Human activities have increased the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, amplifying the Earth's natural greenhouse effect.
The concentration of carbon dioxide is increasing because of the fossil fuels that we burn for energy. Fossil fuels such as coal and oil contain carbon. Coal and oil are millions of years old plant materials that, while they were alive, absorbed carbon. Over the past 200 years, we have returned much of this carbon back into the atmosphere.
Based on air bubbles trapped in ice cores many miles underground, we know that carbon dioxide never exceeded 300 ppm during the ice ages of the last million years. Before the Industrial Revolution began in the mid-1700th century, the global average amount of carbon dioxide was about 280 ppm.
In the 1960s, the global increase was about 0,6 ppm per year. Now it is over 2,5! The annual increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide over the past 60 years is about 100 times faster than previous natural increases. Global atmospheric carbon dioxide was 409,8 ppm in 2019, a new record.
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