The coronavirus lockdown may have helped the environment significantly but may have also plunged in global greenhouse gas emissions. This was another crucial metric for making the gravity of global warming as the amount of greenhouse gases actually in the air, just hit a record high.
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As per the reading from the NOAA – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air in the month of May 2020 hit an average which is greater than 417 parts per million (ppm). This would be the highest monthly average value ever recorded and this was higher than the 414.7 ppm in May last year.
Carbon dioxide levels are the highest as compared to last year and probably are the highest in 3 million years which is huge.
The continued rise of Carbon dioxide emission in the atmosphere may sound surprising in light of recent findings that the pandemic, and the world lockdown had led to a huge drop in global greenhouse gas emissions, peaking at a 17 per cent decline in early April.
The total amount of Carbon dioxide that winds up in the atmosphere is driven not only by human emission levels but also through processes on the land surface especially forests and the oceans that may fluctuate on a yearly basis.
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According to a Scripps press release which announced the findings, CO2 emissions reduction on the order of 20 to 30 percent would need to be sustained for six to 12 months in order for the increase in atmospheric CO2 to slow in a detectable way.
“The buildup of CO2 is a bit like trash in a landfill. As we keep emitting, it keeps piling up,” said Ralph Keeling, who directs Scripps’s carbon dioxide monitoring program.
“The crisis has slowed emissions, but not enough to show up perceptibly at Mauna Loa. What will matter much more is the trajectory we take coming out of this situation,” he said.
The rate of increase of this greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is accelerating.
May is the annual peak for the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, which are at levels not experienced by the atmosphere in several millions years.