Ice core evidence of human impact on CO2 in air

[Judi Lynn]

Ice core evidence of human impact on CO2 in air
27 minutes ago

NORWICH (Reuters) - Air from the oldest ice core confirms human activity has increased the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere to levels not seen for hundreds of thousands of years, scientists said on Monday

Bubbles of air in the 800,000-year-old ice, drilled in the Antarctic, show levels of CO2 changing with the climate. But the present levels are out of the previous range.

"It is from air bubbles that we know for sure that carbon dioxide has increased by about 35 percent in the last 200 years," said Dr Eric Wolff of the British Antarctic Survey and the leader of the science team for the 10-nation European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica.

"Before the last 200 years, which man has been influencing, it was pretty steady," he added.
(snip/...)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060904/ts_nm/science_co2_dc

[rodeodance]

1. It is lame headline for a very scary article

"The most scary thing is that carbon dioxide today is not just out of the range of what happened in the last 650,000 years but already up 100 percent out of the range," Wolff said at the British Association Festival of Science in Norwich, eastern England.

CO2 was close to 280 ppmv from 1000 AD until 1800 and then it accelerated toward its present concentration. Wolff added that measurements of carbon isotopes showed the extra CO2 coming from a fossil source, due to increased human activity.

The ice core record showed it used to take about 1,000 years for a CO2 increase of 30 ppmv. It has risen by that much in the last 17 years alone.

"We really are in a situation where something is happening that we don't have any analog for in our records. It is an experiment that we don't know the result of," he added.

Professor Peter Smith, of the University of Nottingham in England, said the study showed more needed to be done.

"There is an urgent need to find innovative technologies to reduce the impact we are having on our climate," he told the science conference.

[Lisa]

4. wow -- they really are doing an amazing job on those ice cores

When one considers how tiny the air samples are (just the bubbles in a layer of ice)-- it's incredible how much precision is required on the instruments. I remember working on a mass spectrometer, trying to get decent CO2 and CH4 readings out of 10 cc of air! It wasn't too long ago that the farthest back they could go was 400,000 years (and even that was considered a breakthrough).

[Nikki Stone 1]

7. Maybe the OP could liven up the title of the post.

This is just awful news.

[Gregorian]

2. These numbers match the other studies.

Looking at previous studies, as far back as 1997, these concentrations fit in and support the findings.





It's maddening. At least we're getting something for our pollution. An easy life. Better medicine. Mass communication. I don't know where it is all leading. But it's going there in a hurry.

[ConcernedCanuk]

3. Ah - the benefits of the Industrial Revolution and Technology

.
.
.

Ain't us hoomans just grand?

Momma Nature don think so

[reprobate]

8. Grand? Yes. Long for this earth? Ah, that's the big question.

Will there be a trigger point at which the climate all over the planet suddenly shifts? Suddenly being a few decades.

Will we have habitable geography for ALL the people on the earth now, and the growing number to come?

The answer of course is mass population die off. And that's what the republicans are all about. If you can't afford to live like them you don't deserve to take up valuable geography and resources.

[ERF]

13. In short, the answer is probably yes.

The shift of between 2 and 5 degrees celcius (roughly equivalent to the last ice age) will probably not happen as a gradual increase over 100 years. It will likely happen in a big shift over a shorter period of time - between 5 and 20.

The result will be mass extinctions and a quickly rising sea level which may inundate ports and cause massive disruptions to the global economy - including distribution of food.

Strangely, despite the misnomer of "global warming" the changing climate might make Europe much colder. Europe's is on the same lattitude as Canada and could get as cold (but slightly warming due to the overall warming trend) if the Gulf Stream shifts. That shift could occur because of the decreasing salinity and temperature due to accelerated melting of the Greenland ice sheet.

That in turn could mean a wetter Mediterranean or even the Sahara.

It is going to be a wild and wacky world, so have get ready for it. Oh and don't buy land in Holland.

[reprobate]

16. LOL! There soon won't BE any land in Holland.

I fully agree that the silent elephant in the room is the probable northern latitude freeze. I'm afraid this will mean a huge population die off as temps plummet and fuel becomes not only expensive, but simply unavailable as the freeze deepens.

Here in central florida we are likely to have oceanfront property where once there were orange groves. Won't matter anyway, since with the gulf stream either shifting or drasticly slowing it won't be able to move the heat north to moderate our sweltering weather, so we'll be the flip side of the northern freeze.

As a senior citizen, I don't think I'll see the drastic changes. It's my grand daughters who will have to suffer in the horror that we've created as humanity. For them I grieve.

Looking at the bigger picture for a moment, all this is just nature's analog of antibodies. Homo Sapiens is the invader of her body and she's fighting back to counter the infection we've become.

[ERF]

17. I tend to disagree, unless I am misreading you

the Freezeinng of Europe will not cause large scale death, because it won't happen in the "Day After Tomorrow" sense. It will be geologically lightening fast, but still not so fast that people wont at first try to adapt and then eventually decide to migrate south.

The biggest conflict will be if Europeans decide they need to leave Europe. Then they either migrate to emptier regions like Russia, US and Canada, South America - not all of which will necessarily be welcoming - or they move to Africa.

Starvation is likely to be the biggest killer as traditionally grown crops fail.

As far as Holland goes, you should be aware that the Rabobank owns land about 8 times the size of Holland in the middle of the US. ABN Amro is one of the biggest landowners in South America and a surprisingly large number of the Dutch own mobile homes (yóou see them in Germany every summer).

[reprobate]

18. Yes they will try. But I fear that without the great ocean current that

moderates all the climate on the planet, there will be no moderate climates.

If the ice caps melt - as it appears they are - dumping all that fresh water into the ocean, worst case is that the cold stays in the northern lats and the heat stays in the equatorial lats. If that were to happen there could be very little arable land for growing food, and that WOULD mean a large die off.

Not what I'm hoping for, but still a possibility.

[krispos42]

14. No no no, it's all just a liberal plot!

There is no globing warming! The word is only 6,000 years old!

<sticks fingers in ears>

Nah nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan I'm not listening I'm not listening I'm not listening I'm not listening I'm not listening I'm not listening I'm not listening

[truthisfreedom]

5. Gore already covered this in his movie. these studies are, in essence,

confirmation of previous studies.

[opihimoimoi]

6. So what do we do about it?? Elect Dufus George...Ostrich George..Whatever

[MissMarple]

9. The gardening zone map has changed.

It does that, but the group that does the remapping said the government didn't like their version and then rezoned based on a longer than usual time frame. This was, as reported, to mask the quite rapid change during the 90's. I'm actually trying to fix dinner right now, so I can't google to find the references, but it was reported in our newspaper this year.

[Delphinus]

15. I never heard of that MissMarple!

Quite interesting!

[MissMarple]

10. Argh...a double post. Now how does that happen?

:)

[Lisa]

11. that gardening zone story is so important ...

... it actually deserves to be mentioned twice! Thanks, MissMarple! It's not only proof that there are significant changes occurring over rather large areas (rather than the "temporary local fluctuation" claimed by some skeptics), but it would mobilize a lot of gardeners who think of themselves as "apolitical". (I noticed that, a few years ago, there was an op-ed in one of the Canadian rose hobbyist magazines, trashing the concept of global warming ... wonder if they'll change their tune when the drought and pest hazards also shift?)

[Control-Z]

12. k&r

Kick, kick, kick - the most important topic of the times.