"Levels are at a new high," said Kim Holmen, research director of the Norwegian Polar Institute, which oversees the Zeppelin measuring station on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard.
He told Reuters that concentrations of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas emitted largely by burning fossil fuels in power plants, factories and cars, had risen to 390 parts per million (ppm) from 388 a year ago.
"The large increases in release rates are definitely in the Asian economies," led by China, he said.