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[Adventurer]

Page last updated at 15:19 GMT, Monday, 28 April 2008 16:19 UK
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Nature's carbon balance confirmed

The researchers used data stored in the Epica ice core

Scientists have found new evidence that the Earth's natural feedback mechanism regulated carbon dioxide levels for hundreds of thousands of years.

But they say humans are now emitting CO2 so fast that the planet's natural balancing mechanism cannot keep up.

The researchers, writing in the journal Nature Geoscience, say their findings confirm a long-believed theory.

Carbon spewed out by volcanoes is removed from the air by rock weathering and transported to the ocean floor.

Using evidence from an Antarctic ice core, the team calculated that over a period of 610,000 years the long-term change in atmospheric CO2 concentration was just 22 parts per million (ppm), although there were larger fluctuations associated with the transitions between glacial and interglacial conditions.

CARBON

[Julius]

But you will still find dunderheads on here who believe its all a conspiracy.

They don't seem to get the basic logic that for every action, there must be a reaction: everything we do affects something else, and pumping multibillions of tonnnes of carbon into the air, non-stop for the past 150 years must have some effect.

[Kuros]

This is not surprising, humans have been tipping the equilibrium on a number of ecological fronts. And it makes sense, too. Our emissions were bound to have some impact.