This figure shows the variations in concentration of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere during the last 400 thousand years. Throughout most of the record, the largest changes can be related to glacial/interglacial cycles within the current ice age. Although the glacial cycles are most directly caused by changes in the Earth's orbit (i.e. Milankovitch cycles), these changes also influence the carbon cycle, which in turn feeds back into the glacial system.

Since the Industrial Revolution, circa 1900, the burning of fossil fuels has caused a dramatic increase of CO₂ in the atmosphere, reaching levels unprecedented in the last 400 thousand years. This increase has been implicated as a primary cause of global warming.

The spacing of carbon dioxide samples varies through time. At the present, the atmosphere is sampled routinely (at least daily) and complete annual averages are available. From the four ice cores presented on this plot the sampling varies from as rapid as one point every few years (recent parts of the Law Dome record) to as sparse as one sample every few thousand years (oldest parts of the Vostok record). In principle, the sparse sampling in the oldest parts of the record could hide abrupt excursions; however, isotopic measurements of ice cores (which are made continuously along the entire core) and our current understanding of the rates of natural processes for creating and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere make it unlikely that any positive excursions in carbon dioxide comparable to the Industrial Revolution have happened during the interval presented above.

File:Carbon Dioxide 400kyr.svg é unha versión vectorial deste ficheiro. Debería usarse esa versión no canto desta imaxe rasterizada cando sexa de mellor calidade. File:Carbon Dioxide 400kyr.png → File:Carbon Dioxide 400kyr.svg Para obter máis información acerca de gráficos vectoriais, vaia á páxina sobre a transición a SVG en Commons. Tamén hai información sobre o soporte de MediaWiki de imaxes SVG. Noutras linguas Alemannisch ∙ Bahasa Indonesia ∙ Bahasa Melayu ∙ British English ∙ català ∙ čeština ∙ dansk ∙ Deutsch ∙ eesti ∙ English ∙ español ∙ Esperanto ∙ euskara ∙ français ∙ Frysk ∙ galego ∙ hrvatski ∙ Ido ∙ italiano ∙ lietuvių ∙ magyar ∙ Nederlands ∙ norsk bokmål ∙ norsk nynorsk ∙ occitan ∙ Plattdüütsch ∙ polski ∙ português ∙ português do Brasil ∙ română ∙ Scots ∙ sicilianu ∙ slovenčina ∙ slovenščina ∙ suomi ∙ svenska ∙ Tiếng Việt ∙ Türkçe ∙ vèneto ∙ Ελληνικά ∙ беларуская (тарашкевіца) ∙ български ∙ македонски ∙ нохчийн ∙ русский ∙ српски / srpski ∙ татарча/tatarça ∙ українська ∙ ქართული ∙ հայերեն ∙ বাংলা ∙ தமிழ் ∙ മലയാളം ∙ ไทย ∙ 한국어 ∙ 日本語 ∙ 简体中文 ∙ 繁體中文 ∙ עברית ∙ العربية ∙ فارسی ∙ +/−

 

This figure was prepared by Robert A. Rohde from publicly available data and is incorporated into the Global Warming Art project.

Image from Global Warming Art

This image is an original work created for Global Warming Art. Please refer to the image description page for more information.

Autorízase a copia, distribución e/ou modificación deste documento baixo os termos da licenza de documentación libre GNU, versión 1.2 ou calquera outra que posteriormente publique a Free Software Foundation; sen seccións invariables, textos de portada, nin textos de contraportada. Inclúese unha copia da devandita licenza na sección titulada GNU Free Documentation License.http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.htmlGFDLGNU Free Documentation Licensetruetrue

	Este ficheiro está licenciado baixo a licenza Creative Commons recoñecemento compartir igual 3.0 sen adaptar.
	Vostede é libre de: compartir – copiar, distribuír e difundir a obra facer obras derivadas – adaptar a obra Baixo as seguintes condicións: recoñecemento – Debe indicar a debida atribución de autoría, fornecer unha ligazón á licenza e indicar se se realizaron cambios. Pode facer isto de calquera forma razoable, mais non nunha forma que indique que quen posúe a licenza apoia ou subscribe o seu uso da obra. compartir igual – Se altera, transforma ou amplía este contido, debe publicar as súas contribucións baixo a mesma licenza ou outra compatible á orixinal.
	A etiqueta desta licenza engadiuse a este ficheiro como parte da actualización da licenza GFDL.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/CC BY-SA 3.0Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0truetrue

1. (blue) Vostok ice core: Fischer, H., M. Wahlen, J. Smith, D. Mastroianni, and B. Deck (1999). "Ice core records of Atmospheric CO2 around the last three glacial terminations". Science 283: 1712-1714.
2. (green) EPICA ice core: Monnin, E., E.J. Steig, U. Siegenthaler, K. Kawamura, J. Schwander, B. Stauffer, T.F. Stocker, D.L. Morse, J.-M. Barnola, B. Bellier, D. Raynaud, and H. Fischer (2004). "Evidence for substantial accumulation rate variability in Antarctica during the Holocene, through synchronization of CO2 in the Taylor Dome, Dome C and DML ice cores". Earth and Planetary Science Letters 224: 45-54. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2004.05.007
3. (red) Law Dome ice core: D.M. Etheridge, L.P. Steele, R.L. Langenfelds, R.J. Francey, J.-M. Barnola and V.I. Morgan (1998) "Historical CO2 records from the Law Dome DE08, DE08-2, and DSS ice cores" in Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, Tenn., U.S.A.
4. (cyan) Siple Dome ice core: Neftel, A., H. Friedli, E. Moor, H. Lötscher, H. Oeschger, U. Siegenthaler, and B. Stauffer (1994) "Historical CO2 record from the Siple Station ice core" in Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, Tenn., U.S.A.
5. (black) Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii: Keeling, C.D. and T.P. Whorf (2004) "Atmospheric CO2 records from sites in the SIO air sampling network" in Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, Tenn., U.S.A.

• 
  Expanded record of CO₂ from the last 50 years at Mauna Loa
• 
  CO₂ at Mauna Loa since 1958. [1] archive copy at the Wayback Machine [2] archive copy at the Wayback Machine
• 
  Trends of major greenhouse gases.
• 
  Solar variation and greenhouse gases during 420,000 years.
• 
  Recent global CO₂ emissions, logarithmic scale.
• 
  Carbon dioxide variations during the last 550 million years.