Global Warming Is Man-Made; Antarctic Ice Bubbles Tell the Tale
by April Streeter, Gothenburg, Sweden on 04.29.08
Photo courtesy elisfanclub on flickr
O.K. perhaps it's not news to you, and instead just a bit more evidence of man's effect on climate. Eons of air bubbles trapped in Antarctic ice reveal how carbon dioxide ups and downs are in sync with rising and falling Earth temperatures, according to research presented in the journal Nature Geoscience - and hypothesizes how the recent surge of CO2 emissions has thrown that system, known as a feedback mechanism, out of whack.
Researcher Richard Zeebe measured CO2 in the air pockets in layers of Antarctic ice and found that amounts waxed and waned with known periods of cooling and warming on Earth. In the past CO2 upswings and downturns were smaller - an average change of around 22 parts per million (i.e. 22 CO2 molecules more or less) - and occurred when volcanoes erupted. Over time that extra was absorbed in deep sea beds. In the last 200 years, the amount of CO2 has risen by 100 parts (or 100 molecules) per million, and that jolt of extra CO2 will take hundreds or thousands of years to be absorbed. Which raises the question: are emissions reductions worthwhile when resetting the feedback mechanism will take so long and won't fix the climate we'll experience in our lifetimes? See Zeebe's response after the jump.
Zeebe said the feedback mechanism that controls emissions' effect on climate operate so irritatingly slowly that we're going to have to live with the results of our excess CO2 spewing for many, many lifetimes.
And even though Zeebe doesn't at the moment see any man-made intervention that could quickly help us reset the feedback loop, he doesn't see that as a reason to stop trying.
"The message is that nature will not clean up our mess for us quickly," he said. "It's our responsibility to do that and whatever measures we take to reduce emissions, it's worth it."
Plus, unfortunately for us all and our thus-far efforts, CO2 emissions are actually still increasing. Via ::Guardian
See also: Global Warming: Still Happening, and Dumb Question: What Should I Read To Understand Global Warming?
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I'm not sure if there's any new information in this data. The question skeptics ask is whether the CO2 spikes of the past are the cause or the effect of the warming periods.
I'm an AGW skeptic, btw, and I appreciate Zeebe's candor about the hopelessness of the situation under current AGW theory. But, I would suggest that there are many other great reasons to reduce emissions(/pollution) and conserve energy. Maybe if we stopped arguing about whether the sky is actually falling, we could make some progress on those fronts. (See my blog for one example.)
We can augment the natural feedback loop with recently developed technology to separate CO2 from the air, sequester the carbon, and release the oxygen.
Not a cure all, but could be a major rung in the ladder.
We can augment the natural feedback loop with recently developed technology to separate CO2 from the air, sequester the carbon, and release the oxygen.
Not a cure all, but could be a major rung in the ladder.