Greenhouse gases hit new high

OSLO (Reuters) – Greenhouse gases widely blamed for causing global warming have jumped to record highs in the atmosphere, apparently stoked by rising emissions from Asian industry, a researcher said on Friday.

“Levels are at a new high,” said Kim Holmen, research director of the Norwegian Polar Institute which oversees the Zeppelin measuring station on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard about 1,200 km (750 miles) from the North Pole.


He told Reuters that concentrations of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas emitted largely by burning fossil fuels in power plants, factories and cars, had risen to 390 parts per million (ppm) from 388 a year ago.

Levels have hit peaks almost every year in recent decades, bolstering theories of warming, and are far above 270 ppm before the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century. Climate scientists say the heat-trapping gas is blanketing the planet.

Reuters