RicS, yes there are plants fragments and little else, but they are simular to current plants. the difference is that in pre glaceral times they were bigger, meaning they had more co2, and water and they type that was more prevailant are the warm weather varity. this will not give us the exact tempature, but it does go a long way towards supporting the idea that co2 and tempature were much higher than they are now.
"Core Evidence That Humans Affect Climate Change
Ice drilled in Antarctica offers the fullest record of glacial cycles and greenhouse gas levels.
The Los Angeles Times, November 25, 2005
The research, published in today's issue of the journal Science, describes the content of the greenhouse gases within the core and shows that carbon dioxide levels today are 27% higher than they have been in the last 650,000 years and levels of methane, an even more powerful greenhouse gas, are 130% higher, said Thomas Stocker, a climate researcher at the University of Bern and senior member of the European team that wrote two papers based on the core."
The problem with using ice cores is that it is limited to the ice age. it does not tell you what happen before the ice age.
one thing that is known about co2 is that rain and snow will absorb it and wash it out of the atmosphere. when the co2 is trapped in ice, it ends up staying in the snow, trapped until its released. when that snow finally melts, some of that co2 will go back into the atmosphere, so with melting snow, you automatically get an increase in co2. since there have been few times that there have been less ice, the amount of co2 released would be higher than any but those time due to natural process. release a little more co2 from human processes and we have a little bit more than those two.
also plants use the co2 acid (co2 in water) as a ferterlizer, which, after they die is released back into the atmosphere as well.
also methane is produced by animals, during the glaceral max periods, there were fewer animals, so less methane was produced
considering that we have gotten rid of most of the bison, and have replaced a lot of them with hogs sheep, which are much more effecent methane producer, its not surprising that man has increased the methane, but it is surprising that we have done so little
