Carbon Dioxide Fractionation from Air "trapped" in Ice

"Another Hockey Stick Illusion??!!??"

1300-Year History of Atmosheric CO2
reconstructed:

- using the density of plant stomata as a proxy measurement,

- by direct analysis of air in ice cores from Antarctica (Law Dome),

- and analysis of Central Pacific air (since 1958 from 3km up Mauna Loa volcano, Hawaii)

(See https://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/26/co2-ice-cores-vs-plant-stomata/

“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge .. the world has suffered far less from ignorance than from pretensions to knowledge. It is not skeptics or explorers but fanatics and ideologues who menace decency and progress.”
by American historian Daniel Joseph Boorstin
(http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/10378.Daniel_J_Boorstin)

This work-in-progress investigates the validity of attempts by scientists to reconstruct past atmospheric CO2 concentrations using air recovered from ice sheets and glaciers. This air is considered by some to remain virtually unchanged for the decades, centuries and millennia that it is enclosed within pores that form in the ice as it is compressed. Geologist Professor Richard Alley has gone as far as referring to the ice-core record as the "Gold Standard" for determining past atmospheric CO2 content - but is it?.

The UK's Government Office for Science

UPDATES:

2013-03-25 More nonsense from the retiring Chief Scientist Professor Beddington?

A review of “The science of climate change” Web-pages

"Farewell" to Chief Scientist Sir John Beddington

That staunch defender of the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change (CACC) religion, our "beloved" BBC, provided the thankfully outgoing chief scientist Professor Beddington with another opportunity to push the CACC propaganda. On BBC News this morning he was there claiming that atmospheric CO2 levels have been pushed up to dangerous levels due to our use of fossil fuels and the consequence would be drastic weather conditions with more extreme changes between flooding and droughts.

" .. Prof Sir John Beddington warns of floods, droughts and storms .. The UK government's chief scientist has said that there is already enough CO2 in the atmosphere for there to be more floods and droughts over the next 25 years .. " (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21357520).

It seems that neither Sir John nor the scare-mongering environmentalists at the BBC have noticed the colder and colder winters we have been getting in recent years as we head into another period of NATURAL cooling that is predicted to last for DECADES. As we head into another Little Ice Age (or worse) perhaps Sir John will have a rethink about his support for the CACC propagandists.

One thing that Sir John forgot to mention was that the scientists upon whom he depended for advice while in office have no more idea than he does about what has caused such weather extremes since the world began 4.5 billion years ago.

He appears to have forgotten what he was saying back in 2010 about it being time to start listening what the scientists who are sceptical of the CACC hypothesis were telling us. The BBC too seems to have chosen to ignore what one of their more down-to-earth presenters Andrew Neil said back in 2010 " .. Global warming sceptics are having a field day amidst fiercely cold temperatures in many parts of Northern Europe and North America .. " (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/dailypolitics/andrewneil/2010/12/global_warming_and_the_snowfal.html)

Andrew also reminded us of the similar environmentalist nonsense in 2000 from Dr. David Viner of the infamous University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit when he pontificated that snow in our future winters would become " .."a very rare and exciting event" (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/dailypolitics/andrewneil/2010/12/global_warming_and_the_snowfal.html).