Ancient air found in Antarctic

In Antarctic air, 650 thousands years old, remained untouched.

It was extracted from gas bubbles, frozen to ice at depth of 3270 meters. Now climatologists researching the connection between exhausts to atmosphere and global warming can check their hypothesis. By their words, concentration of carbonic acid, with which green-house effect is associated, didn`t reach such values as at present moment.

Project EPICA, devoted to analysis of ice in Antarctic, already helped to learn how average annual temperature changed for period more than half a million years. Scientists managed to estimate duration of every out of 6 ice age - they disproved theory that warm periods is small intervals between ice ages.

Scientists hope to reach even more ancient layers of ice - it is known that some of them are 890 thousand years. By words on one researcher, the deepest layers can be twice older, but the connection between depth and age is not clear for them.

sections: Nature & Health