http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2126531/atmospheric-greenhouse-gases-reach-levels
World Meteorological Organization finds CO2, methane and nitrous oxide all increase in 2010
Concentrations of the three main greenhouse gases linked to global warming reached their highest-ever levels last year, a UN agency said today.
The UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported a 29 per cent increase from 1990 to 2010 in radiative forcing - the warming effect on the climate from greenhouse gases - of which carbon dioxide accounted for 80 per cent.
The report comes the week after another UN body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), found temperatures were almost certain to rise over the coming century, potentially increasing heavy rainstorms and droughts.
The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere increased to 389 parts per million molecules of air in 2010, a rise of 2.3 parts per million on the previous year, which represents a larger increase than the average for the 1990s and the past decade.
Meanwhile methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, grew to 1,806 parts per billion and nitrous oxide rose to 323.3 parts per billion.
Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), potent greenhouse gases that last far longer in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, are also on the increase according to a separate UN report released today.
The International Energy Agency warned earlier this month that the world was just five years away from irreversible climate change and, ahead of the Durban climate change conference, WMO secretary-general Michel Jarraud called for urgent action to limit emissions.
"Even if we managed to halt our greenhouse gas emissions today - and this is far from the case - they would continue to linger in the atmosphere for decades to come and so continue to affect the delicate balance of our living planet and our climate," Jarraud said. "Now more than ever before, we need to understand the complex and sometimes unexpected interactions between greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, Earth's biosphere and oceans."
Jarraud's sentiments were echoed by Andy Atkins, executive director of Friends of the Earth.
"Over recent years we've been sleepwalking towards a climate disaster - it seems we've now broken into a sprint," he said. "The world must wake up to the enormous threat we all face and agree tough international action at next month's UN climate talks in South Africa."
