Analyzing the oldest ice core ever retrieved in Antarctica, U.S. scientists have shown a correlation between atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and temperature as far back as 2 million years.
Analyzing the oldest ice core ever retrieved in Antarctica, U.S. scientists have shown a correlation between atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and temperature as far back as 2 million years. The core, drilled in an area 130 miles from the U.S.’s McMurdo research station, also showed a significant shift in the frequency of ice ages over the past 2 million years.
Until this latest research, published in Nature, the oldest complete ice core data — also from Antarctica — dated back 800,000 years. Analyzing gases trapped in air bubbles in that ice, scientists demonstrated that atmospheric CO2 levels have been directly linked with Antarctic and global temperatures for nearly 1 million years.
The 2 million-year-old ice core also demonstrates that correlation. “One of the important results of this study is to show that carbon dioxide is linked to temperature in this earlier time period,” said Ed Brook of Oregon State University. The research group was led by scientists at Princeton University and the University of Maine.
Read more at Yale Environment 360
Image: Scientist Ed Brook holds an ice core dating back 2 million years. OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
