Only 0.8 Mya?

World Oil, Oct, 2006 by Perry A. Fisher

Only 0.8 Mya? You may have heard the newest finding last month that the present period of global warming has the highest C[O.sub.2] levels in at least the past 800,000 years. Air trapped in the oldest ice cores shows that C[O.sub.2] levels change with the climate, but that present levels have increased about 35% in the last 200 years. In the previous 799,800 years, the C[O.sub.2] levels were in the range of 180-300 ppmv of air. Today, the level is at 380 ppmv. The problem will be to obtain other ice cores in Greenland and elsewhere that show the same record. That, and, of course, C[O.sub.2] levels for the last 300 million years.

PERRY A. FISCHER, EDITOR fischerp@worldoil.com