Higher levels of CO2 at 2.1 million years
discover that this coincides with the interval of higher temperatures in the planet's history.
EFE
Washington. Levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the world are the highest in the last 2.1 million years, according to a study released yesterday by the journal Science. The investigation, which according to its authors provides new data about temperature cycles in the earth, yet dismisses the theory that the cause of the glacial land has been the drop in CO2 levels.
But on the other hand, confirms that these higher levels of gas coincided with intervals of higher temperatures on the planet. According to scientists at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University in New York, CO2 levels were an average of only 280 parts per million. Currently, these levels are 385 parts per million, or 38 percent higher.
The team led by Bärbel Honisch, geochemistry of the observatory, reconstructed CO2 levels through the analysis of plankton buried in the depths of the Atlantic, off the coast of Africa. By measuring the isotope ratio could calculate how much CO2 was in the air when the plankton was alive.
This method allowed them to get better records than the polar ice layers dating back 800,000 years alone, according to the study. The world has suffered cyclical temperature changes over millions of years, but 850 thousand years ago the ice age cycles were longer and intense, a change that many scientists attributed the fall in CO2 levels. However, scientists at the Lamont-Doherty Observatory indicated that carbon dioxide levels during the transition was smooth and is unlikely to have caused the change.
"This study indicates that the CO2 was not the main trigger, but our data suggest that greenhouse gases and global climate are inextricably linked ", as stated Honisch. Meanwhile, in Brussels, the Heads of State and Government of the European Union is moving weeks into the formula for distributing international efforts to combat climate change.
The European Council will also call on EU countries to give concrete timetable ahead of the United Nations summit in Copenhagen end of the year. Canada will investigate climate supercomputer Toronto (Canada). The most powerful supercomputer in Canada, and one of the strongest in the world, went into operation yesterday at the University of Toronto in order to investigate the main effects of climate change. The computer, the IBM iDataPlex system installed in the consortium SCINET University, performs 300 trillion calculations per second, five times more powerful machines.
SOURCE: THE INNER VOICE 19/06/2009
0 comments:
Post a Comment