Two new studies significantly add to the scientific knowledge about global climate change.
Atmospheric greenhouse gases are at a higher level than they have been in at least the last 800,000 years, according to a study by the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA). This newest data, published in Nature, extends by 150,000 years previous record of climate change.
By taking core samples from deeper below the surface of Antarctica than ever before, researchers were able to analyze air that was trapped in ice 650,000 years ago to 800,000 years ago.
In doing so, they discovered a new low for carbon dioxide of 172 parts per million (ppm) that occurred about 667,000 years ago.
By comparison, current levels of 380 ppm are 124% higher than that point and 28% higher than the highest peak in sampled history. Researchers have found that over the last 800,000 years the earth’s CO2 levels have swung back and forth in a "natural" range between 172 ppm to 300 ppm.
Pinpointing Effects of Climate Change
A second study closely examines the worldwide effects being caused by the break from this natural cycle that has taken place in the last 50 years, as a result of greenhouse gases release by human activities.
The study, organized by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies brought together nearly 30,000 sets of data about biological and physical changes around the world, matching the changes to a detailed database of global temperature change.
Below are some of the specific changes the study attributes to climate change:
- NORTH AMERICA: Earlier plant flowering of 89 species, cannibalism and declining population of polar bears; earlier breeding and arrival dates of birds.
- EUROPE: Glacier melting in the Alps; changes in 19 countries of leaf-unfolding and flowering of plants; early pollen release in the Netherlands; long-term changes in fish communities in Upper Rhone River.
- ASIA: Greater growth of Siberian pines in Mongolia; earlier break-up and thinning of river and lake ice in Mongolia; change in freeze depth of permafrost in Russia; earlier flowering of gingko in Japan.
- SOUTH AMERICA: Glacier wastage in Peru; melting Patagonia ice fields.
- AFRICA: Decreasing aquatic ecosystem productivity of Lake Tanganyika.
- AUSTRALIA: Early arrival of migratory birds; declining water levels in Western Victoria.
- ANTARCTICA: 50% decline in population of emperor penguins; retreating glaciers.
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