The findings from the Global Carbon Project, the University of East Anglia and the British Antarctic Survey attribute the inefficient use of fossil fuels and a drop in the ocean's ability to absorb the greenhouse gas as the cause of the surge.

The report in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says that rapid expansion of the Chinese and Indian economies, and the number of coal-fired power plants being built in those countries, is partially responsible for the increased rate that CO2 has been spewed into the atmosphere.

The researchers said one of their most disturbing findings points to increased winds in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, which are bringing up carbon-saturated waters to the surface, preventing the vast body of water from absorbing any more carbon.

The conclusions may have serious implications for forecasts of how much and how rapidly global temperatures will rise and mean that climate change will be harder and more expensive to control than feared.

“It turns out that global-warming critics were right when they said that global climate models did not do a good job at predicting climate change,” said Alan Robock, associate director of the Center for Environmental Prediction at Rutgers University.

“But what has been wrong recently is that the climate is changing even faster than the models said. In fact, Arctic sea ice is melting much faster than any models predicted, and sea level is rising much faster than IPCC previously predicted,” Robock added.

Video: British Antarctic Survey