The environment was one of the main subjects at the annual conference of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Norwich:
A climate change timebomb may be just 10 years away from detonating, according to the latest evidence of global warming.
Data from a deep ice core drilled out of the Antarctic reveals a shocking rate of change in carbon dioxide concentrations.
The core, stretching through layers dating back 800,000 years, contains tiny bubbles of ancient air that can be analysed.
Scientists who studied the samples found they left no doubt as to the extent of the build-up of greenhouse gases.
For most of the past 800,000 years, carbon dioxide levels had remained at between 180 and 300 parts per million (ppm) of air. Today they were at 380ppm.
In the past, it had taken 1,000 years for carbon dioxide to rise by 30ppm during natural warming periods. According to the new measurements, the same level of increase has occurred in just the last 17 years.
Tests confirmed that the recent carbon dioxide had come from fossil fuel sources and must be due to human activity.
Dr Eric Wolff, from the British Antarctic Survey, who presented the findings at the conference yesterday, said: "The rate of change is the most scary thing.
"We really are in a situation where something's happening that we don't have any analogue for in our records. It's an experiment we don't know the result of."
Many experts recognise a "tipping point" of 440ppm of carbon dioxide, after which climate change starts to run out of control.
Although opinions differ, it was generally accepted that at some stage a "step change" is reached after which global warming accelerates exponentially, said Dr Wolff. The threshold could now be only a decade away.
"We could expect that tipping point to arrive in 10 years time," he told the meeting at the University of East Anglia.
The scientists conducting the research were from the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (Epica).
The new core was twice as old as a previous one drilled by a Russian-led team near the South Pole.
Although the Russian Vostok core yielded valuable information, uncertainties remained. The new core has helped to fill the gaps.
Both cores showed clearly that greenhouse gas levels and climate change were coupled together. As carbon dioxide levels rose, so did global warming. Small changes amplified the effect.
The fact that this process occurred naturally offered little comfort, said the scientists, since the speed at which it was taking place now had never been seen before.
The ice core also showed a doubling in concentration of the second most important greenhouse gas, methane, in the last 200 years.
Prof Peter Smith, from the University of Nottingham, said there was an "urgent need" to find new technologies to reduce the impact of human activity on climate.
Another scientist pointed to evidence showing that natural "sinks" which soak up carbon were becoming less and less efficient.
Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are to some extent balanced by the carbon absorbed by the ocean and vegetation.
Dr Corinne Le Quere, from the University of East Anglia, said that as concentrations rose in the future, natural sinks were expected to have less effect.
The only efficient way to stabilise atmospheric carbon dioxide was to reduce emissions to zero, she said.
05 September 2006
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looks like it will get hotter in Udon in the coming years
I'm always amazed about ,how ''men of science''can be so divided about such a serious subject 
Who are you to believe 
They are in opposition to the right 
It one thing to disagree with his policies,another to infer facts that are not evident!I guess,since he was an oil man,you are infering that his interests might be slanted towards the oil businesses interest.That's possible,since the Republican party,in general, is less socialistic than the Democrats in their approach to economics.
