Is Carbon Dioxide Higher Than Ever?
CrowdScience
BBC
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 6 October 2017
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere today are higher than at any point in human existence. But going back further into Earth’s history, when do we find concentrations as high as they are now - and what was the planet like back then?
CrowdScience sets out to answer our listener Thomas’s question, travelling back through time with the help of Antarctic ice cores, ancient plant fossils, and microscopic popcorn-shaped organisms called foraminifera, all of which hold clues to past climates.
Enlisting the help of chemists, botanists and palaeontologists, we find out about the huge swings in atmospheric carbon dioxide from prehistoric times to the present day, and ask the all-important question: can this help us understand what's happening to our climate now?
Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at crowdscience@bbc.co.uk
Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Producer: Cathy Edwards
(Image: Polar bear on an ice floe. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and maybe it's when I had a hand in. |
| 0:04.0 | I'm Tammy Walker and I produce podcasts for the BBC. |
| 0:08.0 | My role is to give new and diverse creators a voice with the opportunity to build a career. |
| 0:12.0 | That's the thing I love about podcasts. |
| 0:14.4 | You start with just a good idea, but then you have the space to see where it goes. |
| 0:18.4 | And doing that at the BBC means we can really run with the best stories |
| 0:21.9 | while developing the most unique audio talent. |
| 0:24.3 | So if you like what you hear, why not check out the huge range of podcast we've got on BBC |
| 0:29.1 | Sounds. There it is. |
| 0:35.0 | is. Gun turret, gun turret, gun turret, gun turret, |
| 0:40.0 | gun turret, gun turret, atmospheric recording station. So this is right on the beach. |
| 0:46.0 | I'm Marnie Chesterton, and this is crowd science on the BBC World Service. |
| 0:50.0 | This week we've driven down a bumpy track to a remote wind-swept part of the English coast to take the air. |
| 0:57.0 | It's our first stop on a mission given to us by one of our listeners. |
| 1:02.0 | Hello, Crowd Science, my name is Thomas Harvey Kregel from Minnesota in the U.S. |
| 1:06.0 | My question for Crowd Science is, |
| 1:09.0 | when was the last time in the Earth's history |
| 1:11.0 | when CO2 levels were as high as they are now. What was the climate like then |
| 1:14.7 | and what varieties of plants and animals adapted to live in that period? |
| 1:18.7 | Thank you Thomas for your question. |
| 1:20.7 | CO2, or carbon dioxide, is famous for being closely linked to climatic changes on the planet. |
| 1:27.0 | In this program we're going to be winding back the clock to find the last time air contained today's levels of carbon dioxide and also what |
... |
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