Teaching · October 2025 · Vol. 1 No. 1
Have humans caused the current climate crisis?
Investigating CO₂ data throughout the Earth's history
Authors
In brief
The Earth has always cycled through ice ages and warm periods, so is today's rapid warming part of that pattern or something new? The authors show how students can settle the question themselves, using the Vostok ice core and Mauna Loa records in the freely available CODAP software. Bringing the two datasets together produces the decisive picture, and with it a lesson in why reliable data and the institutions that provide them matter.
“We find these opinions particularly important in times like ours, when autocratic governments tend to reduce the role of official, independent statistical institutions.”
What the article covers
- Ice cores as archives: air bubbles trapped in Antarctic snow reconstruct 420,000 years of atmosphere.
- Milankovitch cycles explain the historical oscillation between roughly 180 and 300 ppmv.
- The Keeling curve adds more than 100 ppmv in 65 years, from an already elevated baseline.
- Teaching materials and lesson plans from the EduS4EL project, free to use.
Read the article
Pages 15–18 of Vol. 1 No. 1, October 2025. Free to read, no registration.
How to cite
Joachim Engel and Laura Martignon. “Have humans caused the current climate crisis?.” vISIon: The ISI Magazine Vol. 1 No. 1, October 2025, pp. 15–18.