Slowing CO2 Growth Contradicts Consensus Claims AVERAGE growth
in atmospheric carbon dioxide has slowed since early last
decade, at a time when reported emissions increased at an
unprecedented rate, an Australian-led study suggests. An
Australian-led study suggests that averaging carbon dioxide
measurements from a large number of sites is not the best way to
determine global trends. Picture: Thinkstock The international
study, reported today in the journal Nature Climate Change,
attributes the discrepancy to an early underestimate in reported
global emissions. The findings, based on over 20 years of
observations from Cape Grim in Tasmania, suggest a reported
“surge” in emissions between 2000 and 2008 reflects a bias in
the early emissions. The accumulation of atmospheric carbon
between 1994 and 2002 was underestimated by some nine billion
tons, the paper suggests. It says post-2000 emissions are
tracking in the middle of the range of emission scenarios
produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change