NASA
2017

Accelerating atmospheric CO2
Surging methane 1750-Sept 2018

Bulletin of the
American Meteorology
Society. BAMS 2019 State of Global Climate System in 2018