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Holocene climate

Restless carbon pools

Nature volume 398, pages 111–112 (1999)Cite this article

The global carbon cycle is a significant object of study, because carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, after water vapour. The CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has risen by 80 parts per million by volume (ppmv) over the past two centuries1, increasing the Earth's radiative forcing by 1.6 Watts m−2, which causes a net reduction in outgoing infrared radiation, and it is expected to double from current levels during the next century. The concentration of atmospheric CO2 increased by roughly the same amount (80 ppmv) between the Last Glacial Maximum, 18,000 years ago, and the Early Holocene, 11,000 years ago2. In-between, for the period of the Holocene spanning from 11,000 years ago to 1,000 years ago, reliable CO2 data have not been available. This gap is now bridged in the article by Indermühle et al. 3 on page 121 of this issue.

Previous measurements of air bubbles enclosed in polar ice sheets show that the atmospheric burden of CO2 increased by 170 GtC (1GtC = 1015 grams of carbon), between the Last Glacial Maximum and the Early Holocene2. This is equivalent to a growth rate of 0.02 GtC per year during the period of deglaciation. In the more recent past, changes in atmospheric CO2 have been observed during the last millennium, but at a rate which did not exceed 0.1 GtC per year4. To provide a continuous record of CO2 over the entire Holocene, Indermühle and co-workers3 carefully analysed more than 400 precious pieces of ice from the Taylor Dome ice core in West Antarctica. The level of experimental precision in their measurements, on the order of 3 ppmv, is unprecedented.

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  1. the Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de lEnvironnement, Unit mixte CEA-CNRS, 91191, Gif-sur-Yvette, France

    Philippe Ciais

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  1. Philippe Ciais
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Ciais, P. Restless carbon pools. Nature 398, 111–112 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/18124

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