Ice-age atmospheric concentration of nitrous oxide from an Antarctic ice core

Article Abstract:

Analysis of air samples from a deep Antarctic ice core indicate that atmospheric levels of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O) were 30% lower during the Last Glacial Maximum than during the present Holocene epoch. The ice core, taken at Byrd Station in 1968, also confirmed earlier findings that two other greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4), were likewise more common now than during the Last Glacial Maximum. Human activity probably caused the modern rise in atmospheric concentrations of N2O, CO2 and CH4.

Environmental aspects, Greenhouse gases, Nitrous oxide

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Merely the tip of the ice core

Article Abstract:

Data from the Greenland Ice Core Project (GRIP) suggest that abrupt but transient warmings during which global temperatures went up by as much as seven degrees C for as long as 2,000 typified the last 30,000 years of the most recent ice age. S.J. Johnson and colleagues based this conclusion on a core that GRIP obtained on Jul 12, 1992 by drilling 3,028.6 meters into Greenland's ice sheet. The ice at this depth is believed to be at least 200,000 years old and to provide a record of paleoclimatic change.

Greenland, Ice sheets

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Don't touch that dial

Article Abstract:

Results from the Greenland Ice-Core Project indicate that the interglacial climate may be less stable than was thought. The current interglacial period, the Holocene, has been very stable; the prior one, the Eemian, was much less so. The fine timescale resolution of this ice core reveals temperature changes of up to 10 degrees Celsius in as little as a decade. This variability has enormous implications for all human activity.

Arctic, Glacial epoch, Ice age, Arctic Regions

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