Wednesday, November 06, 2013

Ρεκόρ επιπέδου συγκέντρωσης αερίων του «θερμοκηπίου»/Greenhouse gas in atmosphere hits new record. -World Meteorological Organization (WMO)

Το επίπεδο της συγκέντρωσης των αερίων του «θερμοκηπίου» στην ατμόσφαιρα της Γης, τα οποία συμβάλλουν στην παγκόσμια αναθέρμανση, το 2012 σημείωσε ρεκόρ, αναφέρεται στην ιστοσελίδα του Διεθνούς Μετεωρολογικού Οργανισμού.

Σύμφωνα με τα στοιχεία του Οργανισμού, οι ρυθμοί αύξησης της συγκέντρωσης του διοξειδίου του άνθρακα πέρυσι ήταν ταχύτεροι, από ότι κατά την περίοδο από το 1990 μέχρι το 2011.



Από την έναρξη της βιομηχανικής εποχής στα τέλη του 18ου αιώνα, το επίπεδο του διοξειδίου του άνθρακα στην ατμόσφαιρα έχει αυξηθεί κατά 41%, του μεθανίου - κατά 160% και του οξειδίου του αζώτου - κατά 20%.

mme.gr, 6/11/13
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  • Greenhouse gas in atmosphere hits new record: UN

The amount of greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere hit a new record high in 2012, continuing an ever-faster rise that is driving climate change, the UN weather agency said Wednesday.

"The concentrations are reaching once again record levels," Michel Jarraud, who heads the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), told reporters in Geneva.

His organisation released its annual report on greenhouse gases Wednesday, showing that concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide all broke fresh records in 2012. Global concentrations of CO2, the main culprit in global warming, for instance reached 393.1 parts per million last year, or 141 percent of pre-industrial levels -- defined as before 1750.

The report was released a day after the UN Environment Programme warned the chances of limiting the global temperature rise to two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels were swiftly diminishing, and ahead of UN climate talks that open in Warsaw next week.

The UN's two-degree target is being chased through efforts to curb Earth-warming greenhouse gas emissions, mainly caused by fossil-fuel burning to power industry, transport and farming.

"The observations from WMO's extensive Global Atmosphere Watch network highlight yet again how heat-trapping gases from human activities have upset the natural balance of our atmosphere and are a major contribution to climate change," Jarraud said.

Dave Reay, a carbon management expert at the University of Edinburgh, said that stabilising greenhouse gas concentrations was the key to successful climate negotiations, emissions regulations, and carbon markets rests.

"Despite the financial crash, and reduced emissions from some nations, the global picture is one of carbon dioxide concentrations in our atmosphere reaching a record-breaking high year after year," Reay added.

Experts warn that unless more is done to rein in emissions, the world faces potentially devastating effects such as more frequent megastorms, species extinctions, water shortages, crop die-offs, loss of land to the rising seas as glaciers and polar ice melt, and spreading disease.

"CO2 has a ratchet effect," said Peter Wadhams, professor of ocean physics at the University of Cambridge.

"Its influence on the climate system lasts for about 100 years, so we will be paying for our profligate use of fossil fuels for a long time to come -- so long, in fact, that we may well have now made it impossible for the planet to avoid catastrophic global warming effects, even if we make a start now on reducing CO2 emissions." The atmospheric increase of CO2 from 2011 to 2012 was higher than the average growth rate over the past 10 years, WMO said, stressing that the global concentrations of CO2 last year were dangerously close to the symbolic 400 parts per million threshold.

That threshold was actually exceeded at several Arctic stations during the year, and the global annual average CO2 concentration looks set to cross it in 2015 or 2016, the UN agency said.

This level has not existed on Earth in three to five million years, experts say.

Concentrations of methane, meanwhile, were 260 percent of the pre-industrial level, while nitrous oxide reached 120 percent.

The WMO report said that between 1990 and 2012 there was a 32 percent increase in so-called "radiative forcing" -- the warming effect on our climate -- because of heat-trapping gases.

CO2 accounted for 80 percent of this increase.

What is happening in the atmosphere is just part of the picture.

Only about half of the CO2 emitted by human activities remains in the atmosphere, with the rest absorbed in the biosphere and in the oceans, the WMO underlined.

Jarraud noted that the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently sounded the alarm over gas concentrations.

"According to the IPCC, if we continue with 'business as usual,' global average temperatures may be 4.6 degrees higher by the end of the century than pre-industrial levels -- and even higher in some parts of the world. This would have devastating consequences," he said.

tv100.gr, 6/11/13

1 comment:

  1. Temperatura del planeta aumentará "a largo plazo" unos 3,6 grados celsius...

    La Agencia Internacional de la Energía (AIE) indicó que la temperatura del planeta aumentará "a largo plazo" en 3,6 grados celsius, si los gobiernos no revisan sus objetivos para luchar contra el cambio climático.

    La entrega anual del informe, presentado este martes en Londres (capital Reino Unido), coincide con la 19ª conferencia sobre el clima de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas (ONU) en Varsovia (capital de Polonia), donde esta semana 190 países discuten las bases de un gran acuerdo, que sería firmado en 2015, para limitar los gases de efecto invernadero y evitar que las temperaturas no aumenten más de 2 grados celsius.

    El organismo advierte que el aumento del 20 por ciento hasta 2035 de las emisiones "energéticas" (principalmente causadas por el carbón y el petróleo, pero también por el gas) "pondrá al planeta en una trayectoria coherente de un aumento medio de la temperatura a largo plazo de 3,6 grados celsius, mucho más que el objetivo de 2º fijado a nivel internacional".

    A pesar de algunas iniciativas recientes, como el plan sobre el clima anunciado por Estados Unidos o la limitación del carbón en China, la AIE considera que sus previsiones para 2035 son la prueba de que el consumo de energías fósiles seguirá aumentando considerablemente.

    Esta situación "tiene en cuenta el impacto de las medidas anunciadas por los gobiernos para mejorar la eficacia energética, apoyar las energías renovables, reducir las subvenciones a las energías fósiles y, en algunos casos, fijar un precio para el CO2", explica la AIE.

    Por otra parte, la producción de energía nuclear aumentará dos tercios. Ante este panorama poco alentador, la agencia augura un desarrollo importante de las renovables, en particular de la energía eléctrica, y prevé que en 2035 este tipo de energías representará el 30 por ciento del total.

    Por su parte, astrobiólogos de la Universidad de East Anglia, en Reino Unido, publicaron en la revista Astrobiology que las condiciones de habitabilidad de la Tierra durarán por lo menos otros mil 750 millones de años.

    A partir de esta fecha, los expertos afirman que la vida no será apta en el planeta, según los resultados de la investigación sobre la base de nuestra distancia respecto al Sol y temperaturas a las que es posible que exista agua líquida en la Tierra.
    http://www.telesurtv.net/articulos/2013/11/12/temperatura-del-planeta-aumentara-a-largo-plazo-unos-3-6-grados-celsius-6734.html
    12/11/13

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