Carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere had hit a new high last year at a record 400 parts per million, the United Nations said today.
Earlier, the United Nations World Meteorological Organization said, that the greenhouse gas had passed the 400 ppm threshold on certain months in specific locations but never on an annual global basis, international news agency AFP reported.
In a shocking revelation, the WMO further warned that the annual average would stay above 400 ppm “for many generations.” It has “surged again to new records in 2016”, the organisation said.
The WMO has said that the El Nino phenomenon can be one of the reasons for spike in the carbon dioxide concentration levels.
El Nino “triggered droughts in tropical regions and reduced the capacity of ‘sinks’ like forests, vegetation, and the oceans to absorb CO2,” WMO said. The weather phenomenon that occurs every four to five years with a broadly warming effect.
Meanwhile, WMO head Petteri Taalas warned against complacency just because El Nino has subsided for now.
“The El Nino event has disappeared. Climate change has not,” he was quoted as saying by AFP.
