How Do Glaciers Record Climate Change?
Glaciers record climate patterns in a variety of ways and this information is easily accessible to scientists. A core of ice is drilled out of a glacier and taken back to a lab where air bubbles trapped in the ice can be analyzed. These air bubbles represent a snapshot in time and reveal past atmospheric composition, temperature variations and types of vegetation that existed on Earth. Not only do these ice cores provide this kind of climate data, but it is also continuous data, allowing scientists to look at climate variations over thousands of years with no gap, providing a very complete record. One of the conclusions that scientists have drawn from studying these data is that Earth is currently undergoing a period of climate change. In general, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere is increasing, leading to an increase in atmospheric temperatures. Moreover, the retreating of glaciers worldwide is further proof that global temperatures are increasing. document
