Geology News » Highest CO2 levels in 650 Ka

Posted on Friday 25 November 2005 by Dave Schumaker

A new ice core drilled in Eastern Antarctica by European scientists offers an unprecedented look at CO₂ levels during the last 650,000 years. According to new studies based on this ice core, CO₂ levels are 27% higher than at any point during the last 650,000 years.

Today’s rising CO2 concentrations are 27 percent higher than at the highest level seen over the 650,000-year time scale, according to the study, which appears in the weekly US journal Science.

The Dome C core, extracted by the 10-country European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA), outstrips by 210,000 years the previous record-holder, drilled at an Antarctic site called Vostok.

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Filed under: Climate and Oceans

Chris Zhang

Monday, November 28, 2005 | 6:01 pm

And, aside from the obvious, this is important why? I mean sure, it’s a enlightening discovery, but it’s not that important… yet.
Dave Schumaker

Tuesday, November 29, 2005 | 3:36 pm

Exactly right. There is the whole issue of global warming… but how much does CO2 actually contribute to overall climate change. I’ve posted something similar on the forums at Physorg when we were having a discussion on global warming.

Global Warming *is* happening. It’s pretty much an undeniable fact.

The contentious issue is if/how much we are affecting it.

The Vostok Ice Core suggests an overall warming trend from 18,000 years ago to now. Ocean cores using foraminifera fossils and looking at the O-18/O-16 ratios also correlate with this. These same cores also show that CO2 content is increasing and it’s relatively proportional to average temperatures.

And another graph of Vostok Ice Core Data

Combine the Vostok ice core data with data from the Mauna Loa atmospheric observatory and you see increasing output of CO2. This increased atmospheric CO2 content would seem to suggest (based on correlations of past data) that there will be an temperature increase relative to that.

We are seeing a temperature increase. However, not as fast as CO2 is going up. Is there a lag time? The problem is that we don’t really see any lag time in the Vostok Ice Cores. This would in turn suggest that something more complex than simply a CO2-Temperature relationship. This is why scientists/politicians/average citizens are so confused on the causes of global warming issues. We simply don’t know.

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