Guest essay by Eric Worrall

h/t ivankinsman – did anyone else notice the end of the world?

Greenhouse gas reaches alarming new record

By Brandon Miller, CNN

Updated 1626 GMT (0026 HKT) May 3, 2018

(CNN) Carbon dioxide (CO2), the No. 1 greenhouse gas leading to man-made global warming, has reached a dubious new milestone.

The level of the gas in the atmosphere, which is measured by instruments on top of Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory, topped 410 parts per million (ppm) for the month of April.

This is the highest concentration of the heat-trapping gas ever recorded at the Observatory, where direct measurements have been taking place for more than 60 years, giving us the longest detailed record.

Passing 410 ppm “is important because it punctuates another milestone in the upwards march of CO2,” according to Ralph Keeling, head of the Scripps CO2 program at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California.

“At the recent pace, we’ll hit 450 ppm in a mere 16 years, and 500 ppm 20 years after that. That’s well within dangerous territory for the climate system,” Keeling added.

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