Originally published December 8 2005
Report concludes carbon dioxide is present at higher levels in the atmosphere than previously thought
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The journal Science has published research conducted by Thomas Stocker that suggests, based on analysis of air bubbles in Antarctic ice, that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are the highest they have been in 650,000 years.
With the first in-depth analysis of the air bubbles trapped in the ice core of A major new study says there is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today than at any point during the last 650,000 years, which let scientists peer back in time at "greenhouse gases" that can help fuel global warming.
The analysis highlights the fact that today's rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, at 380 parts per million by volume, is already 27 percent higher than its highest recorded level during the last 650,000 years, reported scientists in two papers in the Nov. 25 issue of the journal Science.
The second paper documents atmospheric methane and nitrous oxide levels over the same period.
The ice core from Antarctica, containing hundreds of thousands of years-worth of atmospheric air samples within tiny bubbles trapped in the ice, adds to this argument by extending Earth's greenhouse gas record by 210,000 years.
The new records should help scientists better understand climate change and the nature of the current warm period on Earth, and may also aid researchers in reducing uncertainty in predictions of future climate change, said the researchers.
"We have added another piece of information showing that the timescales on which humans have changed the composition of the atmosphere are extremely short compared to the natural time cycles of the climate system," Thomas Stocker, senior author for both studies, said in a statement.
The new studies confirm the stable relationship between the Antarctic climate and greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane during the last four glacial cycles.
The similarities between our current warm period and MIS 11 are primarily due to a similar configuration of the orbits of the Earth around the Sun: the relative positions of the Earth and Sun are thought to be the key driver of ice age cycles.
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