Antarctic sees highest level of greenhouse gas in 4 million years

South Pole Observatory records highest level in human history

'The increase of carbon dioxide is everywhere, even as far away as you can get from civilisation' (Aliscia Young)

Carbon dioxide levels in Antarctica have reached their highest levels for four million years.

The South Pole Observatory carbon dioxide observing station recorded 400 parts per million (ppm), according to an announcement by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, marking the highest level in human history.

Pieter Tans, the lead scientist at the Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network, said in a statement: “The far southern hemisphere was the last place on earth where CO2 had not yet reached this mark. “Global CO2 levels will not return to values below 400 ppm in our lifetimes, and almost certainly for much longer.

“The increase of carbon dioxide is everywhere, even as far away as you can get from civilization. If you emit carbon dioxide in New York, some fraction of it will be in the South Pole next year.”

Carbon dioxide levels have been steadily rising since the start of the industrial revolution, and 400pm now passes the symbolic threshold.

The annual growth rate of atmospheric CO2 measured at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii jumped 3.05 ppm during 2015, the largest year-to-year increase in 56 years of monitoring.

A microscopic marine alga with a shell-like skeleton has increased more than tenfold in the North Atlantic over the past 50 years in response to rising levels of carbon dioxide.

But a radical breakthrough in tackling climate change has been made after scientists found a rapid way to turn heat-trapping carbon-dioxide into rock.

The exclusive two year project, called CarbFix, pumped a carbon dioxide and water mix 540m underground into basalt rock at the Hellisheidi geothermal power plant in Iceland.