Snowbusting CO2 "at highest level for 650,000 years" - Antarctic scientists

A snowHead

European scientists studying ice core samples in Antarctica have concluded that concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane - the strongest greenhouse gases - are higher than at any time in the past 650,000 years.

The ice samples have been extracted from as deep as 3,270m, which equates to drilling nearly 900,000 years back in time.

This report by Richard Black on BBC News online.

brian

David Goldsmith, any chance you could get your own forum entitled "Doom and gloom, skiing's had it and we might as well give up" Sad

All these crisis threads are detracting from the joy of the Scottish mountains getting a real pasting !! snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

From what Ive read about climate change as the gulf stream cools England will get really harsh winters with lots of snow. So no more needing to go abroad to ski

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From what Ive read about climate change as the gulf stream cools England will get really harsh winters with lots of snow. So no more needing to go abroad to ski

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

brian, The first step in problem solving is to identify it. (Greenhouse gases) Then solve or correct it. It's about time we faced the greenhouse gases stopped looking the other way. Mad

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Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

Just the last couple of days we actually have talked on CO2 and methane and it seems that the CO2 level is almost saturated (i.e. adding more can only make a very limited difference). That being the case (I cant reference im afraid) then I might think we'd be better concentrating on other gases which are way below saturation.... Methane I would think most important.

Im guessing that although water is important, it is a very tough variable to model given that the water in the atmosphere will depend directly upon the temperature..... in other words the water present and the temperature 'talk' to each other, unlike the other GHG's.

After all it is free

buns, yes, and of course some of the H2O condenses into clouds which reflect sunlight and have a cooling effect (in the day). Very complicated. I haven't seen anything about CO2 getting saturated. How does that work, i.e where does the excess go? Dissolved in the oceans? Any references?

laundryman, that "CO2 level is almost saturated" comment slightly mystified me too. As it's a gas I don't see it can be "saturated" until it's 100% - even if it's cold enough at altitude to cause it to solidify and the concentration is >SVP I'd expect the condensate to then fall to a level where it revapourises, and just form a layer lower down. What may have been implied is that the concentration is sufficient to absorb say >70% (or 90%, or whatever level of approximation this model is working at) of the radiation at the characteristic CO2 absorption frequencies, so addition of any further gas will not make a significant difference to the amount of energy absorbed. This is just a guess though.

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

If you consider a gas, it will have a specific 'rate' of absorption. So (for instance), radiation at energy X might drop to half of it's initial intensity if you pass it through a length of gas Y(with a given density). It of course follows that there will be a point where the transmitted radiation intensity becomes so small as to be negligible and would be considered zero. This would the 'saturation' point.

Given that the radiation we are speaking of will be relatively weak and the thickness of the gas layer, the density needed would be reasonably low. In other words, you wouldn't need a 100% CO2 atmosphere, nor would you need it at anywhere solid density.

Of course I do reiterate that this was information passed over dinner (admittedly amongst colleagues with good understanding of all this).

Adam

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

Blaring headlines get attention. But to what effect?
Is the intention to alarm or inform? So lets put this in some sort of context.
Global average temperature has been changing, as has the CO2 level.
But the earth was not formed 650,000 years ago - it is much older than that.
CO2 and Temperature have been going up and down since the world began. And the relationship between the two is not as simple as some people suggest: look at the Late Ordovician Period. This was an Ice Age while the CO2 concentrations then were nearly 12 times higher than today.

snow reports

yeah. women

You know it makes sense.

in the short term i think math modelling shows a warming of the ocean sea surface temperatures which could create more unpredictable and energetic weather. storm fronts could be more moisture laden and on high ground this means more snow doesnt it.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Reports on BBC WS radio this a.m. that the Gulf Stream has reduced in strength by some 30% in the last 12 years and they predict much colder winters for UK and parts of Western Europe. One degree celsius drop in average temps. Doesn't sound much but apparently the effects will be most noticeable. Also reports that rapidly shrinking glaciers in Nepal are affecting the feed waters for the Yellow River.
I believe in the phrase a snowHead coined ...... GLOBAL WEIRDING.

Help!!

Snowbusting CO2 "at highest level for 650,000 years" - Antarctic scientists

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