Scientists fear catastrophic global warming time bomb ‘10 years away’
New data from a deep ice core drilled out of the Antarctic reveal a shocking rate of change in carbon dioxide concentrations.
The core, stretching through layers dating back 800,000 years, contains tiny bubbles of ancient air that can be analysed.
Scientists who studied the samples found they left no doubt as to the extent of the build-up of greenhouse gases.
For most of the past 800,000 years, carbon dioxide levels had remained at between 180 and 300 parts per million (ppm) of air. Today they were at 380ppm.
In the past, it had taken 1,000 years for carbon dioxide to rise by 30ppm during natural warming periods. According to the new measurements, the same level of increase has occurred in just the last 17 years.
Isotopic tests confirmed the recent carbon dioxide had come from fossil fuel sources and must be due to human activity.
Dr Eric Wolff, from the British Antarctic Survey, who presented the findings yesterday at the BA Festival of Science in Norwich, said: “The rate of change is the most scary thing. We really are in a situation where something’s happening that we don’t have any analogue for in our records. It’s an experiment we don’t know the result of.”
Many experts recognise a “tipping point” of 440ppm of carbon dioxide, after which climate change starts to run out of control.
Although opinions differ, it was accepted that at some stage a “step change” is reached after which global warming accelerates exponentially, said Dr Wolff. According to the new evidence, the threshold could now be only a decade away.
“We could expect that tipping point to arrive in 10 years,” Dr Wolff said.
The scientists conducting the research were from the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica.
Both cores showed clearly that greenhouse gas levels and climate change were coupled together. As carbon dioxide levels rose, so did global warming. Small changes amplified the effect.
The fact that this process occurred naturally offered little comfort, said the scientists, since the speed at which it was taking place had never been seen before.
The ice core also showed a doubling in concentration of the second most important greenhouse gas, methane, in 200 years.
Professor Peter Smith, from the University of Nottingham, said there was an “urgent need” to find new technologies to reduce the impact of human activity on climate.
“Governments may have only 10 years in which to determine the destiny of our planet,” he said.
Prof Smith accused the British government of not doing enough.
“The thing that will overcome it is when there’s a 3m rise in the Thames so the House of Commons is under water,” he added.
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