The increasing atmospheric CO2 over India: Comparison to global trends

Jayanarayanan Kuttippurath; Rony Peter; Ajay Singh; Sarath Raj

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2022.104863

The increasing atmospheric CO₂ over India: Comparison to global trends

iScience. 2022 Aug 2;25(8):104863. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104863. eCollection 2022 Aug 19.

Authors

Jayanarayanan Kuttippurath¹, Rony Peter¹, Ajay Singh¹, Sarath Raj¹

Affiliation

¹ CORAL, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur 721302, India.

Abstract

Atmospheric CO₂ is the key Greenhouse Gas in terms of its global warming potential and anthropogenic sources. Therefore, it is important to analyze the changes in the concentration of atmospheric CO₂ to monitor regional and global climate change. Here, we use ground-based and satellite measurements for the 2002-2020 period to assess CO₂ over India. The average CO₂ trend over India is about 2.1 ppm/yr, and the highest trends are in agreement with the increase in total energy consumption during the period, and the highest trends are found in the areas of mines and refineries in the west and east India. The estimated CO₂ trends for India are comparable to that of global tropical and mid-latitude regions. The increasing CO₂ implies serious anthropogenic global warming and thus, calls for mitigation measures and continuous monitoring for timely policy interventions.

Keywords: atmospheric observation; atmospheric science; environmental monitoring; remote sensing.