‘Unprecedented’: CO2 in the atmosphere is rising 10 times faster than at any point over 50,000 years
A detailed analysis of ancient Antarctic ice has revealed that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are rising 10 times faster than at any point in the past 50,000 years. Researchers at Oregon State University in the US and the University of St Andrews in Scotland looked at samples of ice collected by drilling cores up to 3.2km deep. Ice has built up in the Antarctic over hundreds of thousands of years and includes atmospheric gasses trapped in air bubbles inside of this ice. Scientists look for trace elements in samples of this ice to build a record of what the climate was like in the past...