New Ice Cores Expand View Of Climate History

Science Daily ^ | November 28, 2005

[cogitator]

The deeper you go, the more you know.

[RadioAstronomer]

ping for later read

[kajingawd]

nothing is more precise in measurements right now.

[cogitator]

** ping **

[azhenfud]

"We'll be studying this new data for years."

Guaranteed a career!

[RetiredArmy]

We're all gonna die in 2745!!!! We don't have a chance. We are doomed by the new ice age!!!! Ugggg, it ain't gonna matter to me, 3 weeks after I am dust, the world could end, how would I know! Oh, right, CNN would be reporting it.

[null and void]

Global warming? I'm for it!

[theDentist]

I hear as soon as one core began melting, they decided global warming was at fault.

[Abathar]

pflr

[SolidSupplySide]

Past studies of gases trapped in Greenland and Antarctic ice cores have suggested that Earth's temperature can sometimes change amazingly fast, warming as much as 15 degrees in some regions within a couple of decades.

Yet this is evidence that the imperceptible change we have seen over the past few decades is the result of human activity. How is that?

[johnny7]

Great news! How long will it be before we get rid of winter?

[bert]

500,102;500103; 500,104; 500,105; 500,106....

Wheeww counting past 100,000 sure gets boring.

500,107; 500,107; oops 500,108

[blam]

"But there are also concerns that the Earth's climate may have changed very abruptly at times in the past, in complex interactions between the atmosphere, ocean currents and ice sheets."

All part of a normal cycle?

[A. Pole]

As the data become more solid about the atmospheric conditions of the past, it's becoming increasingly clear that the current conditions of the past 200 years are a distinct anomaly, Brook said. "The levels of primary greenhouse gases such as methane, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide are up dramatically since the Industrial Revolution, at a speed and magnitude that the Earth has not seen in hundreds of thousands of years," Brook said. "There is now no question this is due to human influence."

Hmm, it does not make sense. 200 years ago the industry produced gases were a tiny fraction of what is today and even smaller fraction of what volcanoes spit out. Also in the past few thousands of years there were warmer periods than today.

I will worry about global warming when Greenland is a green land again.

[dhuffman@awod.com]

Now you know why the Wide Anthropic Principle is not accepted by the PC establishment. The Universe depends on your perception of it - when you're gone, I don't exist to you.

[emiller]

What if they dug down, looking for ice, and hit those space airplanes from Scientology? All us Christians would be proven wrong, and we'd have to admit that Tom Cruise had it all straight (pardon the pun), after all. Shocking. (potentially)

[alloysteel]

And the tentative conclusion is -

Things change over time. More CO2, less CO2, warmer atmosphere, colder atmosphere, more snowfall, less snowfall.

Past is not necessarily prognosis. There may be a much larger cycle here, in which nobody has yet made correlations.

The effects of activities of mankind may still be extremely insignificant in relation to the other sources of climatic change.

[emiller]

The average American is obese- and thusly, emits various and sundry "gases." I think someday, the world will be shocked to find that we were the cause of global warming/cooling/lukewarming after all. I will be proven right, and will get the respect I deserve/crave.
I am not a lunatic.

[glorgau]

Impossible! The world is only 6000 years old!

[NeilGus]

The article states:
"Not long ago we thought that previous ice studies which go back about 500,000 years might be the best we could obtain," said Brook, who is also the co-chair of the International Partnerships in Ice Coring Sciences, a group that's helping to plan future ice core research efforts around the world.

"Now we have a glimpse into the past of up to 650,000 years, and we believe it may be possible to go as much as one million years or more," Brook said. "This will give us a fuller picture of Earth's past climates, the way they changed and fluctuated, and the forces that caused the changes. We'll be studying this new data for years."

As the data become more solid about the atmospheric conditions of the past, it's becoming increasingly clear that the current conditions of the past 200 years are a distinct anomaly, Brook said.

"The levels of primary greenhouse gases such as methane, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide are up dramatically since the Industrial Revolution, at a speed and magnitude that the Earth has not seen in hundreds of thousands of years," Brook said. "There is now no question this is due to human influence."


Now let me get this straight. Because they have found an ice core from 500,000 years ago to 650,000 years ago, there is "no question" that current global warming is due to human activity. How can this sample tell us that?