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FACT BRIEF

Are carbon dioxide emissions from human activities enough to affect the climate?

By John Mason
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YES

Neither land nor oceans have been able to adequately absorb the extra CO2 released by our fossil fuel burning, causing atmospheric CO2 to rise and affect our climate.

We have understood since the 1850s that adding more CO2 to our atmosphere will cause global temperatures to rise by making it more difficult for heat to escape the atmosphere.

Earth's carbon cycle naturally exchanges a large amount of CO2 between the atmosphere, oceans and land surface. Normally, our land and oceans keep CO2 levels balanced by emitting or absorbing CO2 accordingly. Now, the system is in a state of imbalance.

For over a million years, atmospheric CO2 swung between 180 and 300 parts per million as glaciations and interglacials came and went. But due to our activities, atmospheric CO2 reached 420 parts per million in March 2024 - a 50% increase from pre-industrial times.

Updated 8/5/24

See a full discussion of this at Skeptical Science
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
NASA Earth Observatory: The carbon cycle
NASA Vital Signs: Carbon dioxide measurements
Reuters CO2 levels to breach 50% rise from pre-industrial era in 2021 - Met Office
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Skeptical Science
Skeptical Science is a non-profit science education organization. Our goal is to remove a roadblock to climate action by building public resilience against climate misinformation. We achieve this by publishing debunking of climate myths as well as providing resources for educators, communicators, scientists, and the general public. Skeptical Science was founded and is led by John Cook, a Senior Research Fellow with the Melbourne Centre for Behaviour Change at the University of Melbourne.
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Fact briefs are short, credibly sourced summaries that offer “yes/no” answers in response to claims found online. They rely on publicly available, often primary source data and documents. Fact briefs are created by contributors to Gigafact —a nonprofit project looking to expand participation in fact-checking and protect the democratic process. See all fact briefs here.