SLIDE 31 30 "The Game Plan" slide notes release 1.0, March 13 2008
Resources
Keeling, C.D. 1998.Rewards and penalties of monitoring the earth. Annual Review of Energy and the Environment 23:25-82. Annual Reviews Inc., Palo Alto. Keeling, C.D., R.B. Bacastow, A.E. Bainbridge, C.A. Ekdahl, Jr., P.R. Guenther, L.S. Waterman, and J.F.S. Chin. 1976. Atmospheric carbon dioxide variations at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii. Tellus 28(6):538-51. It is more complex than just CO2? : J. Hansen and M. Sato (2004) PNAS 101, 16109-16114 " Greenhouse gas growth rates." EPICA data: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/domec/domec_epica_data.html Pales, J.C., and C.D. Keeling. 1965. The concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide in Hawaii. Journal of Geophysical Research 24:6053-76. Keeling, C.D. 1960. The concentration and isotopic abundance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Tellus 12:200-203.
Scientists have now been studying the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere for more than half a cen-
- tury. They principally use two techniques. Direct measure-
ment from research sites based (for example) in Mauna Laua, Hawaii, measure the current concentration direct from that atmosphere using highly sensitive instruments. Indirect measurement, requires inferring the concentrations from ice- cores taken from glaciers, and from ice-cores drilled into the antarctic ice-pack. The graph at right shows the CO2 concentration as measured by different methods for the last 1000 years. This graph is the main reason we are all becoming increasingly aware of our environmental impact. This graph tells us about how we are risking our own future. We need to keep looking at these graphs to see how we are
- doing. We also need to increase our confjdence in the reasons
for the historical variations of this graph due to natural climate
- cycles. This might be the most important plot of natural phe-
nomena that science has ever produced. We should seek the deepest possible understanding.
There is much earlier data: European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) covers the last 650,000 years. CO2 is determined on bubbles enclosed in the ice. CO2 data from 0 to 420,000 years are from earlier mea- surements from ice cores from Vostok station [Petit et al., 1999], and Taylor Dome [Indermühle et al., 2000]. The isotopic records indicate the sequence
- f 6 full glacial cycles [EPICA Community Members, 2004]. New CO2 data
measured at the University of Bern are from ice older than 420,000 years and extend the legendary Vostok record by more than 50% back in time. These data confjrm that the present CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are unprecedented for at least the last 650,000 years. EPICA Community Members, Eight glacial cycles from an Antarctic ice core, Nature, 429, 623-628, 2004. Indermühle, A., et al., Atmospheric CO2 concentration from 60 to 20 kyr BP from the Taylor Dome ice cores, Antarctica, Geophys. Res. Lett., 27, 735-738, 2000. Petit, J.R., et al., Climate and atmospheric history of the past 420,000 years from the Vostok ice core, Antarctica, Nature, 399, 429-436, 1999. Siegenthaler, U., et al., Stable carbon cycle-climate relationship during the Late Pleistocene, Science, submitted, 2005. Spahni, R., et al., Variations of atmospheric methane and nitrous oxide during the last 650,000 years from Antarctic ice cores, Science, submitted, 2005.
The result of our energy use: Carbon Dioxide concentration in the atmosphere.