Today's rate of increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide is 10 times faster than at any other point in the past 50,000 years, researchers have found through a detailed chemical analysis of ancient Antarctic ice.

Findings published in journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences they provide important new understanding of periods of abrupt climate change in Earth's past and offer new insight into the potential impacts of climate change in the present.

"The study of the past teaches us how today is different. The rate of change of CO ₂ is truly unprecedented today," said Kathleen Wendt, assistant professor at Oregon State University's College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences and lead author of the study. (Michelle Klampe, Oregon State University, more at phys.org)