The pandemic does not stop the increase in CO ₂ , which registers a new historical maximum

The crisis caused by the pandemic has not stopped the increase in carbon dioxide – mainly responsible for climate change – in the atmosphere, and this greenhouse gas has once again registered, last May, a new historical maximum.

The data have been recorded in the observatory that the State Meteorological Agency (Aemet) has in Izaña (Tenerife), which has corroborated in a report that the crisis triggered by covid-19 has not stopped the increase of this greenhouse gas in the atmosphere and that its concentration continues to increase and unchanged with respect to the trend registered until 2020.

The data highlight that last May saw a new all-time monthly high in _CO2 concentration at 419.7 “parts per million” (ppm), a value similar to the 419.1 “ppm” recorded at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii.

The data are still provisional, but the definitive values will not differ much, according to the report prepared by the director of the Izaña De la Aemet Atmospheric Research Center, Emilio Cuevas-Agulló, who has observed that the annual maximum of CO₂ is always recorded in spring, at the end of April or the beginning of May.

Both the daily values of carbon dioxide recorded at the Izaña Observatory throughout 2021 and the new monthly maximum reached in May show that this acceleration of concentration has not been slowed down by the global economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

This crisis produced a decrease in emissions into the atmosphere due to the partial paralysis of the activity of small and medium-sized enterprises and the decrease in the transport of goods and passengers worldwide, according to the report.

Some recent studies have estimated a reduction of around 7 percent of _CO2 emissions globally due to lower fossil fuel utilization in 2020, compared to 2019.

Other reductions in annual carbon dioxide emissions had already been recorded before the current pandemic, such as that caused by the 2008 global economic crisis, with a percentage decrease similar to that caused by the current crisis, according to the report.

In general, in years in which economic growth has been slowed by an economic crisis, there is a slowdown in the pace of CO emissions.₂ to the atmosphere, but the average annual concentration of carbon dioxide measured in the atmosphere has continued to increase unaffected by these annual variations.

To explain why the specific decreases in annual carbon dioxide emissions have not managed to stop the growing trend in the concentration of this gas, Emilio Cuevas has detailed that these concentrations do not depend on annual emissions, but on the total emissions that have been accumulating in the atmosphere until that moment, due to the long life of CO₂ in the atmosphere -more than a hundred years-.

The report notes that a one-off reduction in annual emissions does not have a direct effect on average annual carbon dioxide concentrations.

The long life of _CO2 in the atmosphere and the increasing emissions recorded throughout the last century and the present justify that the punctual reduction of emissions during the pandemic has not generated a decrease, nor a stabilization, in the concentration of this gas in the atmosphere.

The Izaña and Mauna Loa observatories are part of the Global Atmospheric Monitoring Program (GVA) of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and their data series are used in climate change studies.

In addition, the Izaña Observatory is in the phase of incorporation into the European infrastructure ICOS (Integrated Carbon Observation System) for the observation and monitoring of greenhouse gases by the European Commission.

Source: The Energy Newspaper