carbon dioxide back 800,000 years

Time history of atmospheric carbon dioxide from 800,000 years before present until January, 2011. Credit: Andy Jacobson, CIRES/NOAA. FULL video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2mZyC.... NOAA: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2...

• Category

  Science & Technology

[Gary Koble]

I don't think there's any question that CO2 is rising and we need to do something. The big question is how much CO2 causes how much change and what feedback mechanisms will counter or react from this rise. There is still so much unknown about long-term climate and taking drastic measures (I'm talking sun shades in space drastic) could have unanticipated side-effects. Lets fix this CO2 and methane problem, get our atmospheric gasses back to something we can tolerate long-term!

[MTUkmschmit]

What a great animation! This kind of visual is exactly what is needed to help people understand how dramatic the changes to Earth's atmosphere have been over the last century and how unprecedented these CO2 levels are (at least during the history of human civilization). I hope to use this video in future presentations.

[SaulOhio]

Which hurricane? The one that's forming now? That's not even a category 1 hurricane, yet, and you are blaming it on anthropogenic global warming already? How far can you stretch?

[DibbleThorp]

You think hurricane Ike in Texas was minor?

[gusbailey68]

It would be really nice to know the correlation between flask sample concentrations and ice interstitial concentrations. 

Otherwise this borders on Apples and Oranges.

[gusbailey68]

It's a data set.

"Evidence" would be a lead/lag correlation with another variable. Last time I checked, CO2 was lagging global temperature, which considering the temperature rise of the '90s would indicate a CO2 rise, a decade or so later, should not be surprising

[SaulOhio]

What drastic weather changes?

Did you know there hasn't been a major hurricane to make landfall in the US since Katrina? Irene in North Carolina was Category 1, and that's the worst we've had for nearly seven years.

What drastic weather changes?

[SaulOhio]

And yet, the climate hasn't oscillated out of control and plunged us into a new ice age or turned the whole planet into a desert.