Willi Dansgaard dies at 88; scientist who recognized climate record in ice cap

Willi Dansgaard, a Danish paleoclimatologist who was the first to recognize that the Earth's climatic history was stored in the Greenland ice cap, died Jan. 8 in Copenhagen, according to the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen. He was 88.

His research, together with that of Claude Lorius of France and Hans Oeschger of Switzerland, revolutionized scientific knowledge of how the temperature and composition of the atmosphere have changed over the last 150,000 years, demonstrating a clear link between carbon dioxide and methane concentrations and global temperatures.

Their discoveries launched a major global research effort to understand the mechanisms by which these atmospheric changes are linked to changes in the land surface and particularly to changes in ocean circulation and chemistry.

Abstract:

Do glaciers tell a true atmospheric CO2 story?

*********************Abstract***************************

Science of The Total Environment

Volume 114, April 1992, Pages 227-284

Z. Jaworowski^a^,^*, T.V. Segalstad^b and N. Ono^c

^aNorwegian Polar Research Institute, P.O. Box 158, N-1330 Oslo, Norway

^bMineralogical-Geological Museum, University of Oslo, Sars' Gate 1, N-0562 Oslo, Norway

^cArctic Environment Research Center, National Institute of Polar Research, 9-10, Kaga 1-Chome, Itabashi-ku, Tokyo 173, Japan

Received 24 July 1991;

accepted 19 August 1991.

Available online 26 June 2003.

Abstract

Until 1985 most studies of CO₂ in gas inclusions in pre-industrial ice indicated that CO₂ concentrations (up to 2450 ppm) were higher than the current atmospheric level. After 1985, lower pre-industrial CO₂ values were reported, and used as evidence for a recent man-made CO₂ increase. The errors in these revised values, however, are of a similar magnitude to the apparent increase in atmospheric CO₂ level. The assumptions used in estimating lower CO₂ values in past atmospheres have been: no liquid phase in polar ice; younger age of air than of ice due to free gas exchange between deep firn and the atmosphere; and no change in composition of air inclusions. These assumptions are shown to be invalid. Liquid saline water exists in ice at low temperatures, even below −70°C; airtight ice layers are ubiquitous in Antarctic firn; and more than 20 physico-chemical processes operating in situ and in ice cores contribute to the alteration of the chemical composition of air inclusions. The permeable ice sheet with its capillary liquid network acts as a sieve which redistributes elements, isotopes, and micro-particles. Thirty-six to 100% of air recovered from old ice is contaminated by recent atmospheric air during field and laboratory operations. The value of not, vert, similar 290 ppm, widely accepted from glacier studies for the pre-industrial atmospheric CO₂ level, apparently results from: invalid assumptions; processes in ice sheets; artifacts in ice cores; and arbitrary rejection of high readings. To date, glaciological studies are not able to provide a reliable reconstruction of either the CO₂ level in pre-industrial and ancient atmospheres or paleoclimates. Instead these studies have led to a widely accepted false dogma of man-made climatic warming. This dogma may have enormous negative impact on our common future.

Keywords: CO₂; isotopes; glaciers; greenhouse warming

^* Present address: Institute of Physics, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1048, Blindern, N-0316 Oslo, Norway.

Science of The Total Environment
Volume 114, April 1992, Pages 227-284

From the link at post #22:

WATCH my "CO2 Experiment"

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WATCH my "CO2 Experiment". This video shows that a candle floating on water, burning in the air inside a glass, converts the oxygen in the air to CO₂. The water rises in the glass because the CO₂, which replaced the oxygen, is quickly dissolved in the water. The water contains calcium ions Ca⁺⁺, because we initially dissolved calcium hydroxide Ca(OH)₂ in the water. The CO₂ produced during oxygen burning reacts with the calcium ions to produce solid calcium carbonate CaCO₃, which is easily visible as a whitening of the water when we switch on a flashlight. This little kitchen experiment demonstrates the inorganic carbon cycle in nature. The oceans take out our anthropogenic CO₂ gas by quickly dissolving it as bicarbonate HCO₃^-, which in turn forms solid calcium carbonate either organically in calcareous organisms or precipitates inorganically. The CaCO₃ is precipitating and not dissolving during this process, because buffering in the ocean maintains a stable pH around 8. We also see that CO₂ reacts very fast with the water, contrary to the claim by the IPCC that it takes 50 - 200 years for this to happen. Try this for yourself in your kitchen

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The work of Danish paleoclimatologist Willi Dansgaard helped revolutionize scientific understanding of the mechanisms of climate change.

Abstract