A small piece of ice can tell us what the climate was like
500,000 years ago!
Local residents, organisations and Council employees heard for
themselves on World Environment Day (5 June)the impact our
lifestyles is having on the planet and found out how evidence is
put together from Antartica.
An audience of around 50 in the Council
Chamber heard from Doctor Rob Mulvaney from the British Antarctic
Survey. He spoke about his work with fellow scientists gathering
evidence deep from within the polar ice caps of Antarctica.
Rob has spent 14 summer seasons in Antarctica,
living in tents for up to 3 months at a time while drilling
ice cores, and measuring sheet thickness and flow. He has worked on
glaciers in Greenland, Alaska, Spitsbergen and Sweden.
In understanding global change the Antarctic
has a crucial role to play. Locked up in its 4 km thick ice sheet
is a record of past climate for the last 500,000 years. Trapped
bubbles in the ice hold an archive of atmospheric gases, and
evidence for levels of global pollution by industry, agriculture,
atomic bombs and the pre industrial climate into the ice.
Examples of ice, which are more than 35 000 years old with
air inside, were viewed by the audience. Overall the evidence
presented shows that recent climate change is due to our lifestyle
and not part of the earth's naturally varying climate.
Councillor Eleanor Macy, Chair of the
Council’s Environment & Community Committee, says: “The talk
was very interesting and gives us all something to think about with
our lifestyles and the effect our daily actions are having on the
planet. It was fascinating to hear that by drilling deep into the
polar ice caps scientists can see what the climate was like up to
500,000 years ago. And it has left me, personally, in no doubt that
we need to address the levels of carbon dioxide we are putting into
our atmosphere."
The event was organised to mark World
Environment Day, which has the theme of: “Melting Ice – A Hot
Topic”. It also forms part of Harlow Council’s environment week,
organised to raise awareness of what local people can do to help
protect the environment and planet.
The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) is part of
the Natural Environment Research Council. Based in Cambridge UK, it
has, for almost 60 years, undertaken the majority of Britain's
scientific research on and around the Antarctic continent. It now
shares that continent with scientists from around thirty
countries.
Please see below photo of Councillor Macy
(left), Doctor Robert Mulvaney (right) and penguins before
Tuesday's talk.
Ends
Tuesday 5 June 2007