Earth just hit a terrifying milestone for the first time in more than 800,000 years

 Business Insider       KEVIN LORIA       May 8th 2018 9:51AM
The average concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere just topped 410 parts per million, according to measurements from Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii.
This is the highest CO2 levels have gotten in the 800,000 years we have good data for.
This is expected to have a catastrophic effect on human health and the planet itself.

We have a pretty good idea of what Earth's atmosphere has looked like for the past 800,000 years.

Humans like us — Homo sapiens — only evolved about 200,000 years ago, but ice-core records reveal intricate details of our planet's history from long before humans existed. By drilling more than 3 kilometers deep into the ice sheets over Greenland and Antarctica, scientists can see how temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have changed from then until now.

From that record, we know the atmosphere and the air that we breathe has never had as much carbon dioxide in it as it does today. 

For the first time in recorded history, the average monthly level of CO2 in the atmosphere exceeded 410 parts per million (ppm) in the month of April, according to observations made at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii.

The new record is not a coincidence — humans have rapidly transformed the air we breathe by pumping CO2 into it over the past two centuries. In recent years, we've pushed those gas levels into uncharted territory.

That change has inevitable and scary consequences. Research indicates that unchecked, this trend could directly lead to tens of thousands of pollution-related deaths, reach a point at which it slows human cognition, and lead to the rising sea levels, searing heat waves, and superstorms that scientists project as effects of climate change.

"As a scientist, what concerns me the most is what this continued rise actually means: that we are continuing full speed ahead with an unprecedented experiment with our planet, the only home we have," climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe said on Twitter about the new record.

Breathing the air of a new world
For the 800,000 years we have records of, average global CO2 levels fluctuated between about 170 ppm and 280 ppm. Once humans started to burn fossil fuels in the industrial era, things changed rapidly.

Only in the industrial era has the number risen above 300 ppm. The concentration first crept above 400 ppm in 2013, and continues to climb. 

Scientists debate the last time CO2 levels were this high. It might have happened during the Pliocene era, between 2 and 4.6 million years ago, when sea levels were at least 60 to 80 feet higher than today. It may have been in the Miocene, 10 to 14 million years ago, when seas were more than 100 feet higher than now. 

In our 800,000-year record, it took about 1,000 years for CO2 levels to increase by 35 ppm. We're currently averaging an increase of more than 2 ppm per year, meaning that we could hit an average of 500 ppm within the next 45 years, if not sooner.

Humans have never had to breathe air like this. And it does not seem to be good for us.

Global temperature tracks very closely to atmospheric levels of CO2. The potential impacts of higher average temperatures include tens of thousands of deaths from heat waves, increased air pollution that leads to lung cancer and cardiovascular disease, higher rates of allergies and asthma, more extreme weather events, and the spread of diseases carried by ticks and mosquitoes — an effect we're already seeing.

GLOBAL ANNUAL TEMPERATURE AND CO2 LEVELS, 1959–2016
 Higher levels of CO2 also exacerbate ozone pollution. One 2008 study found that for every degree Celsius the temperature rises because of CO2 levels, ozone pollution can be expected to kill an additional 22,000 people via respiratory illness, asthma, and emphysema. A recent study calculated that overall, air pollution alreadykills 9 million people every year.

 Other research has raised even more reasons for concern. The average CO2 level doesn't represent the air most of us breathe. Cities tend to have far more CO2 than average — and those levels rise even higher indoors. Some research indicates that this may have a negative effect on human cognition and decision-making. (There's a full list of possible ways climate change will affect human health on an archived EPA page.)

 President Obama's EPA ruled in 2009 that CO2 was a pollutant that needed to be regulated under the Clean Air Act, though the Trump administration is re-evaluating that decision.

 Drowning in CO2
 The human health effects from CO2 increases are just one part of the bigger story here.

 The change we've seen in CO2 levels recently has been much more rapid than the natural historical trends. Some experts think we're on track to hit 550 ppm by the end of the century, which would cause average global temperatures to rise 6 degrees Celsius. (For context, the increase in superstorms, rising sea levels, and spreading tick-borne disease that we're already seeing comes after a 0.9-degree rise.) Ptemperature and CO2Ben Henley and Nerilie Abram/The Conversation------------

 Sea-level rise projections will only get bigger as CO2 levels will continue to climb.

 Right now, carbon-dioxide emissions are still rising. The goal set in the Paris agreement is to limit the global temperature increase to 2 degrees C or less. But as a recent feature in Nature put it, we're currently on track for more than 3 degrees of warming.

 The latest measurements from Mauna Loa show that if we want to avoid that, we'll need to make some dramatic changes very quickly.
NOW WATCH: What will happen when Earth's north and south poles flip

Special Thanks to Alanna  Mitchell:hppts://www.amazon.com 

Crusader Jenny  , Nanook  & Knight Mika

Arctic could become ice-free for first time in more than 100,000 years, claims leading scientist

 I’m convinced it will be less than 3.4 million square kilometres [the current record low].

“I think there’s a reasonable chance it could get down to a million this year and if it doesn’t do it this year, it will do it next year.
“Ice free means the central part of the Arctic and the North Pole is ice free.”

Most of the remaining ice within the Arctic Circle would be trapped among the myriad of islands along Canada’s north coast.
Professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University predicts we could see ‘an area of less than one million square kilometres for September of this year’

The Arctic is on track to be free of sea ice this year or next for the first time in more than 100,000 years, a leading scientist has claimed.

Provisional satellite data produced by the US National Snow & Ice Data Centre shows there were just over 11.1 million square kilometres of sea ice on 1 June this year, compared to the average for the last 30 years of nearly 12.7 million square kilometres.

This difference – more than 1.5 million square kilometres – is about the same size as about six United Kingdoms.

Professor Peter Wadhams, head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group at Cambridge University, told The Independent that the latest figures largely bore out a controversial prediction he made four years ago.

“My prediction remains that the Arctic ice may well disappear, that is, have an area of less than one million square kilometres for September of this year,” he said.

“Even if the ice doesn’t completely disappear, it is very likely that this will be a record low year
The last time the Arctic was clear of ice is believed to be about 100,000 to 120,000 years ago.

The rapid warming of the polar region has been linked with extreme weather events such as “bomb cyclones”, flooding in the UK and out-of-season tornadoes in the United States.

And the sea ice off the north coast of Russia, which normally insulates the water below to keep it cool, is no longer present for much of the year, allowing the sea to get significantly warmer than before.
Scientists have monitored greenhouse gas methane – once frozen on the sea bed – bubbling up to the surface at an alarming rate.

According to one study published in the journal Nature by Professor Wadhams and others, this could produce an average rise in global temperature of 0.6 degrees Celsius in just five years.

“That would be a very, very serious upward jerk to global warming,” Professor Wadhams said, saying the prospect was “frightening”.

Less sea ice also means the surface of the Earth is darker, so it absorbs more of the sun’s energy.

Arctic warming: Rapidly increasing temperatures are 'possibly catastrophic' for planet, climate scientist warns
“When the sea ice retreats, it changes the whole situation. People are right to be concerned about the sea ice retreat and disappearance mainly because of all these other feedbacks,” Professor Wadhams added.

Sea ice is usually at its lowest in September and starts to build again when the winter sets in.

Dr Peter Gleick, a leading climatologist, said he had “no idea” if Professor Wadhams’ prediction was correct.

And he added: “If it's wrong, this kind of projection leads to climate sceptics and deniers to criticize the entire community.”

However Dr Gleick said Professor Wadhams was right to sound a warning about the rising temperatures in the region, saying it was “extraordinarily disturbing even in a world of disturbing news about accelerating climate change”.

“An ice-free - and even an ice-reduced - Arctic is leading to global impacts on weather and ecosystems, and most importantly, that the changes in the Arctic presage dramatic fundamental changes in climate throughout the globe,” he said.

“We're on a runaway train, scientists are blowing the whistle, but politicians are still shovelling coal into the engine.”

Professor Jennifer Francis, of Rutgers University, says ‘We are definitely looking at a very unusual situation up in the Arctic’ (Wolfgang Kaehler/Getty)
Professor Jennifer Francis, of Rutgers University in the US, who has studied the effect of the Arctic on the weather in the rest of the northern hemisphere, was also sceptical about Professor Wadhams' prediction, saying it was “highly unlikely” to come true this year.

She said she thought this would not happen until sometime between 2030 and 2050.

But Professor Francis stressed: “We are definitely looking at a very unusual situation up in the Arctic.

“The ice is very low and there have been record-breaking low amounts of ice in January, February, March, April and now May, so this is very worrisome.


“I think we are going to see perhaps a new record [in September], that’s very possible.”