The Ice Record of Greenhouse Gases
Abstract
Gases trapped in polar ice provide our most direct record of the changes in greenhouse gas levels during the past 150,000 years. The best documented trace-gas records are for CO2 and CH4. The measurements corresponding to the industrial period document the recent changes in growth rate. The variability observed over the last 1000 years constrains the possible feedbacks of a climate change on the trace gases under similar conditions as exist today. Changes in the levels of greenhouse gases during the glacial-interglacial cycle overall paralleled, at least at high southern latitudes, changes in temperature; this relation suggests that greenhouse gases play an important role as an amplifier of the initial orbital forcing of Earth's climate and also helps to assess the feedbacks on the biogeochemical cycles in a climate system in which the components are changing at different rates.
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We thank P. Duval for a review of the existing data on the brittle and clathrate zones, D. Etheridge for providing Fig. 3, and M. Bender, D. Etheridge, R. Francey, and M. Leuenberger for comments and discussions. Part of this review was prepared during a 3-month stay of D.R. at the Division of Atmospheric Research (CSIRO). The research on the ice core record of greenhouse gases is in France, supported by PNEDC (Programme National d’Etudes de la Dynamique du Climat) and by the Commission of the European Communities.
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Volume 259 | Issue 5097
12 February 1993
12 February 1993
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