Surge in Carbon Levels Raises Fears of Runaway Warming (David Adam)

  by David Adam -- The Guardian

  Jan. 19, 2007 -- Carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere much faster than scientists expected, raising fears that humankind may have less time to tackle climate change than previously thought.

  At its most far reaching, the finding could indicate that global temperatures are making forests, soils and oceans less able to absorb carbon dioxide -- a shift that would make it harder to tackle global warming. Such a shift would worsen even the gloomy predictions of the Stern Review which warned that we had little over a decade to tackle rising emissions to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

  David Hofmann of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), which published the figures, said: "Over this last decade the growth rates in carbon dioxide have been higher. I don't think we can plausibly say what's causing it. It's something we're going to look at."

  Peter Cox, a climate change expert at Exeter University, said: "The concern is that climate change itself will affect the ability of the land to absorb our emissions." At the moment around half of human carbon emissions are reabsorbed by nature but the fear among scientists is that increasing temperatures will work to reduce this effect.

  Professor Cox added: "It means our emissions would have a progressively bigger impact on climate change because more of them will remain in the air. It accelerates the rate of change, so we get it sooner and we get it harder."

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