Air from the oldest ice core confirms human activity has increased the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere to levels not seen for hundreds of thousands of years, scientists said on Monday.
Bubbles of air in the 800,000-year-old ice, drilled in the Antarctic, show levels of CO2 changing with the climate. But the present levels are out of the previous range.
"It is from air bubbles that we know for sure that carbon dioxide has increased by about 35 percent in the last 200 years," said Dr Eric Wolff of the British Antarctic Survey and the leader of the science team for the 10-nation European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica.
"Before the last 200 years, which man has been influencing, it was pretty steady," he added.
Here's more. The Pretoria News gets it.
As the signs that the Earth is warming up become more apparent every day, the issue of global warming has reached a point where there is almost complete consensus that it is a reality requiring some urgent solutions.
Scientific evidence shows the Earth's temperature has risen in the past 100 years.
Most of the warming has taken place in the past 20 years, indicating acceleration in the process. It is now also widely accepted that most of the warming in the past 50 years can be attributed to human activities.
Emphasis mine.
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