Greenhouse Effect At All-Time High

WASHINGTON, Nov. 25, 2005
(AP)

[ . . . ]

Skeptics sometimes dismiss the rise in greenhouse gases as part of a
naturally fluctuating cycle. The new study provides ever-more
definitive evidence countering that view, however.

Deep Antarctic ice encases tiny air bubbles formed when snowflakes fell
over hundreds of thousands of years. Extracting the air allows a direct
measurement of the atmosphere at past points in time, to determine the
naturally fluctuating range.

[ . . . ]

Today's still rising level of carbon dioxide already is 27 percent
higher than its peak during all those millennia, said lead researcher
Thomas Stocker of the University of Bern, Switzerland.

"We are out of that natural range today," he said.

Moreover, that rise is occurring at a speed that "is over a factor of a
hundred faster than anything we are seeing in the natural cycles,"
Stocker added. "It puts the present changes in context."

[ . . . ]

Researchers also compared the gas levels to the Antarctic temperature
over that time period, covering eight cycles of alternating glacial or
ice ages and warm periods. They found a stable pattern: Lower levels of
gases during cold periods and higher levels during warm periods.

The bottom line: "There's no natural condition that we know about in a
really long time where the greenhouse gas levels were anywhere near
what they are now. And these studies tell us that there's a strong
relationship between temperature and greenhouse gases," said Oregon
State's Brook. "Which logically leads you to the conclusion that maybe
we should worry about temperature change in the future."


The total article is at:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/...n1075640.shtml