Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached its peak level for 2022, topping out at 421 parts per million. As seen in this graph, that is far higher than any concentration in the past 800,000 years. (Note: kyBCE = thousand years before the current era. The blue curves represent data recovered from Antarctic ice cores. Credit: NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory)
Every year at this time, headlines proclaim that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has climbed to record high levels. But that really shouldn't be all that surprising, given that CO2 has risen to a new high every single year but one since direct measurements began in 1958.
Now, however, an arguably more meaningful milestone has been passed.
