Mar 14, 2012; 3:42 PM ET
The concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide in 2011 was the highest in 800,000 years, according to Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization or CSIRO.
The average, global concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) during 2011 was 390 parts per million. The natural range during the past 800,000 years was between 170 and 300 ppm.
CSIRO also noted that fossil-fuel emissions of carbon dioxide increased by over 3% per year between 2000 and 2010.
The CSIRO chart below tracks the amount of global fossil-fuel CO2 emissions since 1990. The orange line is strictly fossil-fuel emissions, while the grey line represents total CO2 emissions, which includes emissions from both fossil-fuel and land-use change.
Image courtesy of CSIRO.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions account for about 60 per cent of the effect from anthropogenic greenhouse gases on the earth's energy balance over the past 250 years. These global CO2 emissions are mostly from fossil fuels (more than 85 per cent), land use change, mainly associated with tropical deforestation (less than ten per cent), and cement production and other industrial processes (about four per cent), according to the new CSIRO 2012 State of the Climate Report.
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