Scientists have just made a troubling discovery about the atmosphere of our planet, a discovery that shows that our desperate global warming situation is only going to continue to get worse. For the first time since humans began monitoring atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, we have passed 410 parts per million, a major milestone that raises the alarm for authorities worldwide hoping to stem the advance of climate change.

The findings were made from the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. Carbon dioxide concentrations were only around 280 parts per million back in 1880 when the industrial revolution began, but they have risen nearly 50 percent since then. This has created the “greenhouse gas effect,” which is when carbon dioxide traps heat and warms up the Earth on a global scale.

And the concentrations are only going to increase over the coming years. The average rate of growth is 2.5 parts per million per year, and that rate has been increasing, with the 2010s being much faster than the 2000s. We could be at 450 or 500 parts per million very quickly, and those are very dangerous levels.

“The average concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 410.31 parts per million (ppm) for the month of April, according to the Keeling Curve measurement series made at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii,” the Scripps statement reads. “This marks the first time in the history of the Mauna Loa record that a monthly average has exceeded 410 parts per million. This also represents a 30-percent increase in carbon dioxide concentration in the global atmosphere since the Keeling Curve began in 1958. In March, Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego observed the 60th anniversary of the data series, the first measurements of which were 315 ppm.”