2.1 million-year high measured for CO2 in atmosphere Carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere has risen to its highest level in at least 2.1 million years, according to a new investigation of the greenhouse gas’s role in ice ages over the millennia. Researchers including Columbia University’s Baerbel Hoenisch drilled into the ocean floor off the coast of Africa to remove shells of ancient marine animals called foraminifera that contain climate records, according to the study published today on Science’s Web site. Previous evidence of CO2 concentrations found in columns of Arctic ice go back just 800,000 years. Carbon dioxide, which traps heat close to earth, is the main contributor to global warming, threatening to raise sea levels and disrupt food production and water supplies, United Nations scientists have said. The marine sediment indicated “stable” levels of atmospheric CO2 at less than 250 molecules per million molecules of air, compared with about 385 today. “What’s remarkable is how little CO2 concentration changed in the past,” said Jerry McManus, a paleoclimatology professor at Columbia who participated in the study. “What we’re seeing now is the same magnitude of natural variations happening in only a few decades.” The CO2 concentration ranged between 181 and 297 parts per million over the period studied. It may be necessary to go back as far as 2.7 million years to find levels of CO2 similar to today’s, the study concluded, without attributing reasons for previous surges. If the world continues to burn coal and oil and cut down forests that store carbon, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere may more than double to 900 parts per million in the next century, the UN’s Environment Programme Executive Director Achim Steiner has said. Negotiators at UN-sponsored talks are attempting to set limits on CO2 emissions. Delegates are focused on restricting output of the gas, which has grown 2 percent since industrialization in the 1800s, to 450 parts per million and slowing the rise in average global temperature to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) over the next century. “With unabated emissions, many trends in climate will likely accelerate, leading to an increasing risk of abrupt or irreversible climatic shifts,” 10 universities said today in a report suggesting that climate change was underestimated. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007 blamed global warming on emissions of such gases and warned of increased flooding and drought as temperatures continue to rise. Greenhouse gases also include water vapor, methane and nitrous oxide. The study published in Science today “is the best existing record so far that shows atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide,” said Columbia’s McManus. “It strengthens the case that this is fairly unprecedented” for an increase in CO2. Other evidence of greenhouse gas concentration has been discovered in ice. Polar researchers reported last year in the journal Nature that carbon dioxide was at an 800,000-year high, after studying bubbles trapped in ice drilled from the Antarctic. Hoenisch and colleagues investigated the role of the carbon cycle in climate change and concluded that CO2 was probably not responsible for lengthening the time between major ice ages to 100,000 years from 40,000, countering a supposition that massive ice sheets grew and receded because of gradually decreasing levels of carbon dioxide. Even with the likelihood of the earth warming up in the coming centuries, we’re headed for another ice age at some point thousands of years in the future, said McManus. “The earth is moving into an increasingly glaciated state,” he said. “It’s just that the intervals between ice ages, which we’re living in now, have become longer and warmer.”
I wonder if i throw out a year. . .any year . . . would they be able to tell me the CO2 in atmosphere in that year What was the CO2 in atmosphere in 1492 Rocket River
This is so utterly ridiculous. Here are a few facts for you people: CO2 levels have ranged between 180 parts per million to 7,000 PPM in our atmosphere and currently stands at only 385 PPM. Water vapor represents 95% of all greenhouse gases. CO2 is less than 5% of greenhouse gases!!! It's miniscule. CO2 IS NOT A POLLUTANT. Plants need CO2 to grow and we exhale it for goodness sakes. C02 has very little impact on global warming.
Well, is the measure of the CO2 level there the same as it would be say over the amazon where trees and plants are putting out more oxygen and taking in lots more CO2?? I mean, the hole in the ozone is centered in one part of the earth, and a similar section taken from above its opposite end of the earth would yield a different ozone result. I'm not a scientist, didnt even stay at a holiday inn express last night. Just askin.
Wow, even TJ has missed the memo about the congressional republicans finally, begrudgingly acknowleding that man-made climate change is happening.
^^ If this is even an accurate statement, then they are wrong as well. The Earth's atmosphere is less than .001% CO2 -- it's impossible to claim that CO2 is why the Earth is warming. The sun and the oceans have a MUCH bigger impact. None of that is CO2 driven. Heck, when Mount St Helens erupted, it put out more CO2 than America has in 100 years. So we are going to try to slow the rate of growth of our CO2 and think that we are impacting global warming in the slightest? That's absurd.
Sigh. Can't we spare ourselves this thread? Everyone has made their decision. Those who have not should consult all the data and scientific analysis and avoid this BlunderBoardService on this particular topic. To summarize my small contributions to the last 40 such threads... the correlation between CO2 levels and global temperatures is better understood than the correlation between cholesterol levels and heart disease. But, you know... bring on the DOUBLE WHOPPERS, BABY! I'm headed for some drive through. Bye, y'all.
Correlation does not equal causation. Isn't that Day 1 of Science class? As oceans warm, CO2 is released -- making it a LAGGING INDICATOR of global warming. This would explain the correlation, but would be in direct conflict with CO2 CAUSING global warming. But I know -- it's tough to argue the facts -- that's why your side tries to just shut down debate. I've put a lot of facts out in this thread. How about you respond to some of them? Can you?
I know I'll regret it, but I just can't let this oft repeated canard go without response. This is absolutely, totally, and completely 100% false. The sum total of global volcano CO<sub>2</sub> outputs in any one given year is about 1/150th of the man made output at current rates.
At current rates is the key to your post. The comparison I drew from is using a different time period. My point stands nonetheless, that the focus on CO2 is absurd, considering it represents around 2% of greenhouse gases. 2%. Why aren't we focused on that insidious other 98% -- the EVIL FORCE KNOWN AS WATER? We should just get rid of all water on the planet, so we'll all be 1 degree cooler in 100 years.
You are very good at obfuscating, deflecting, and generally blustering TJ, when confronted with your own failures. St. Helens and all the other outgassing that year was still very nearly 1/150th of total human CO<sub>2</sub>. But if you want to argue that you were talking about average annual human CO<sub>2</sub> output during the Egyptian Middle Kingdom, feel free to try with a straight face. And as to your other canard, atmospheric water vapor is a function of temperature. Increase temp, water vapor goes up from surface evaporation. Decrease temperature, it goes down. It is an internal variable of the system that we can not alter without draining the entire planet of H<sub>2</sub>0 or something silly like that. That is why we aren't focused on water. Man made CO<sub>2</sub> is something we control as an independent input to the system. Which one of the next made up items from the standard global warmer's denial checklist would you like to be shot down on?
First of all, CO2 represents 2% of greenhouse gases, and less than .001% of the earth's atmosphere. So it's foolish to think that doing anything to CO2 levels will matter. But if you can't believe that, then consider this: Lowering America's levels won't do schit. The world's CO2 emissions are going to rise by 30% in the next 30 years. China, India, South Africa, and all of the other coal-dependent countries are building coal-fired plants at a rapid clip. So we are going to slap a tax of $4,000 per year on American families, during a recession, that is going to accomplish NOTHING. Why have the UN climate models been WRONG, WRONG and WRONG on this topic? Why are we still making policy based on these garbage-in, garbage-out models? Now that is idiocy.
For the non-climate scientists it really boils down to this- to believe that humans are not making a significant contribution to global warming you have to believe that the vast majority of climate scientists are engaged a vast conspiracy or they are pretty dumb. It's not very hard to reach a conclusion.
Jesus, freakin far-right wingers. Global warming is a FACT, stop arguing about it, and JUST DEAL WITH IT.
giff and aussie -- Which of my points do you disagree with? The UN climate models have been dead wrong in the last few years. Remember, these are the same scientists that were pounding the table to make GLOBAL COOLING the conjecture of the day in the 1970s. These scientists are anything but objective and often WRONG. In fact their models have not proven out in the last few years. Futhermore, it's folly to think that some type of cap and trade scheme is going to reverse the work of nature over 4.6 billion years. Trying to move alter .001% of our atmosphere is going to accomplish NOTHING. And it's definitely not worth $4,000 per American family to attempt to alter nature's irreversible course.
