Antarctic

By Alfie Graham

 As greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere,

more heat energy from the Earth's surface is
intercepted before escaping to space, thereby
causing the atmosphere to warm. Also, as climate
change develops and increases, our O-zone layer is
getting weaker and weaker which is letting in more
heat rather then reflecting it back out into space,
which will increase temperatures. And the heat will
not be able to escape as the greenhouse gases
intercept the heat and store the heat, ultimately
increasing temperature.

Causes of climate
change in the
Antarctic.

The beauty of ice cores is that they contain a variety of forms of evidence that can tell us so
many different things about the past climate and environment. The evidence is also continuous
through time and can be dated with a high degree of precision. Some important types of evidence
and information are:
* Stable isotope ratios of the oxygen and hydrogen making up layers of ice are used to
reconstruct the air temperature at the time that the snow fell.
* Where annual layers of ice can be identified, the thickness of layers indicates the yearly
quantity of snowfall in the past. Which then can indicate to us if it was hotter or colder at that
time.
* The concentration of dust preserved in layers of ice gives an indication of how much wind
erosion was occurring on continents in the past which is related to both the strength of winds
and the levels of vegetation cover over the land in the past.
* Tephra shards and levels of acidity of the ice show when major volcanic eruptions happened in
the past.
* Air trapped inside the ice can be analysed for its concentration of carbon dioxide and methane,
indicating how concentrations of these greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have fluctuated
through time. So this can be used as evidence to show that climate change is getting worse as
the ice cores show that the concentration of greenhouse gases is getting higher.

Ice Cores
This is a slice of an
ice core that has
thousands of trapped
air bubbles in.

Climate change graphs.

*Global sea level rose about 17 centimetres (6.7 inches) in the

last century. The rate in the last decade, however, is nearly

double that of the last century. This is due to the ice melting
in the Antarctic and Artic. Due to the increased heat from the
increasing levels of greenhouse gases, the ice is melting at a
much faster rate. Also, The snow and ice is usually good at
reflecting the sunlight and deflecting some of the heat
through the process of Albedo. However, recently due to the
increasing temperatures, the ice has melted more, reducing
the levels of Albedo, so as there is less snow and ice to reflect
the sunlight and its heat, the ice will melt more and more
reducing the Albedo levels even more, so it is a viscous cycle.

Sea Level + Albedo

Extra Information from class.