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The image above shows the concentration of Carbon Dioxide (greenhouse gas that increases global temperatures) over the past 800,000 years.
While it may seem difficult to measure with certainty that far back, it is actually pretty straightforward.
When ice forms, it holds little bubbles of air. Those bubbles of air are like little time capsules into the past.
Scientists drill down into the ice to collect core samples (see below) and melt the ice in the lab. The resulting measurements are used to produce the yellow line on the graph.
If you'd like to see this in video form, here is a link to the NASA website that is a very neat watch.
This chart to the left shows the global temperatures for the last 140+ years. The 4 separate lines are all independent research facilities and their data overlaid on the same graph.
Here is a link to the NASA "Evidence of Climate Change" website.
And this is a link to view a video on how Greenland and the Antarctic ice sheets have responded to the warming temperatures of our planet.
And to finish off and bring this a little more local, the image to the left shows the duration of ice on Lake Mendota (Madison, WI) from 1852 until the 2022 season.
The evidence is clear. Ice in our state doesn't stay on our lakes as long as it used to. Ice doesn't like heat and the planet is hotter than it used to be.
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