Thursday, May 27, 2010

Scientists Detect Huge Carbon 'Burp' That Helped End Last Ice Age

The article is about a recent discovery of a major carbon reserve found in ice dated from the last ice age. Studies have shown that this carbon deposit may have been one of the main causes for the end of the last ice age. It was discovered while researchers were searching for the tiny remains of small marine creatures, the foraminifera. These remains aid in finding the carbon composition of the ancient oceans.
This article's findings show that the ice ages of Earth's past were greatly affected by CO2 just as much as it is affecting us today. The ice ages apparrently were started and ended based around the solar cycles and on the CO2 levels. With this discovery, I think that we now have a much clearer picture of our planet's past. With this new knowledge we can more fully understand our current predicament of extremely high CO2 levels. This may help us find a more efficient way of reducing our emmissions, and slow the process so that we don't become a hot and dry wasteland. This information will also tell us how to avoid another ice age, as it shows that sufficient amounts of carbon can halt cold temperatures. I think that this knowledge is fundemental for our future developement as a race and for maintaining our current way of life. Without the unnescecary use of carbon based fuels.

2 comments:

  1. i feel that while it is obvious that our planet periodically has increased levels of CO2, a lot of our predicament now is the work of mankind. We might be in one of those rare natural occuring events where there is more CO2 naturally being released but i also feel like we are not helping by releasing the ridiculous amounts of CO2 from us using fossil fuels. thats the bottom line. we need to change just in case we are hurting our planet.

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  2. Obviously by releasing greenhouse gases we as humans are not making the earth a better place to live. With climate change a legitimate fear, information about how earth’s natural cycles of rising and falling levels in co2, cant hurt us in the long run.

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