Global CO2 levels increased in 2024
Juan Cole has a recap of the 2024 global warming picture. It ain’t pretty:
“The World Meteorological Organization projected total global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2024 to be 41.6 billion tons. Some 37.4 billion of that was from humans burning petroleum, fossil gas, and coal. The rest was from deforestation. 2024 was the hottest year on record, and likely the hottest in 125,000 years, though some of its ferocity was from the lingering cyclical El Niño that has now subsided.”
Global carbon dioxide emissions in 2023 came to 40.6 billion tons.
While much of the CO2 increase was directly anthropogenic, some was an indirect result.
“After storing carbon dioxide in frozen soil for millennia, the Arctic tundra is being transformed by frequent wildfires into an overall source of carbon to the atmosphere, which is already absorbing record levels of heat-trapping fossil fuel pollution.”
Cole doesn’t mention other causes of increased global warming including (a) the melting of methane clathrates in the Arctic Ocean and (b) the loss of albedo as ice and snow, that reflect sunlight, gives way to darker rocks and oceans, which absorb it.
And what does the US plan to do about this. According to president-elect Trump, “drill, baby, drill.”
“The US government is largely pro-carbon, continuing to subsidize petroleum and gas to the tune of billions. This, even though the United States is currently the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases currently, and by far the largest historically. “
The future for our children and grandchildren is bleak.
2024 climate change update
“The World Meteorological Organization projected total global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2024 to be 41.6 billion tons. Some 37.4 billion of that was from humans burning petroleum, fossil gas, and coal. The rest was from deforestation. 2024 was the hottest year on record, and likely the hottest in 125,000 years, though some of its ferocity was from the lingering cyclical El Niño that has now subsided.”
Global carbon dioxide emissions in 2023 came to 40.6 billion tons.
While much of the CO2 increase was directly anthropogenic, some was an indirect result.
“After storing carbon dioxide in frozen soil for millennia, the Arctic tundra is being transformed by frequent wildfires into an overall source of carbon to the atmosphere, which is already absorbing record levels of heat-trapping fossil fuel pollution.”
Cole doesn’t mention other causes of increased global warming including (a) the melting of methane clathrates in the Arctic Ocean and (b) the loss of albedo as ice and snow, that reflect sunlight, gives way to darker rocks and oceans, which absorb it.
And what does the US plan to do about this. According to president-elect Trump, “drill, baby, drill.”
“The US government is largely pro-carbon, continuing to subsidize petroleum and gas to the tune of billions. This, even though the United States is currently the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases currently, and by far the largest historically. “
The future for our children and grandchildren is bleak.
2024 climate change update
Although the levels of CO2 have indeed gone up due to these emissions, the story is that the level of /emissions/ have once again increased.
These charts only go to 2020 but they show the trends in both CO2 concentrations and CO2/year emissions:
https://openclimatedata.net/climate-spirals/from-emissions-to-global-warming-line-chart/
Dave
Looking at these charts, I noticed the trajectory of yearly CO2 emissions increased significantly around 1945. However, the temperature didn’t change trajectory until around 1980. Do you know of an explaination for this 35 year lag time?
@Wiley,
The oceans are vast sinks for heat. The missing atmospheric heat could well be accounted for by ocean warming.
That said, when I look at the charts, I see global CO2 and atmospheric warming both clearly starting to increase in tandem by 1900. The increase in atmospheric temps appear to plateau around 1945, then resume climbing around the 1970s, while the global CO2 rose during that time.
Rather than the rate of CO2 emissions, the physics of the temperature is tied more strongly to the integrated emissions, as represented in the atmospheric CO2 concentration. I see that kink in temperature as near the kink in CO2 concentration around 1970.