The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has made a few intriguing videos illustrating how human activity is increasing the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide.
The space agency has shared three separate videos covering various parts of the world.
According to NASA, this visualisation shows the CO2 being added to Earth's atmosphere over the course of the year 2021, split into four major contributors: fossil fuels in orange, burning biomass in red, land ecosystems in green, and the ocean in blue. The dots on the surface also show how atmospheric carbon dioxide is also being absorbed by land ecosystems in green and the ocean in blue.
Greenhouse gases have preserved Earth's temperature so that humans and millions of other species have been able to live there by trapping solar heat. The most significant greenhouse gas on Earth is carbon dioxide (CO2), which both traps and radiates heat. But its overabundance is certainly harmful for human existence.
According to Climate.gov, "Without carbon dioxide, Earth's natural greenhouse effect would be too weak to keep the average global surface temperature above freezing. By adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, people are supercharging the natural greenhouse effect, causing global temperatures to rise."
Carbon dioxide's (CO2) increase in the atmosphere would be even more rapid without land and ocean carbon sinks, which collectively absorb about half of human emissions every year.
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