Carbon dioxide levels soar in Antarctica

New European studies have revealed that the current levels of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere have reached an all time high. The evidence comes from Dome Concordia, an Antarctic region following a five year study by scientists who drilled 3,270m into the Dome C ice, which equates to drilling nearly 900,000 years back in time.
When ice is formed gas bubbles are trapped and it is the gases contained in these bubbles that has produced the evidence of change in the atmosphere and temperature. This has shown that there has been a significant shift in the Earth's long-term climate patterns from the 100,000 year cycles of alternating cold glacial and warm interglacial periods to the period around 420,000 years ago when there was significant upward change in the contrast between warm and cold conditions. The Dome C core provided data from six cycles of glaciation and warming; two pre-dating the change and four after it. It has been found that there has always been a close correlation between carbon dioxide and temperature and this indicates just how important carbon dioxide levels are in climate regulation. Scientists are now trying to take their studies even further back in time.

Sea levels
A Science Magazine report claimed that in the last 150 years sea levels have risen twice as fast as in previous centuries. Data from tidal gauges has enabled researchers to create a new record of sea levels spanning 100 million years and to calculate the present rate of rise as 2mm per year. This corroborates The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report which says that sea level rose by 1-2mm per year over the last century, and will rise by a total of anything up to 88cm during the course of this century.

These alarming findings point ever more strongly to the need for all consumers to reduce their impact on the environment by restricting activities that result in carbon dioxide emissions and for all countries’ governments to place this vital issue at he top of their agendas. Without which many of our familiar coastlines will be lost and entire countries submerged …. within our own lifetimes.