Our Atmosphere is Leaking Oxygen!

 Field site where the famous Vostok ice cores, which the present study uses, were drilled in Antarctica. Image: Michael Bender

Researchers discovered that over the past 800,000 years, atmospheric oxygen levels have dropped by 0.7 percent. How exactly did they discover the leak? By observing ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica, which contain trapped air bubbles representing snapshots of our atmosphere over the past million-odd years.

Link to Gizmodo

Link to Science article abstract. Subscription needed for full article

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