Not what you wanted to hear, I know.  Not what any of us wanted to hear at a time when the warming is giving rising to ever greater numbers of extreme weather events.  But the bad news is unavoidable:  A record-shattering pace of carbon dioxide emissions took place last year.  In fact, so much heat-trapping gas was emitted so fast in ’13 that it startled scientists who have been studying greenhouse gas emissions for decades.

The Washington Post reports this morning that nearly all the greenhouse gases took a big leap last year.  What I found most intriguing was that scientist believe the rise came not just from human use of fossil fuels but–listen closely because this is ominous –”a diminishing ability of the world’s oceans and plant life to soak up the excess carbon put into the atmosphere by humans.”  The  Post based that statement on data released early today by the United Nations meteorological advisory board.  Scientists say that about half of the greenhouse gases from human uses has been absorbed by the oceans and land-based plants, which keeps temps from shooting up as fast as they would without that process.

The Post quotes Oksna Tarasova of the World Meteorological Organizzation’s Global Atmospheric Watch program:  “If the oceans and the biosphere cannot absorb as much carbon, the effect on the atmosphere could be much worse.”

The scientist went on to say that last  year’s increase of three parts of CO2 per million was twice as large as the average increase in carbon levels in recent decades.  Her conclusion:  “The changes we’re seeing are really drastic…We are seeing the growth rate rising exponentially.”

Something else to keep you awake at night:  methane levels also jumped, according to WMO’s latest report.  They’ve been climbing steadily for the past six years.  Methane, over its lifetime, traps heat at more than eighty times the rate of carbon dioxide.

The Washington Post report contains much more info than my brief summary:  Here’s the link:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/co2-levels-in-atmosphere-rising-at-dramatically-faster-rate-un-report-warns/2014/09/08/3e2277d2-378d-11e4-bdfb-de4104544a37_story.html