Carbon Dioxide Linked to Antarctic Ice Formation
New research into ancient CO2 levels is confirming climate models, and linking declines in CO2 to Antarctic ice cap formation.
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – A team of scientists studying rock samples in Africa has shown a strong link between falling carbon dioxide levels and the formation of Antarctic ice sheets 34 million years ago.
The results are the first to make the link, underpinning computer climate models that predict both the creation of ice sheets when CO2 levels fall and the melting of ice caps when CO2 levels rise.
The team, from Cardiff, Bristol and Texas A&M Universities, spent weeks in the African bush in Tanzania with an armed guard to protect them from lions to extract samples of tiny fossils that could reveal CO2 levels in the atmosphere 34 million years ago. Levels of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, mysteriously fell during this time in an event called the Eocene-Oligocene climate transition. …
“Our results are really in line with the most sophisticated climate models that have been applied to this interval,” Pearson added. The results were published online in the journal Nature.
