Science News Ice Cores Reveal Fluctuations In Earth's Greenhouse Gases ScienceDaily (May 17, 2008) â The newest analysis of trace gases trapped in Antarctic ice cores now provide a reasonable view of greenhouse gas concentrations as much as 800,000 years into the past, and are further confirming the link between greenhouse gas levels and global warming, scientists reported May 14 in the journal Nature. They also show that during that entire period of time (800,000 years), there have never been concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane as high as the current levels, said Edward Brook, an associate professor of geosciences at Oregon State University, and author of a Nature commentary on the new studies. "The fundamental conclusion that today's concentrations of these greenhouse gases have no past analogue in the ice-core record remains firm," Brook said in the report. "The remarkably strong correlations of methane and carbon dioxide with temperature reconstructions also stand." The latest research, done by members of the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica, extend the data on trace gases back another 150,000 years beyond any studies done prior to this, Brook said. Ultimately, researchers would like to achieve data going back as much as 1.5 million years. The tiny bubbles of ancient air trapped in polar ice cores have been used to provide records of trace gases in the atmosphere at distant points in the past, and better understand the natural fluctuations that have occurred, largely as a result of cyclical changes in Earth's orbit around the sun. "These natural cycles that occur on the order of tens or hundreds of thousands of years can help us understand both the forces that have controlled and influenced Earth's climate in the past, and the implications of current changes on future climate" said Brook, who is co-chair of an international group that organizes global studies in this field. According to the data, the current levels of primary greenhouse gases -- those that are expected to cause global warming - are off the charts. The concentration of carbon dioxide is now a bit more than 380 parts per million, compared to a range of about 200-300 parts per million during the past 800,000 years. The current concentration of methane is 1,800 parts per billion, compared to a range of about 400-700 parts per billion during that time. In every case during that extended period, warm periods coincide with high levels of greenhouse gases. Of some interest, the latest studies are showing that the temperature increases have been even more pronounced during the most recent 450,000 years, compared to several hundred thousand years prior to that. "It appears there may even be very long term natural cycles that have operated on much longer periods of 400,000 years or more," Brook said. "We still have quite a bit to learn about these past cycles and all the forces that control them." Most of the time during the past 800,000 years, the Earth has experienced long, cooler periods about 80,000 to 90,000 years long, which eventually lead to ice ages. Those have been regularly interrupted by "interglacial" periods about 10,000 to 20,000 years long that are considerably warmer -- this is the stage the Earth is in right now. Abrupt climate changes on much shorter time scales are also possible, researchers believe, possibly due to shifts in ocean circulation patterns or other forces. Extremely low CO2 content "The temperature curve over the past 800,000 years matches the CO2 curve beautifully -- during glacial periods in which the climate is cold, there is less CO2 in the atmosphere," says Professor Thomas Blunier from the Centre for Ice and Climate at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen. He explains that when it is cold there is less plant growth, and so there are fewer plants to absorb the CO2 from the air, while more CO2 is absorbed in the oceans, so the final calculation is a low CO2 content in the atmosphere during glacial periods. This produces a lower greenhouse effect, and leads to an even colder climate. However, the new results show that during the glacial period that occurred between 650,000 and 750,000 years ago, the CO2 level was extremely low -- lower than any previous measurements have indicated. It happened twice in this period, while the temperature was not lower than during other glacial periods. Drop in sensitive greenhouse gases Methane, CH4, is a another important greenhouse gas and a sensitive indicator of climate changes and temperature fluctuations. Methane is formed by microorganisms and escapes from natural gas reservoirs. The biggest discharge from nature comes from bacteria in marsh areas which contribute 70 per cent of the air's methane content, while the remainder comes mostly from wild animals. Analyses of the ice cores from Antarctica show that the curve for methane matches the temperature curve -- when the climate is cold, there is less methane in the atmosphere. The measurements indicate a strong relationship between the atmospheric methane content in relation to the Earth's path around the Sun as well as the inclination and direction of the Earth's axis. They find evidence for an increasing strength of the monsoon circulation in the tropics over the past 400,000 years. Scientists are continuing to search for the optimal sites in Antarctica that will allow them to take the ice core records back even further, Brook said.
It is not my definition of scientist. You explicitly made reference to their definition, so I used that. Me personally, I would count the PhDs as scientists, but not MS and below. That still works out to several times your 2500 claim. Regarding dentists, you claimed the bulk, not one or a few. So you googled and found a dentist. That is a far cry from your initial claim. Not being a climatologist is not the same thing as being a dentist. Well, all of your claims that I have bothered to check so far have been bogus. I don't know about the petition. That does not mean I defend it. It simply means I have no basis for an opinion. Well, I think you are the one who do not understand the physics in the IPCC reports. I can't teach you physics in a post on elite trader. No, wait, I forgot, you believe there are no models and no physics in climatology. You claimed that I quoted it. I didn't. I was pointing out that the often repeated claim that there is consensus has very slim scientific support at best, and that there are similar reports pointing in the opposite direction. There are CO2 curves and temperature measurements. So what? The US national debt has increased dramatically over the same period. Is it somehow involved in climate change as well? You can't draw any conclusions from observations without models and physics, and you can't make any predictions. Let's just agree to disagree shall we. I don't have time for this.
As the debate continues it is becoming painfully obvious that the Global Warming Cult has not provided any scientific evidence to support their hysterical views of life on planet Earth. They have adopted almost a religious aspect in their beliefs as they rely strickly on faith that they have not been lied to by their leaders. They are scam victims, and as such, they will cling to anything to fool themselves into thinking they were not scammed. At this point, they are clinging to the lie to shelter themselves from the pain of the truth.
Well I don't count PhD's in dentistry. One name I googled appears to be dead. You're avoiding the point, though, which is that this petition contains almost no climatologists, and nobody on this list can easily be verified.
Did they also show that carbon dioxide concentration 500 million years ago on Earth had been 20 x higher that it is today? Did they show that 20 x higher CO2 was accompanied by only 2 Celsius degree higher temperature?
Thanks to these man made global warming people, the word scientist will soon be associated with and synonymous with liar, just like the word politician already is. http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/18/us-climate-report-assailed/
That's actually a valid critique -- there's no way to pinpoint if individual disasters are being directly influenced by global warming. It's worth noting that the guy who's rightly being corrected who made the comments is a politician, not a climatologist, and a physicist.
There is no way to pinpoint a single claim made by the Global Warming Cult. They have made countless claims that were proven to be false. Why dont you go do a little research and find what these idiots predicted in the '80s? I will give you a hint. They were all wrong. Have these folks adopted the scientific method? The whole thing is quite simply. It goes like this. Come up with a hypothesis. Create predictions based on the hypothesis. Conduct experiments. Do the predictions of the hypothesis match those of the experiment? If yes, continue testing, you may be on to something. If no, take the paper that you wrote you hypothesis on and wipe your ass with it, because its useless garbage. So far the paper that the global warming hypothesis is written on should be used as toilet paper because its not worth shit.
Who is "they?" The IPCC didn't even exist. I think you're referring to an article in Time or Newsweek, which aren't peer reviewed science journals. Yes, actually. There haven't been any measurements that have contradicted the measured warming trends. For any sufficient sample size the trend holds. Well it's pretty straightforward. The global average temperatures are rising, the global CO2 content is rising, and by measuring isotopes they have proved the CO2 has come from man. I'm not sure what else you want them to show.