TADEAS:
New Record for Annual Increase in Keeling Curve Readings | The Keeling Curve https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/2025/01/17/new-record-for-annual-increase-in-keeling-curve-readings/“This record growth, it certainly got a boost from the 2023-2024 El Niño event, which also helped explain the record growth that we reported last May,” said Keeling. “Although this El Niño event ended early in 2024, it is often the case that El Niño events are associated with higher than normal CO2 growth extending into the northern hemisphere summer following the El Niño event.”
“This last year fit that pattern, but the CO2 growth might have been further boosted by wildfires in North and South America,” Keeling added.
The ultimate cause of the CO2 rise is the burning of fossil fuels, but the rise rate also fluctuates from year to year due to CO2 exchanges with the ocean and land ecosystems, including from fires. CO2 levels are not just at the highest level in millions of years, they are also rising at a record pace.
“These latest results further confirm that we are moving into uncharted territory faster than ever as the rise continues to accelerate,” said Keeling.
This analysis coincides with a new report from Keeling and the UK’s Met Office, which issues forecasts of the annual CO2 rise. Met Office researchers noted that the rise is now incompatible with scenarios used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to assess limiting long-term average global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial times.
“Limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require the CO2 rise to be slowing, but in reality the opposite is happening,” said Richard Betts, who leads the Met Office CO2 forecast team. “Even without the boost from El Niño last year, the CO2 rise driven by fossil fuel burning and deforestation would now be outpacing the IPCC’s 1.5°C scenarios.”