Fossil algae reveal 500 million years of climate change
Wednesday, November 28, 2018 - 14:30
in Earth & Climate
Earth scientists are able to travel far back in time to reconstruct the geological past and paleoclimate to make better predictions about future climate conditions. Using the organic molecule phytane, a debris product of chlorophyll, scientists at the Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) and Utrecht University succeeded in developing a new indicator (proxy) of ancient CO2 levels. This new organic proxy not only provides the most continuous record of CO2 concentrations ever, it also covers a record-breaking half-billion years. The data confirms the idea that rises in CO2 levels that used to take millions of years are now happening in a century. These findings are published in Science Advances on November 28th.