GLOBAL DATA SET SHOWS THAT
RISING GREENHOUSE-GAS LEVELS DROVE THE END OF THE LAST ICE AGE, BY SONJA VAN
RENSSEN.
Compartilhe:
How carbon dioxide melted
the world
[Nature] Rising
levels of carbon dioxide really did bring about the end of the most recent ice
age, say researchers. By compiling a global climate record, a team has shown
that regions in which concentrations of greenhouse gases increased after the
warming were exceptions to the big picture.
There are many ideas about
what caused the end of the last ice age 10,000 years ago, but a lack of data
has hindered testing of hypotheses. It has been known that changes in
temperature and CO2 levels were closely correlated during this time, but no one
has been able to prove that CO2 caused the warming.
Ice samples from Antarctica
even suggested that temperatures rose a few centuries before CO2 levels, making
it impossible for the gas to have been responsible. This provided ammunition
for climate sceptics.
But, by analysing data
gathered from 80 locations around the world, Jeremy Shakun, a
palaeoclimatologist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and his
colleagues have shown that at the global level, warming followed CO2 increases.
The team used seven different records of past temperature, including ice cores,
ancient pollen and the chemical composition of fossilized microscopic life.
“This is the first effort
to get most of the data that’s out there together,” says Shakun. “It’s the
first hard empirical proof that CO2 was a big driver of global warming out of
the ice age.” The finding is published in Nature today1.
Atmospheric CO2 levels
increased by around 100 parts per million over the course of several thousand
years at the end of the last ice age. Concentrations rose by the same amount in
the twentieth century, and are projected to increase by even more in the
twenty-first.
Drivers of deglaciation
Drivers of deglaciation
The global record shows
that the end of the ice age was probably triggered by changes in Earth’s orbit
and subsequent shifts in the ocean currents that move heat around the world.
But rising CO2 levels amplified this initially regional warming.
It’s not clear what caused
the rise in carbon dioxide. One idea is that it leached out of the deep ocean
when melting ice and shifting winds brought water rich in the gas up to the
surface.
In Antarctica, the
temperature rose more quickly than elsewhere owing to a slowing of the ocean
currents that usually carry heat away from the south to the north. This
accounts for the lag between the carbon dioxide and temperature records on that
continent.
“This article confirms once
more the role of CO2 in climate change,” says Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, a
climatologist at the French-speaking Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium.
“It very nicely solves one of the apparent discrepancies between the Antarctic
temperature record and the evolution of CO2 concentration.”
Shakun’s team backed up its
interpretation of the real-world data with climate-modelling simulations. They
examined several drivers of past warming, including dust, loss of ice sheets —
which causes warming because ice reflects sunlight, so when it retreats, more
sunlight reaches Earth — other greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous
oxide, and changes in vegetation coverage. The team found that CO2 levels were
more important than any of these factors in driving warming.
Nature
doi:10.1038/nature.2012.10393
doi:10.1038/nature.2012.10393
References
Shakun, J. D. et al. Nature 484, 49–54 (2012).
Shakun, J. D. et al. Nature 484, 49–54 (2012).
EcoDebate, 05/04/2012
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário