Ice core evidence of human impact on CO2 in air (Global Warming Alert!!!)

al-Reuters ^

[VegasVic]

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.

The natural level of CO2 over most of the past 800,000 years has been 180-300 parts per million by volume (ppmv) of air. But today it is at 380 ppmv.

"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.

[mountainlyons]

Levels not seen for hundreds of thousands of years. Who was here hundreds of thousands of years age to see the levels?

Where are the photoshop pictures for proof?

[sgtbono2002]

You people have never gone to a party where the temp was 70 when the party started and the crowd soon makes the temp go up to 80 and you have to turn on the air conditioner. of course people are responsible for the global Warming. they are 98.7 degrees and are heating up the atmosphere/ the answer kill back about a billion, mostly Muslims and it will cool down.

[Paloma_55]

Correlation is not causality

No, but it is often casually used and thus a casualty of poor logic.

The better argument that can be found from the scientific data is that when global C02 exceeds a 280ppm, an ice-age will occur.

But of course, that would also be a flippant observation much like the one regarding global temperature and human activity.

[sgtbono2002]

OOps forgot to add the sarcasm label LOL

[MineralMan]

"Levels not seen for hundreds of thousands of years. Who was here hundreds of thousands of years age to see the levels?
"

Read the article. I'm no global warming freak, but you really do have to read the article to make intelligent comments.

[tx_eggman]

Time for the obligatory 'Humans do not cause Global Warming" slide

... and my "Global Warming is Caused by The Demise of the Pirate" slide

[maine-iac7]

we all know that anything Reuters prints is gospel... _{cough cough}

[Yo-Yo]

Yup, you are correct. Thanks for pointing out my original link was broken. The link to the story that produced the graph is:

http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

[DBrow]

What has caused the drastic reduction in CO2 over the last 800,000 years? What went wrong that we are only now recovering?

[theBuckwheat]

>> 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... <<

Ummm, humm, the obvious question is: what happened the last time that levels were this high?

Curiously, scientists don't act like they believe their own data. They act as if humanity has driven CO2 levels to levels that have never been seen on earth.

Hello??? Is anyone home?

[CherylBower]

Enviro's are saying to deny global warming is just the same as denying the Holocaust. Just another example of exageration and anti-semitism that the left is known for. Equating global warming to the slaughter during the Holocaust, just diminishes the actual crime.

Man, if the Nazi's "only" killed 6M, then all the world is guily of the worst crime, destruction of the whole planet. Now that God no longer exists or matters, man is ALL POWERFUL.

[Paloma_55]

Actually, C02 levels *are* higher than ever seen on earth.

Temperature, on the other hand, has risen much higher than current temperature many times in measured history.

Its all about coming up with something to scare people about.

They should try the "Space Aliens are gonna kill us!" threat again, it worked great in the 50s.

[mountainlyons]

I do not take global warming seriously. I was making fun at the author implying that there were some sort of intelligent people that had "seen" these high levels of CO2 hundreds of thousands of years ago.

[StAnDeliver]

Which reminds me... Talk Like A Pirate Day is September 19. Arrrgh.