[Changleen]

Nice. Way to go humanity.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5314592.stm

Deep ice tells long climate story
By Jonathan Amos
Science reporter, BBC News, Norwich

Carbon dioxide levels are substantially higher now than at anytime in the last 800,000 years, the latest study of ice drilled out of Antarctica confirms.

The in-depth analysis of air bubbles trapped in a 3.2km-long core of frozen snow shows current greenhouse gas concentrations are unprecedented.

The East Antarctic core is the longest, deepest ice column yet extracted.

Project scientists say its contents indicate humans could be bringing about dangerous climate changes.

"My point would be that there's nothing in the ice core that gives us any cause for comfort," said Dr Eric Wolff from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS).

"There's nothing that suggests that the Earth will take care of the increase in carbon dioxide. The ice core suggests that the increase in carbon dioxide will definitely give us a climate change that will be dangerous," he told BBC News.

The Antarctic researcher was speaking here at the British Association's (BA) Science Festival.

Slice of history

The ice core comes from a region of the White Continent known as Dome Concordia (Dome C). It has been drilled out by the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (Epica), a 10-country consortium.

The column's value to science is the tiny pockets of ancient air that were locked into its millennia of accumulating snowflakes.

Each slice of this now compacted snow records a moment in Earth history, giving researchers a direct measure of past environmental conditions.

Not only can scientists see past concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane - the two principal human-produced gases now blamed for global warming - in the slices, they can also gauge past temperatures from the samples, too.

This is done by analysing the presence of different types, or isotopes, of hydrogen atom that are found preferentially in precipitating water (snow) when temperatures are relatively warm.

'Scary' rate

Initial results from the Epica core were published in 2004 and 2005, detailing the events back to 440,000 years and 650,000 years respectively. Scientists have now gone the full way through the column, back another 150,000 years.

The picture is the same: carbon dioxide and temperature rise and fall in step.

"Ice cores reveal the Earth's natural climate rhythm over the last 800,000 years. When carbon dioxide changed there was always an accompanying climate change. Over the last 200 years human activity has increased carbon dioxide to well outside the natural range," explained Dr Wolff.

The "scary thing", he added, was the rate of change now occurring in CO2 concentrations. In the core, the fastest increase seen was of the order of 30 parts per million (ppm) by volume over a period of roughly 1,000 years.

"The last 30 ppm of increase has occurred in just 17 years. We really are in the situation where we don't have an analogue in our records," he said.

Natural buffer

The plan now is to try to extend the ice-core record even further back in time. Scientists think another location, near to a place known as Dome A (Dome Argus), could allow them to sample atmospheric gases up to a million and a half years ago.

Some of the increases in carbon dioxide will be alleviated by natural "sinks" on the land and in the oceans, such as the countless planktonic organisms that effectively pull carbon out of the atmosphere as they build skeletons and shell coverings.

But Dr Corinne Le Quéré, of the University of East Anglia and BAS, warned the festival that these sinks may become less efficient over time.

We could not rely on them to keep on buffering our emissions, she said.

"For example, we don't know what the effect will be of ocean acidification on marine ecosystems. There is potential for deterioration," she explained.

More CO2 absorbed by the oceans will raise their pH, and a number of recent studies have concluded that this increase in acidity will eventually disrupt the ability of marine micro-organisms to use the calcium carbonate in the water to produce their hard parts.

Good job global warming is just a hoax eh?

 

[narlus]

of course it is. we've got the lower gas prices to prove it.

 

[chicodude]

Nice. Way to go humanity.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5314592.stm


Good job global warming is just a hoax eh?

I don't wanna be one of those guys and I know global warming is bad, but if levels were this high 800,000 years ago, and we are still here...

 

[narlus]

er, i haven't checked it but i'd be surprised if humans were stalking the earth 800,000 years ago.

 

[SofaKingBanned]

er, i haven't checked it but i'd be surprised if humans were stalking the earth 800,000 years ago.

Chico's suggesting that CO2 was this bad 800,00 years ago and it didn't kill off the then life that populated the planet.

But Chico misread the first paragraph. It wasn't this high 800,000yrs ago, just that the sample only contained data for 800kyrs.

 

[chicodude]

er, i haven't checked it but i'd be surprised if humans were stalking the earth 800,000 years ago.

True, but how did the levels get so high? dinasours have SUV's?


Not hating here, just wanna get some facts...

 

[Changleen]

True, but how did the levels get so high? dinasours have SUV's?


Not hating here, just wanna get some facts...

See Opie's post. The records only go back so far, not "800,000 years ago they were as high". We have the highest levels now that we know of.

 

[BurlyShirley]

True, but how did the levels get so high? dinasours have SUV's?


Not hating here, just wanna get some facts...

Stupid American! GWB did it and thats all you need to know. He also personally placed exposives in the pentagon while stroking a cyborg cat and laughing maniacally.

 

[Changleen]

Stupid American! GWB did it and thats all you need to know. He also personally placed exposives in the pentagon while stroking a cyborg cat and laughing maniacally.

I think it was Dicta, actually.

 

[chicodude]

See Opie's post. The records only go back so far, not "800,000 years ago they were as high". We have the highest levels now that we know of.

I didn't actually read the article. I was just wondering, the way the title was worded.

 

[Changleen]

I didn't actually read the article. I was just wondering, the way the title was worded.

Yes, it is misleading.

 

[ohio]

How high are they relative to just before the industrial revolution? Any change for the 799,800 years prior to that you'd be hard pressed to blame on humans.

 

[Old Man G Funk]

CO2 levels have fluctuated naturally over the lifetime of the Earth. We do, however, see a correlation with increasing CO2 and the industrial revolution.

This link should help.

 

[N8 v2.0]

CO2 levels have fluctuated naturally over the lifetime of the Earth. We do, however, see a correlation with increasing CO2 and the industrial revolution.

This link should help.

hokey stick!

 

[Da Peach]

I blame volcanos..friggin fumaroles...

 

[BurlyShirley]

Wait, so if the ice only goes back 800,000 doesnt mean that it was too hot for ice before the ice formed? Thereby suggesting that the earth has been warmer than it is now?

In fact, we already know that the earth was almost entirely tropical during the time of the dinosaurs, but lets not let that little nagging fact get in the way of electing some earth-horny tree humper.

 

[DirtyDog]

Wait, so if the ice only goes back 800,000 doesnt mean that it was too hot for ice before the ice formed? Thereby suggesting that the earth has been warmer than it is now?

In fact, we already know that the earth was almost entirely tropical during the time of the dinosaurs, but lets not let that little nagging fact get in the way of electing some earth-horny tree humper.

Actually it's true that over time, the normal state of the Earth has been no ice. However, what MATTERS is how we need it now. We built our cities next to water so it's not a good idea to be accelerating the natural cycles.

Redneck science is dumb.

 

[DirtyDog]

How high are they relative to just before the industrial revolution? Any change for the 799,800 years prior to that you'd be hard pressed to blame on humans.

Of course that data is included for reference, but you knew that.

 

[MMike]

Actually it's true that over time, the normal state of the Earth has been no ice. However, what MATTERS is how we need it now. We built our cities next to water so it's not a good idea to be accelerating the natural cycles.

Redneck science is dumb.

duh.....we'll build levees.....

 

[DaveW]

Levees or more Ersatz levees?

 

[ohio]

Of course that data is included for reference, but you knew that.

Oh, I found it. Image that....

"Ice cores reveal the Earth's natural climate rhythm over the last 800,000 years. When carbon dioxide changed there was always an accompanying climate change. Over the last 200 years human activity has increased carbon dioxide to well outside the natural range," explained Dr Wolff.

The "scary thing", he added, was the rate of change now occurring in CO2 concentrations. In the core, the fastest increase seen was of the order of 30 parts per million (ppm) by volume over a period of roughly 1,000 years.

"The last 30 ppm of increase has occurred in just 17 years. We really are in the situation where we don't have an analogue in our records," he said.

 

[jimmydean]

A good friend of mine is a saftey engineer who does soil and water samples for big oil companies. He and I were talking about global warming and he wants to do a white paper on it based on what he has seen over the course of his career.

The problem is he is afraid his customer base will look at it like the Jerry McGuire manifesto.

I think it would be an iteresting read.

 

[Changleen]

Wait, so if the ice only goes back 800,000 doesnt mean that it was too hot for ice before the ice formed? Thereby suggesting that the earth has been warmer than it is now?

There are places at the pole with Ice that is estimated to be 1.5M years old or more, but no-one had drilled that deep yet. The 800,000 year sample was 3.5KM long... It's not just like you pluck it out and read it like a book either.

 

[rockwool]

hokey stick!

Yeah, first we get fed news from Bogus Broadcast Changleen and then "claimate science form climate scientists". Science is something that should be determined by politicians, and not people who actually know something about it. Just like the threat that different countries and/or groups might or might not hold against the US. What did the CIA know about if Iraq possesed WMD or was harbouring Al-Qaeda members? How can it be CIA's business to know anything about in what time frame Iran will be able to possess nukes?? Neo conservative politicians are much more capable of assessing stuff like that. Same goes for the "independent" expert group who under the Reagan era found the USSR to constitute a much greater threat than the CIA thought. Never mind that that threat was later proved to be over exaggerated, just as every neo con claim about Iraq...

Are you with me on this N8?

 

[rockwool]

A good friend of mine is a saftey engineer who does soil and water samples for big oil companies. He and I were talking about global warming and he wants to do a white paper on it based on what he has seen over the course of his career.

The problem is he is afraid his customer base will look at it like the Jerry McGuire manifesto.

I think it would be an iteresting read.

He should write it anyways and not sign it, just spread it for every enviromental organization to know, sell it to a magazine or something. Anyway how it will come to benefit.

 

[Old Man G Funk]

Hokey sticks (plural) at least get it right that there are multiple studies that all show the same thing.

 

[Old Man G Funk]

Wait, so if the ice only goes back 800,000 doesnt mean that it was too hot for ice before the ice formed? Thereby suggesting that the earth has been warmer than it is now?

In fact, we already know that the earth was almost entirely tropical during the time of the dinosaurs, but lets not let that little nagging fact get in the way of electing some earth-horny tree humper.

Nice red herring. What do the ice core drilling samples have to do with "electing some earth-horny tree humper"? And, which one did you have in mind, because last I looked there aren't that many eco-friendly politicians out there.