Thanks to a hoarder who held on to a scuba diving tank for 41 years, the record of air samples from the southern hemisphere has been extended by over 8 years.

A 76-year old scuba diver from Beaumaris, Australia, who also claims to be a climate sceptic according to ABC news, handed over his air tank, which he last filled in 1968 but never used, to the CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research labs in Melbourne.

“They said that they had the oldest air and I thought, no they haven’t, I’ve got the oldest air," John Allport, the tank’s owner told ABC.

The air archive maintained by CSIRO started in 1978, and contains samples of clean air from a station at Cape Grim, Tasmania. It’s the oldest such archive in the world. Now with Allport’s tank, last used in 1970, the record has been extended further.

The air contained traces of propellants, refrigerants and emissions form aluminium smelters. Paul Fraser, who leads CSIRO’s greenhouse gas research team says that the scuba tank is going to be really useful: “If tanks were filled in a clean coastal environment their usefulness in measuring greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and chloro-flurocarbons (CFCs) is much broader,” he says (press release).

The old air means that ice-core data can be cross-checked. It also feeds into better predictions of future atmospheric compositions.

ABC seems to be the only outlet covering this neat story. Their report includes some interesting quotes from Allport and his wife, Marg. Allport doesn’t seem too enamoured with the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, saying it is “A lot of hot air I think, I don’t believe what they say, I think the world’s just rolling around and it changes in big seasons, but the seasons are like a hundred years apart.”

Marg seems to think that there might be something in it all, but doesn’t sound all that convinced to me: “We’re not complete sceptics though really are we?” she said.

“We know something has to be done.”