Clues to climate cycles dug from South Pole snow pit

University of California - San Diego. "Clues to climate cycles dug from South Pole snow pit." ScienceDaily, 25 Feb. 2013. Web. 27 Feb. 2013 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130225153126.htm.

In this article, the author discusses how chemical traces in Antarctic snow are linked to global meteorological events an climate changes.  A research team from the University of California has linked chemical signatures with well-known global events by researching certain chemicals that are contained within Antarctic snow.  They conducted their research near the South Pole where the snow isn’t as compacted as it is in polar ice caps, this would give them better results of the atmospheric chemistry that has occurred.  They had found that the highest levels of sulfates trapped in the Antarctic snow occurred during strong ENSO seasons (El Nino).  ENSO or the El Nino Southern Oscillation is a global event when the trade winds change allowing water from the tropical western Pacific to move towards South America.  (This event affects marine life and leaves some areas of the world with little rainfall).  The warm air above the sea surface lifts the sulfur dioxide high into the atmosphere where it gets carried in the snow and lands on Antarctica.  The sulfur dioxide gets trapped in various layers of this snowfall and the scientists could determine when these meteorological events occurred in past years. 

I thought that this article was very interesting and was really relatable to the article I wrote about before on the Siberian Permafrost.  Both articles explained how different parts of the world can hold certain key secrets in the future and past events of our global environment.  I think that this article helps us better understand past events that have occurred in our environment but cannot really help us determine what might occur in the future.  To me, reading the first article made me think more about changing the actions I make that affect the environment.  The first article made me think more about how our actions now could raise more concern about global warming in the future.  This article just talks about how findings in the Antarctic snow can tell us when certain events in our environment in the past have occurred so its not as scary as the global warming article.