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MustavaMond

Last Time Carbon Dioxide Levels Were This High: 15 Million Years Ago, Scientists Report

ScienceDaily (Oct. 9, 2009) — You would have to go back at least 15 million years to find carbon dioxide levels on Earth as high as they are today, a UCLA scientist and colleagues report Oct. 8 in the online edition of the journal Science.
"The last time carbon dioxide levels were apparently as high as they are today — and were sustained at those levels — global temperatures were 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit higher than they are today, the sea level was approximately 75 to 120 feet higher than today, there was no permanent sea ice cap in the Arctic and very little ice on Antarctica and Greenland," said the paper's lead author, Aradhna Tripati, a UCLA assistant professor in the department of Earth and space sciences and the department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.



Aradhna Tripati. (Credit: Image courtesy of UCLA)


"Carbon dioxide is a potent greenhouse gas, and geological observations that we now have for the last 20 million years lend strong support to the idea that carbon dioxide is an important agent for driving climate change throughout Earth's history," she said.
By analyzing the chemistry of bubbles of ancient air trapped in Antarctic ice, scientists have been able to determine the composition of Earth's atmosphere going back as far as 800,000 years, and they have developed a good understanding of how carbon dioxide levels have varied in the atmosphere since that time. But there has been little agreement before this study on how to reconstruct carbon dioxide levels prior to 800,000 years ago.


Tripati, before joining UCLA's faculty, was part of a research team at England’s University of Cambridge that developed a new technique to assess carbon dioxide levels in the much more distant past — by studying the ratio of the chemical element boron to calcium in the shells of ancient single-celled marine algae. Tripati has now used this method to determine the amount of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere as far back as 20 million years ago.
"We are able, for the first time, to accurately reproduce the ice-core record for the last 800,000 years — the record of atmospheric C02 based on measurements of carbon dioxide in gas bubbles in ice," Tripati said. "This suggests that the technique we are using is valid.
"We then applied this technique to study the history of carbon dioxide from 800,000 years ago to 20 million years ago," she said. "We report evidence for a very close coupling between carbon dioxide levels and climate. When there is evidence for the growth of a large ice sheet on Antarctica or on Greenland or the growth of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean, we see evidence for a dramatic change in carbon dioxide levels over the last 20 million years.


"A slightly shocking finding," Tripati said, "is that the only time in the last 20 million years that we find evidence for carbon dioxide levels similar to the modern level of 387 parts per million was 15 to 20 million years ago, when the planet was dramatically different."


Levels of carbon dioxide have varied only between 180 and 300 parts per million over the last 800,000 years — until recent decades, said Tripati, who is also a member of UCLA's Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics. It has been known that modern-day levels of carbon dioxide are unprecedented over the last 800,000 years, but the finding that modern levels have not been reached in the last 15 million years is new.


Prior to the Industrial Revolution of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the carbon dioxide level was about 280 parts per million, Tripati said. That figure had changed very little over the previous 1,000 years. But since the Industrial Revolution, the carbon dioxide level has been rising and is likely to soar unless action is taken to reverse the trend, Tripati said.
"During the Middle Miocene (the time period approximately 14 to 20 million years ago), carbon dioxide levels were sustained at about 400 parts per million, which is about where we are today," Tripati said. "Globally, temperatures were 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit warmer, a huge amount."
Tripati's new chemical technique has an average uncertainty rate of only 14 parts per million.
"We can now have confidence in making statements about how carbon dioxide has varied throughout history," Tripati said.
In the last 20 million years, key features of the climate record include the sudden appearance of ice on Antarctica about 14 million years ago and a rise in sea level of approximately 75 to 120 feet.
"We have shown that this dramatic rise in sea level is associated with an increase in carbon dioxide levels of about 100 parts per million, a huge change," Tripati said. "This record is the first evidence that carbon dioxide may be linked with environmental changes, such as changes in the terrestrial ecosystem, distribution of ice, sea level and monsoon intensity."
Today, the Arctic Ocean is covered with frozen ice all year long, an ice cap that has been there for about 14 million years.
"Prior to that, there was no permanent sea ice cap in the Arctic," Tripati said.
Some projections show carbon dioxide levels rising as high as 600 or even 900 parts per million in the next century if no action is taken to reduce carbon dioxide, Tripati said. Such levels may have been reached on Earth 50 million years ago or earlier, said Tripati, who is working to push her data back much farther than 20 million years and to study the last 20 million years in detail.
More than 50 million years ago, there were no ice sheets on Earth, and there were expanded deserts in the subtropics, Tripati noted. The planet was radically different.




Co-authors on the Science paper are Christopher Roberts, a Ph.D. student in the department of Earth sciences at the University of Cambridge, and Robert Eagle, a postdoctoral scholar in the division of geological and planetary sciences at the California Institute of Technology.
The research was funded by UCLA's Division of Physical Sciences and the United Kingdom's National Environmental Research Council.
Tripati's research focuses on the development and application of chemical tools to study climate change throughout history. She studies the evolution of climate and seawater chemistry through time.
"I'm interested in understanding how the carbon cycle and climate have been coupled, and why they have been coupled, over a range of time-scales, from hundreds of years to tens of millions of years," Tripati said.
In addition to being published on the Science Express website, the paper will be published in the print edition of Science at a later date.

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Profiteering From War and Disease, Corporate Owned "News" Media Deliberately Dis-Informs in Order to Further Its Own Agenda- PROFIT

Don Juan

Seems to me climate change, or whatever slogan it's being peddled under this week, happens whether humans are on the planet or not.

Trippati's just one of many who are making a nice living out of the climate-change racket.

ItsRobsLife

Yeah whatever and welcome to last week.

Don Juan

What's that supposed to mean?

BobR

Some day they'll figure out that dinosaur farts are why they became extinct. Now there's just too damn many people on the planet. In any event, the makeshift BS anti-global warming legislation now being considered in the west will accomplish nothing but give governments there a false excuse for the masses why their standard of living is getting lower.

MustavaMond

First the deniers were stating there was no warming, now they're claiming industries pumping CO 2 into the atmosphere for the last 200 years has had no effect.

Curious as to what kind of lifestyle these deniers have.

Do you drive a car? How ridiculously huge is it and does it feed your ego in any way. Does your home? Do you use air conditioning, etc.

Do you eat meat?
Have any thought, ever as to how a lavish consumptive western lifestyle is selfish as it inhibits others from merely living?
Do you recycle or make any effort at all to preserve the planet's eco balance?
Have you ever thought about your actions multiplied by billions?

Do you have any conscious at all or does your entire existence revolve around getting cheap sex in Thailand and drinking alcohol?

Are your knuckles raw and bleeding from dragging on the ground?

Dan

I expect someone will be along with something cut-and-pasted from the Cato Institute pretty soon; that should answer most of your questions.

MustavaMond

Uh not just the west...

Climate a Bigger Challenge Than Recession, China Says (Update2) - Bloomberg.com

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Climate a Bigger Challenge Than Recession, China Says (Update2)



By John Duce
Oct. 7 (Bloomberg) -- China, the world’s biggest polluter, said climate change is a challenge that it shares with the world and is a more formidable one than the global recession.
The world’s third-largest economy is committed to helping fight climate change and has taken “responsible” steps, Vice Minister of Science and Technology Liu Yanhua said at a conference in Hong Kong today, reiterating the stance of President Hu Jintao.
Industrialized economies such as the U.S. and developing countries led by China are deadlocked on how much rich nations should help poor ones deal with climate change and how much wealthy countries should cut emissions. President Hu said last month China will cut emissions in proportion to economic growth, without giving specific targets or goals.
“High-ranking members of the government are now publicly saying before the Copenhagen climate-change summit what China is doing to tackle the problem and that it’s prepared to do more,” Yang Ailun, a spokeswoman at environmental group Greenpeace, said by phone from Beijing. “The aim is also to put pressure on countries like the U.S. to make greater commitments to reduce emissions and to counter arguments China’s not doing enough.”
China is among more than 190 nations set to gather in Copenhagen starting Dec. 7 for the final round of talks on a climate accord to replace the Kyoto Protocol, expiring in 2012. The Chinese government has ruled out accepting binding caps on emissions, saying it will tackle climate change by increasing the use of cleaner forms of power and by reducing energy use.
Curbing Emissions
Developed nations should share carbon-reducing technologies with poorer countries to help them cut emissions, Liu said today. He also said developed countries should take the lead in committing to binding emission caps.
India and China would have to “respond very positively” if rich nations such as the U.S. agreed to a goal of cutting emissions by 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020, India’s environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, said on Aug. 25 in an interview in Beijing where he had met with Xie Zhenhua, China’s top climate-change negotiator.
Meeting India’s negotiating stance would entail an overhaul of climate-change laws in developed countries. In the U.S., legislation passed by the House sets the goal of a 17 percent reduction from 2005 levels by 2020.
Access to Technology
Emerging economies including India have said they need access to funds and technologies such as wind turbines to meet emission curbs and sustain growth.
China is lagging at least 10 years behind the West in the development of energy reduction- and clean electricity- production technology, and richer countries should transfer this know-how to developing nations, said Wang Xiaokang, president of the state-controlled China Energy Conservation Investment Corp., which advises companies on emission and pollution reduction.
China has submitted a plan to develop alternative forms of energy such as wind and nuclear to the Cabinet for approval and may announce the proposal before the Copenhagen talks, Zhou Fengqi, an adviser to the energy research institute at the National Development and Reform Commission, said on Sept. 21.
The New-Energy Development Plan is pending final approval from the State Council, or Cabinet, and will include some revised “bigger and bolder” goals to develop new types of energy, Zhou said.

watterinja

I wonder what device they used to measure the CO2 15 million years ago?

Takeovers

They measure the CO2 content of air bubbles trapped in ice core drill samples.

Mr R Sole

Well apparently in 2012 we're all gonna get screwed anyhoooooo?? some kind of acension or whatever, my kids keep going on about "something bad gonna happen teacheeeerrrrrrrr"

I fart like mad should I be culled?????? or cull myself??? Save earth save life, lazy bugger can't be arsed to put a 'the' 'all' in between the statements does my head in that shi'te

Dug

The planet will be dramatically different again pretty soon.
Anyone who denies global warming or denies human activity on the planet is contributing to it must be living under a rock.

Rattanaburi

People are the problem. We can have the individual lifestyles we want if we reduce the world population dramatically. I wouldn't blame the guys blowing their loads for fun in Pattaya as the problem. It's the nature of all individuals to seek enjoyment. If you want to blame the apathetic then first toss your amenities and go live inthe woods like Thoreau. A computer is much more environmentally destructive than yelling form a streetcorner.

The problem is people who have lots of kids. Everyone should have less. If we don't, eventually we will be lining people up like we have so many times through history and just executing those we see as unnecessary. It's the truth. People will not give up what little they have to share half of it with those who have less or nothing. So war over resources will start once again.

Anyone who has shat out more than a couple kids is a big part of the problem in my view. The 99% of world leaders don't whisper a word about world population as a problem. The Chinese are the only country I know of which tried to make a difference by trying to control their population. All world leaders need to do to start change is bring awareness to the benefits of smaller families and work more together on using immigration to solve domestic social and economic issues; however, they don't mention overall population as a problem. They say zero, zilch, nil, nada; it's the elephant in the room.

So, we are doomed.

Norton

Maybe was sea shells.

Dan

It would be more accurate to say that the problem is rich people (especially those who have kids.)

"A paper published yesterday in the journal Environment and Urbanization shows that the places where population has been growing fastest are those in which carbon dioxide has been growing most slowly, and vice versa. Between 1980 and 2005, for example, Sub-Saharan Africa produced 18.5% of the world’s population growth and just 2.4% of the growth in CO2. North America turned out 4% of the extra people, but 14% of the extra emissions. Sixty-three per cent of the world’s population growth happened in places with very low emissions.

Even this does not capture it. The paper points out that around one sixth of the world’s population is so poor that it produces no significant emissions at all. This is also the group whose growth rate is likely to be highest. Households in India earning less than 3,000 rupees a month use a fifth of the electricity per head and one seventh of the transport fuel of households earning Rs30,000 or more. Street sleepers use almost nothing. Those who live by processing waste (a large part of the urban underclass) often save more greenhouse gases than they produce.

Many of the emissions for which poorer countries are blamed should in fairness belong to us. Gas flaring by companies exporting oil from Nigeria, for example, has produced more greenhouse gases than all other sources in sub-Saharan Africa put together."

The Population Myth : Climate and Capitalism

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Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.

Dug

To be honest I often consider how much resources I personally use. How much resources go into cooking a simple meal for myself for example, including hot water for washing up, gas for cooking, water far washing vege etc. all for a simple meal for one. How much space I use and electicity to light/heat/cool it.how much water I use shaving etc every day. I don't live a very consumer lifestyle but certainly to some degree. I'm sure many people in the world would consider the life I lead to be quite decadent.

__________________
CAIR Chairman Omar M. Ahmad. "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran . . . should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth."

English Noodles

No shit Sherlock! I think he forgot to add one of these>

Scandinavian

We're getting screwed next year anyhow.

MustavaMond

They've probably been sccared by doomdayers who claim the world will end based simply because the Mayan calender of planetary movements were only calculated to Dec 21 ( winter solstice ) 2012.
They don't seem to consider calculations had to stop sometime.

Spiritualists have it pegged as a new beginning, which is more hopeful than a cataclysmic ending.

wefearourdespot

the latter (except alcohol)