07 December, 2011

Air bubbles!

A very brief summary of how we can see into the past through analysing Carbon Dioxide from trapped air bubbles in ice cores and how they do it. As snow falls and builds up as layers on the ground, air is trapped within these layers and is fossilised as the snow is compressed  by the weight of overlying layers of snow. 

By analysing the percentage of carbon dioxide in each layer, we're able to obtain information about the local temperature in the Antarctic and from there infer the global climate. The higher the percentage of carbon dioxide, the higher the temperature is. Thus, ice cores allow us to examine history and observe the relationship between temperature and carbon dioxide and transfer hypothesis on the present day.

No comments: