The alarming climate news you probably missed

Concentrations of planet-warming pollution in the atmosphere grew at a record-breaking speed in 2024 — an unprecedented jump that has left many scientists scratching their heads.

The finding is one of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s most significant of the year, but it has largely flown under the radar, reports Chelsea Harvey. NOAA officials have taken steps to minimize the announcement, posting parts of it to social media but failing to alert reporters or feature the analysis on relevant websites — a departure from the agency’s typical approach to public communication.

Soft-pedaling the finding is part of a broader assault on NOAA science and public communications by the Trump administration, which has ended the agency’s monthly climate briefings, gutted its climate research capacity and decimated its workforce.

NOAA staff had prepared a story for the web on the 2024 analysis as usual, but officials nixed it at the last minute, a person familiar with the report told Chelsea. The agency did not respond to her request for comment.

The findings themselves speak loudly. The staggering climb in carbon dioxide concentrations suggests the Earth may be on track to warm far more rapidly than some climate models have predicted.

Why this is bad

While fossil fuel pollution reached a record high in 2024, those emissions alone do not account for the massive surge in atmospheric concentrations. One possible explanation is that the planet is losing its natural ability to store carbon. Forest and wetland ecosystems, which have historically acted as carbon sinks by soaking up excess emissions, may be breaking down under the stress of continued warming. An uptick in droughts and wildfires certainly isn’t helping.

More research is needed to understand if the surge is indeed due to this kind of climate feedback loop in which rising temperatures compromise natural carbon sinks, releasing more carbon into the atmosphere, thereby causing the planet to warm even faster.

But predictions that world leaders still have time to stave off the worst of climate change are based on the assumption that natural carbon absorption will remain effective, Philippe Ciais, a climate scientist at the Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace in France, told Chelsea.

“In my opinion, there is no reason to believe that this will not continue with further dry years in the future,” Ciais said.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration, along with a number of other Western governments, is taking a hatchet to policies meant to curb greenhouse gases and boost clean energy. And so the climate catastrophe cliff draws closer.

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