Guest post: How the Keeling Curve will need to bend to limit global warming to 1.5C

If international temperature level rise is to be halted, the accumulation of CO2 in the air requires not just to end, but go into reverse. For the Keeling Curve, this would involve a total modification in instructions– rising more slowly initially, however then stopping and decreasing..

If the Paris Agreement target of limiting global warming to 1.5 C is to be satisfied, this reversal requires to start within the next few years and the curve requires to stop rising before the middle of the century.

Our Met Office forecast for 2022 suggests that the increase in CO2 levels this year will be a little slower than weve seen over the previous decade. This is down to a short-lived strengthening of natural carbon sinks and is likely to be short-lived..

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has a set of pathways detailing how society– and its emissions– might develop over this century. Among these pathways, known as SSP1-1.9, sees worldwide warming overshoot 1.5 C in the middle of the century, however then hang back down to below 1.5 C by the end of the century.

Projection for 2022.

This can be seen in the figure listed below, which shows the complete record of the Keeling Curve. In the late 1960s, CO2 levels were rising at a rate of about 1 part per million (ppm) per year. By the early years of the 21st century, this rise had actually sped up to 2ppm each year, and it sped up further to almost 2.5 ppm yearly in the last 10 years.

We forecast that this year CO2 levels will rise by 2.14 ppm ( ± 0.52) compared to in 2015. This increase is smaller than the average of 2.45 ppm over the last 10 years.

In this circumstance, the accumulation of CO2 in the environment slows rapidly in the coming years. In the early 2020s, the rate of CO2 rise slows initially to 2ppm annually and then further to 1ppm per year in the early 2030s. By the early 2040s, the increase has halted– there is no additional accumulation of CO2 in the environment. From them on, in this situation, CO2 levels begin to fall.

These variations reveal a strong connection with the climate phenomenon the El Niño– Southern Oscillation (ENSO). For instance, as we had predicted, the most significant yearly CO2 rise on record was in between 2015 and 2016, when the large El Niño occasion triggered hotter, drier conditions throughout much of the tropics, resulting in prevalent wildfires and a total lower carbon uptake.

These variations are driven by environment irregularity. For example, wetter conditions tend to bring higher large-scale plant development and thus more uptake of CO2 by the land surface. Alternatively, drier conditions may briefly see a big release of carbon from soils and forest fires.

The chart listed below programs how the SSP1-1.9 circumstance would play out for climatic CO2 concentrations up until 2058 (red line)– when the Keeling Curve measurements will have been considered a century.

Acceleration.

The Keeling Curve: atmospheric CO2 concentrations determined at Mauna Loa, Hawaii from 1958 to 2021. Chart by Joe Goodman for Carbon Brief using Highcharts.

As Soon As the La Niñan event has ended, we would expect the rate of CO2 rise to go back to about 2.5 ppm each year, unless emissions start to fall considerably.

The future Keeling Curve for 1.5 C.

Global emissions have progressively increased over the past 60 years, which suggests that CO2 has actually been building up in the atmosphere at a speeding up rate..

Projected extension of the Keeling Curve CO2 concentrations dataset consistent with the SSP1-1.9 scenario to 2058, a century considering that measurements began. Chart by Joe Goodman for Carbon Brief using Highcharts.

If the rise in temperatures is to be brought to a stop, then CO2 emissions need to stop. If emissions are not stopped totally, there needs to be a boosted elimination of CO2 from the environment so that the total impact is neutral in order to accomplish “net-zero” emissions.

However, it is necessary to note that, even as CO2 concentrations begin to fall, the environment would not be anticipated to begin cooling immediately due to the fact that the temperature level response to CO2 is slow. The minor drop in CO2 concentrations merely offsets the warming from previous emissions that is still “in the pipeline”, so temperature levels will remain high for longer.

Between 2019 and 2020, despite a large– but momentary– decrease in worldwide emissions related to social reactions to the Covid-19 pandemic, the build-up of climatic CO2 was comparable to previous years as an outcome of mild El Niño-like conditions again causing a short-term weakening of natural carbon sinks.

If global temperature level increase is to be stopped, the accumulation of CO2 in the air likewise needs to end. For the Keeling Curve, this would include a total reversal– increasing more slowly in the beginning, but then stopping and reversing..

The Keeling Curve is a renowned graph demonstrating how levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) have actually been building up in the atmosphere, driving a boost in international temperature levels..

In 2021, the opposite happened– mild La Niña conditions resulted in momentarily boosted carbon uptake, leading to a slower CO2 increase than the previous couple of years. With a 2nd “double-dip” La Niña now underway, the Met Office predicts a similar circumstance in 2022..

As the CO2 concentrations develop, this more reinforces the greenhouse impact and causes worldwide temperature levels to increase..

Although this is close to the average rate of increase needed in the early 2020s to be on track with the IPCC 1.5 C circumstance, it is just happening because of the temporary fortifying of natural carbon sinks, and this is most likely to be short-lived..

Although the long-term rise in CO2 concentrations is driven by human emissions, the rate of increase accelerate and decreases from year to year due to the fact that of variations in the strength of natural carbon sinks supplied by land communities and the oceans..

Despite the fact that global emissions have been fairly consistent over the previous decade, CO2 levels in the environment have actually continued to rise. As discussed above, this is due to the fact that the emissions are triggering additional CO2 to enter the atmosphere that is only being gotten rid of slowly by natural processes.

Concentrations of CO2 are building up in the atmosphere since of human-caused emissions from fossil-fuel burning and logging. When in the atmosphere, CO2 can stay there for hundreds of years.

Is the world on track?

Sharelines from this story.

Concentrations of CO2 are building up in the environment because of human-caused emissions from fossil-fuel burning and deforestation. In the late 1960s, CO2 levels were rising at a rate of about 1 part per million (ppm) per year. In this scenario, the build-up of CO2 in the atmosphere slows quickly in the coming years. In the early 2020s, the rate of CO2 increase slows initially to 2ppm per year and then more to 1ppm per year in the early 2030s. Historical fossil-fuel emissions (dark blue line) and future fossil-fuel emissions that would result in the CO2 concentrations in the SSP1-1.9 scenario from an Integrated Assessment Model (IAM: dashed orange line), 5 Earth System designs (ESMs: thin red lines) and the average of the ESMs (thick red line).

After that, fossil fuel emissions end up being net negative– with more CO2 being removed from the atmosphere than being added in. Once again, this elimination is in addition to uptake by improved forest cover– it is assuming technological CO2 removal.

This situation presumes a growth of global forests, which acts to take up some CO2 from the atmosphere, but no place near sufficient to offset fossil fuel emissions at current levels. The growth of forest cover merely delays the date when fossil-fuel emissions require to reach zero, rather than alternativing to emissions decreases..

Nevertheless, if the rate of increasing atmospheric CO2 does not start to slow noticeably within the next few years, the possibilities of restricting global warming to 1.5 C will quickly disappear.

The SSP1-1.9 CO2 concentration path gives us another helpful standard to track progress on the worldwide ambition to limit international warming to 1.5 C..

While there is growing scepticism around whether the 1.5 C target is politically feasible, at the minute it can be argued– from the perspective of the Earth System, at least– that it is still physically possible to “keep 1.5 C alive”. Models recommend that warming due to CO2 will stop when overall emissions reach net-zero..

In its prominent 2018 report, the IPCC concluded that to restrict worldwide warming to 1.5 C, global CO2 emissions require to begin falling rapidly– declining by half by the 2030s and reaching absolutely no in the middle of this century.

As the figure below shows, more recent estimations with various Earth System models recommend that for CO2 to track the SSP1-1.9 situation, fossil fuel emissions would need to reach absolutely no in the 2050s or shortly afterwards.

Historical fossil-fuel emissions (dark blue line) and future fossil-fuel emissions that would result in the CO2 concentrations in the SSP1-1.9 circumstance from an Integrated Assessment Model (IAM: dashed orange line), 5 Earth System models (ESMs: thin red lines) and the average of the ESMs (thick red line). Emissions remain in gigatonnes of carbon per year (GtC/year). Because land-use emissions or uptake are not included, note that this is not total emissions. Historical information: Global Carbon Project; future forecasts: Liddicoat and coworkers. Chart by Joe Goodman for Carbon Brief utilizing Highcharts.