Levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rose at a record-shattering pace last year, a new report shows, a surge that surprised scientists and spurred fears of an accelerated warming of the planet in decades to come.

Concentrations of nearly all the major greenhouse gases reached historic highs in 2013, reflecting ever-rising emissions from automobiles and smokestacks but also, scientists believe, a diminishing ability of the world’s oceans and plant life to soak up the excess carbon put into the atmosphere by humans, according to data released early Tuesday by the United Nations’ meteorological advisory body, the World Meteorological Organization.

Historically, about half of the pollution from human sources has been absorbed by the oceans and by terrestrial plants, preventing temperatures from rising as quickly as they otherwise would, scientists say.

Oksana Tarasova, chief of the WMO’s Global Atmospheric Watch program, which collects data from 125 monitoring stations worldwide, said the jump of nearly three parts per million over 2012 levels was twice as large as the average increase in carbon levels in recent decades.”The changes we’re seeing are really drastic,” she said.