Cumulative CO2 emissions in 2021

Fast-rising concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are the main driver of human-caused global warming.

Working out how to reduce these emissions is a cornerstone of international climate negotiations.

However, unlike some other forms of pollution, this greenhouse gas is invisible to the human eye. This makes it harder to communicate the challenge of global warming to the public.

But dramatic new visualisations by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration – better known as NASA – show CO2 emissions build up in the atmosphere over the course of a year.

The videos show CO2 emissions from a range of sources: human-caused burning of fossil fuels (yellow); human-caused burning biomass (red); land ecosystems (green) and the ocean (blue). The pulsing squares indicate the absorption of CO2 by land ecosystems and the ocean.

The visualisations highlight the imbalance in CO2 emissions between the northern and southern hemispheres. They also show how CO2 is carried around the world on air currents once in the atmosphere.

The project is a “great example” of “show, don’t tell” science communication, a climate scientist from the UK Met Office tells Carbon Brief. He adds that the videos “help us understand complex processes at a ‘gut level’”.

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Music credit: Into Infinity artists Unrecognisable Now, Naohito Uchiyama, Languis (CC BY-NC 3.0 US).