Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are rising faster than anticipated, finds a new study. Oh, and ocean absorption of CO2 is falling and sea levels are rising faster than expected.

From the AP story on TheStar.com:

Carbon dioxide emissions were 35 per cent higher in 2006 than in 1990, a much faster growth rate than anticipated, researchers led by Josep G. Canadell, of Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, report in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Increased industrial use of fossil fuels coupled with a decline in the gas absorbed by the oceans and land were listed as causes of the increase.

"In addition to the growth of global population and wealth, we now know that significant contributions to the growth of atmospheric CO2 arise from the slowdown" of nature's ability to take the chemical out of the air, said Canadell, director of the Global Carbon Project at the research organization.

The changes "characterize a carbon cycle that is generating stronger-than-expected and sooner-than-expected climate forcing," the researchers report.

Kevin Trenberth of the climate analysis section of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. said the "paper raises some very important issues that the public should be aware of: Namely that concentrations of CO2 are increasing at much higher rates than previously expected and this is in spite of the Kyoto Protocol that is designed to hold them down in western countries,"

Alan Robock, associate director of the Center for Environmental Prediction at Rutgers University, added: "What is really shocking is the reduction of the oceanic CO2 sink," meaning the ability of the ocean to absorb carbon dioxide, removing it from the atmosphere. ...

"It turns out that global warming critics were right when they said that global climate models did not do a good job at predicting climate change," Robock commented. "But what has been wrong recently is that the climate is changing even faster than the models said. In fact, Arctic sea ice is melting much faster than any models predicted, and sea level is rising much faster than IPCC previously predicted."

On Oct. 16, The Globe and Mail's Margaret Wente wrote the following:

To spur us to action, many alarmists have moved up Armageddon by 50 or 100 years. The other day, the Goracle warned us (yet again) that, unless we act, much of humanity will soon be submerged by a 20-foot rise in sea levels - even though his co-winner, the United Nations climate-change panel, predicts a rise of inches, which is about the rate the sea's been rising for a century. In Canada, leading climatologist Andrew Weaver warns that we face global catastrophe unless we slash emissions by at least 90 per cent by 2050. Since the odds of this happening are about zero to nil (see China et al.), I suggest you pack up and prepare to head for higher ground.

See this recent post on Gore, the Globe and sea levels for more from me on that particular point. Back to Wente:

Okay, I know what you're thinking. Climate change is a really big and really serious problem. In the face of a planetary emergency, it's okay to exaggerate a bit in service of a higher truth.

Bu that's not what drives me nuts. What drives me nuts is the assumption that solutions are easy to come by - as well as the far more breathtaking assumption that mankind has the knowledge and ability to regulate the Earth's temperature. If only some vague collective known as "we" cared enough and put our minds to it! Of course, if that were all it took, we'd have licked world poverty by now, along with the Palestinian question. Next to global warming, those problems are a cinch. And yet, despite all the evidence, climate alarmists display a profound ignorance about the limits of human institutions, along with a hubris that takes your breath away. And the more they try to scare us, the less credible they get.

Question to Wente: What if things really are scary?

Second question to Wente: What is the cure for alcoholism?

Wente is right that behavioural change is difficult; she's wrong that the solutions are difficult. For example, the solution to our depleting ozone layer was to stop emitting ozone-depleting chemicals into the atmosphere. The solution is working.

For the past 160 years or so, we've been on an unprecedented carbon binge to fuel our highly consumptive lifestyles. In terms of the effects on our atmosphere and climate, it's now starting to bite.

However, back to alcoholism. I know someone who is an alcoholic. About five years ago, he talked glumly about a friend of his dying of liver failure. "And that's what's gonna happen to me," he predicted ... and then asked, without a hint of self-awareness, if I wanted a beer.

That person continued downhill. Finally, a doctor told him that if he didn't stop drinking, he would be dead within months. He chose life.

Many alcoholics don't. And so they die, even though they knew that to live, they had to stop drinking.

We need to cut back the amount of carbon we emit into the atmosphere. As scientists have noted, the time humanity has to act to stop our carbonoholism is drawing short.

Humanity knows what the solution is. Now it must choose to act -- or not, but if we don't, we know the consequences could be very serious.

Addendum

Here's some stuff from the always-solid Martin Mittlestaedt's article in Tuesday's Globe and Mail:

Carbon dioxide concentrations are at the highest level in the past 650,000 years, and probably the past 20 million years, according to the paper.

About half of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by human activity is later absorbed by water in the ocean and plants on land, a process that has led scientists to dub them "sinks." This natural process has blunted the full impact of greenhouse-gas emissions from human activity on the world climate.

The failure of the oceans and land to absorb as much carbon dioxide as they once did is being attributed to global warming, and is raising the worrisome possibility that this could lead to a cycle of weather destabilization that could cause the pace of warming to accelerate, according to one of the study authors.

"It's a positive feedback whereby sinks appear to be responding to global warming in a way that increases global warming," said Corinne Le Quéré, a researcher at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom, and at the British Antarctic Survey. "It's not good news."

Dr. Le Quéré said the rapid growth in the atmosphere's carbon dioxide concentration in the seven-year period was "beyond the worst scenarios" outlined by most experts and indicates that getting the threat of climate change under control will be more difficult than expected. ...

The amount of carbon dioxide staying in the atmosphere is about 5 per cent more than expected, based on the trends observed since the late 1950s.

If the reduced ability of nature to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere weren't worrisome enough, the paper says carbon emissions due to the burning of fossil fuels have increased significantly.

So far this century, emissions have surged 3.3 per cent a year, more than double the 1.3 per cent annual growth rate of the 1990s, and the most rapid pace of increase since the beginning of the industrial revolution more than 200 years ago.

The paper says carbon dioxide releases last year were 35 per cent above the 1990 level.

Part of the reason for the rapid rise is the burgeoning economies in many developing countries, including China and India.

However, the paper notes that for the first time in more than three decades, emissions of carbon dioxide are rising more rapidly that the world's economic growth rate.

Most experts have assumed that as the world economy grows, it would require less in the way of fossil fuels to produce each unit of output, as businesses introduce energy-saving and energy-efficiency measures.

This trend of reduced carbon dioxide to produce goods was observed from 1970 to about 2000, but has since reversed.

"The recent combination of rapidly increasing emissions and deteriorating carbon intensity of [global economic output] amplifies the challenge of stabilizing atmosphere CO{-2}," the paper says.