From Rice University comes this study that tries to equate an analog circuit component onto a climate forcing component. It is an interesting approach. The idea that plate tectonics serves to modulate episodic volcanic activity also makes sense.
Volcano location could be greenhouse-icehouse key
Study: Episodic purging of ‘carbonate capacitor’ drives long-term climate cycle, greenhouse-icehouse oscillations are a natural consequence of plate tectonics.
Carbonate Capacitor
HOUSTON — (Feb. 6, 2013) — A new Rice University-led study finds the real estate mantra “location, location, location” may also explain one of Earth’s enduring climate mysteries. The study suggests that Earth’s repeated flip-flopping between greenhouse and icehouse states over the past 500 million years may have been driven by the episodic flare-up of volcanoes at key locations where enormous amounts of carbon dioxide are poised for release into the atmosphere.
“We found that Earth’s continents serve as enormous ‘carbonate capacitors,'” said Rice’s Cin-Ty Lee, the lead author of the study in this month’s GeoSphere. “Continents store massive amounts of carbon dioxide in sedimentary carbonates like limestone and marble, and it appears that these reservoirs are tapped from time to time by volcanoes, which release large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.”
Lee said as much as 44 percent of carbonates by weight is carbon dioxide. Under most circumstances that carbon stays locked inside Earth’s rigid continental crust.
“One process that can release carbon dioxide from these carbonates is interaction with magma,” he said. “But that rarely happens on Earth today because most volcanoes are located on island arcs, tectonic plate boundaries that don’t contain continental crust.”
Earth’s climate continually cycles between greenhouse and icehouse states, which each last on timescales of 10 million to 100 million years. Icehouse states — like the one Earth has been in for the past 50 million years — are marked by ice at the poles and periods of glacial activity. By contrast, the warmer greenhouse states are marked by increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and by an ice-free surface, even at the poles. The last greenhouse period lasted about 50 million to 70 million years and spanned the late Cretaceous, when dinosaurs roamed, and the early Paleogene, when mammals began to diversify.
Lee and colleagues found that the planet’s greenhouse-icehouse oscillations are a natural consequence of plate tectonics. The research showed that tectonic activity drives an episodic flare-up of volcanoes along continental arcs, particularly during periods when oceans are forming and continents are breaking apart. The continental arc volcanoes that arise during these periods are located on the edges of continents, and the magma that rises through the volcanoes releases enormous quantities of carbon dioxide as it passes through layers of carbonates in the continental crust.
Lee, professor of Earth science at Rice, led the four-year study, which was co-authored by three Rice faculty members and additional colleagues at the University of Tokyo, the University of British Columbia, the California Institute of Technology, Texas A&M University and Pomona College.
Lee said the study breaks with conventional theories about greenhouse and icehouse periods.
“The standard view of the greenhouse state is that you draw carbon dioxide from the deep Earth interior by a combination of more activity along the mid-ocean ridges — where tectonic plates spread — and massive breakouts of lava called ‘large igneous provinces,'” Lee said. “Though both of these would produce more carbon dioxide, it is not clear if these processes alone could sustain the atmospheric carbon dioxide that we find in the fossil record during past greenhouses.”
Lee is a petrologist and geochemist whose research interests include the formation and evolution of continents as well as the connections between deep Earth and its oceans and atmosphere..
Lee said the conclusions in the study developed over several years, but the initial idea of the research dates to an informal chalkboard-only seminar at Rice in 2008. The talk was given by Rice oceanographer and study co-author Jerry Dickens, a paleoclimate expert; Lee and Rice geodynamicist Adrian Lenardic, another co-author, were in the audience.
“Jerry was talking about seawater in the Cretaceous, and he mentioned that 93.5 million years ago there was a mass extinction of deepwater organisms that coincided with a global marine anoxic event — that is, the deep oceans became starved of oxygen,” Lee said. “Jerry was talking about the impact of anoxic conditions on the biogeochemical cycles of trace metals in the ocean, but I don’t remember much else that he said that day because it had dawned on me that 93 million years ago was a very interesting time for North America. There was a huge flare-up of volcanism along the western margin of North America, and the peak of all this activity was 93 million years ago.
“I thought, ‘Wow!'” Lee recalled. “I know coincidence doesn’t mean causality, but it certainly got me thinking. I decided to look at whether the flare-up in volcanic activity that helped create the Sierra Nevada Mountains may also have affected Earth’s climate.”
Over the next two years, Lee developed the idea that continental-arc volcanoes could pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. One indicator was evidence from Mount Etna in Sicily, one of the few active continental-arc volcanoes in the world today. Etna produces large amounts of carbon dioxide, Lee said, so much that it is often considered an outlier in global averages of modern volcanic carbon dioxide production.
Tectonic and petrological evidence indicated that many Etna-like volcanoes existed during the Cretaceous greenhouse, Lee said. He and colleagues traced the likely areas of occurrence by looking for tungsten-rich minerals like scheelite, which are formed on the margins of volcanic magma chambers when magma reacts with carbonates. It wasn’t easy; Lee spent an entire year pouring through World War II mining surveys from the western U.S. and Canada, for example.
“There is evidence to support our idea, both in the geological record and in geophysical models, the latter of which show plausibility,” he said. For example, in a companion paper published last year in G-Cubed, Lenardic used numerical models that showed the opening and breakup of continents could change the nature of subduction zones, generating oscillations between continental- and island-arc dominated states.
Though the idea in the GeoSpheres study is still a theory, Lee said, it has some advantages over more established theories because it can explain how the same basic set of geophysical conditions could produce and sustain a greenhouse or an icehouse for many millions of years.
“The length of subduction zones and the number of arc volcanoes globally don’t have to change,” Lee said. “But the nature of the arcs themselves, whether they are continental or oceanic, does change. It is in the continental-arc stage that CO2 is released from an ever-growing reservoir of carbonates within the continents.”
Rice co-authors include Dickens and Lenardic, both professors of Earth science; Rajdeep Dasgupta, assistant professor of Earth science; Bing Shen, postdoctoral research associate; Benjamin Slotnick, graduate student; and Kelley Liao, a graduate student who began work on the project as undergraduate. Additional co-authors include Yusuke Yokoyama of the University of Tokyo, Mark Jellinek of the University of British Columbia, Jade Star Lackey of Pomona College, Tapio Schneider of Caltech and Michael Tice of Texas A&M. The research was supported by the Packard Foundation, the Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute at the University of Tokyo, the National Science Foundation and the Miller Institute at the University of California, Berkeley.
A copy of the GeoSphere paper is available at: http://geosphere.geoscienceworld.org/content/9/1/21.abstract
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It’s always CO2
What about all the other stuff, like ocean circulation disruption, wind patterns?
Doesn’t sound like this is going to help improve the climate models.
Most of the volcanoes recently that I recall seem to be continental type, Alaska, Kamchatka, Mt St Helen, Popocatepetl, others in Central and South America.
On the face of it a very interesting idea.
In the guts this is still blaming carbon dioxide for a great deal more than its share of atmospheric heat.
Gravity and albedo have always been the major players in control of the Earth’s atmospheric temperatures. The use of the term “greenhouse” in the opening statement tells us this isn’t a serious work. The implication that the earth exists either as a frozen wasteland or a superheated jungle just doesn’t pan out in the stoma record. The belief that our atmospheric energy state can even be STABLE is a fallacy. We’re currently in an energy loss state even if the ground level temperatures haven’t gone down. I find it exceptionally hard to believe anything warmist that comes from NASA when they all know the atmosphere has been shrinking for more than a decade.
I’d surmise that increasing the photo impedance of the 10m to 30m depth of the oceans by 10% would have ten times more effect on climate than a doubling of atmospheric CO2.
I’d suggest a re-write of the theory that IGNORES carbon dioxide and explores the particulates and environmental response to the release of the other common chemical: sulfur.
Dubious, perhaps. Measurements from recent volcanic events (over last 100 years) have not indicated huge quantities of CO2 burst emissions. Claims for large CO2 emissions from volcanic eruptions have been systematically scorned.
Where’s the concrete? (Cooked limestone -> cement + CO2, cement + water = concrete :-).
Svensmark’s (2012, “Evidence of nearby super novae affecting life on Earth” ) paper, available as ftp2.space.dtu.dk/pub/Svensmark/MNRAS_Svensmark2012.pdf, (free download) exposes a more credible mechanism and better matches.
I asked the question about a year ago on this site how many volcanoes were they at any one time in the ocean. I suspected there were thousands down there we know nothing about. And if land based volcanoes can and do exert climate effects then the question to me was to what extent do ocean volcanism effect the ocean which in turn effects climate? This paper seems to shed some light on my question, however we have no idea of the full extent of ocean volcanism. How can we possible model without understanding the dynamism of the planet on which we live?
With you there thunderloon..
They’re still blaming CO2. BAH!
http://www.sott.net/image/image/s1/37034/full/marklawson_ice_ages.jpg
About every 100,000 years we have a REGULAR deep ice age followed by an interglacial. It has to be an orbital wobble/Milankovich causing change and being amplified by other factors such as oceanic cycles and oscillations. CO2 is simply a by-product of life-forms and ocean gassing occurring as a RESULT of the temp change some 800 years after the fact as found in ice cores and has virtually no input to temperature.
This study obviously adheres to the CO2 influence to perpetuate the gravy train.
… and Nir Shaviv’s (2006, The Milky Way Galaxy’s Spiral Arms and Ice Age Epochs, and the
Cosmic Ray Connection) tracking the Solar System’s orbit about the galactic centre also provides a good match with cause and effect (see his blog at sciencebits.com) to support Svensmark.
At least they have the chain of causation in the right direction!
thunderloon – I’d agree with downplaying CO2. From 1960s work I assisted as a student, I’ve followed an S based explanation at the back of my mind for a number of events. One at present is the divergence problem in dendro work. I’ve always felt, though feelings are trumped by data, that sulphur is more deficient in the global plant yield equation than CO2. Besides, when the children were at school we lived 1 km from a large smokestack pouring out SO2 from smelting copper sulphide, so it came to be like an old friend.
There were detailed studies of the airborne distribution of SO2 from the large mine at Mt Isa Queensland. IIRC, the plume could be detected by then-available instruments for several hundred km. I have no idea who holds the data now, but it would be interesting to see if plant growth effect are visible on past satellite imagery, now that scrubbers are used.
More to the point, at first blush, the same mechanism of tectonic wobbles does not rule out the episodic production of SO2, for it has roughly similar principles to CO2 as the authors propose.
Blame CO2 because it gathers in the Grant Money!
Nothing else matters.
There may also be a difference in the overall amount of volcanic activity when continents are in more of a break- up configuration, rather then when they are more stable and volcanism is mostly about their margins at island arcs, which would also increase the greenhouse effect during such continental break-up periods.
Also, it isn’t entirely clear what processes initiate broad scale upwelling under continents, such as at present under east Africa.
And here are some examples of correlation of geological activity and climatic indicies:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NoaaD.htm
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/ENSO.htm
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NAP.htm
Ice is the driver of the general climate conditions over long time-frames and eons.
When ice is present, 50% to 80% of the sunlight is reflected back to space at the speed of light before it can have an impact on warming the planet.
When ice is not present, only 5% to 30% of the sunlight is reflected on any particular place on Earth.
This is the general condition which can change the most out of any other factor that influences our climate. It’s like 255 W/m2 of solar energy influencing our climate or 170 W/m2 influencing our climate. Its +/- 42 W/m2 of solar forcing. That is way more variation than the measly range that CO2 can deliver of +/- 8 W/m2 in geologic history. Why can’t the climate scientists do this math? They can’t get past the CO2 obsession, that’s why.
What drives how much ice can build up?
Take all the continents and put them at the equator. There is no ice in these conditions except for a very small amount of sea ice at the poles in the winter only. An average of 25% of the sunlight is reflected.
Take all the continents and put them over the poles. The ice builds up 5 kms high and spreads out across all the land and ocean it can. Now, 50% of the sunlight is reflected.
Take some continents and put them at the 75 degree latitude bands. Now you have big ice when the Milankovitch cycles are lined up. Winter snow only when the cycles are not lined up.
Go back and look through the distribution of continents over time in geologic history – what continental drift has dealt to the Earth. Is this the pattern that has occurred? It matches pretty well. Not always, but very close.
At least they accept that we are still in a glacial period. Too many times you hear supposed scientists claiming that just because there isn’t kilometre thick ice over Chicago or Scotland, that we are currently in an inter-glacial. It puts a whole different perspective on whether a deg.C of warming is good or bad.
Anthony:
The paper in the above paper assesses plate tectonics (i.e. continental drift) as a contributor to climate change. I am wondering about the source of this idea which does not seem to be very plausible: it asserts that atmospheric CO2 variations trigger climate regime shifts, but this assertion is contradicted by paleo data.
In March of 2012, the climate alarmist website SkS had their forums “hacked” and the contents posted online.
http://tomnelson.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/from-skeptical-science-interesting.html
In those files John Cook of SkS is shown to have written on 2012-03-07
Richard
Maybe it explains the CO2 levels but not the warming or cooling.
The location of Antarctica seems a factor in the cause Ice House. Plus other factors
related to tectonic activity, such as mountain building in certain locations, or simply more mountains built than “normal” will also obviously affect climate and could affect global
temperature.
Sophocles – the limestone gets absorbed into the magma, CO2 is volatile and the CaO can be crystallised as feldspar most likely in a continental volcanic. Carbonatites are carbonate rich igneous rocks where the Carbon content is high enough for it to be deposited as carbonate in the rock. These usually contain a high proportion of rare earths and are likely to be the product of magma fractionation rather than carbonate rich sources.
OK so what caused the global marine anoxic event?
This sort of study is only of feint interest in the absence of a credible explanation of how CO2 can possibly add to the energy balance. The researchers rely on a first principle which has no visible signs of support.
These people still worship at the CO2 altar.
I too was disappointed at the propping up of the CO2 driven climate. According to the ice cores, CO2 never gets much above 300ppm. We are now 33% above that with no effect. Why does it stop getting warmer when CO2 is high, if CO2 is doing the warming? The best explanation I’ve heard is that CO2 replaces water, a much more effective GHG, and thus reduces the overall warming.
stuart large says:
February 8, 2013 at 3:32 am
OK so what caused the global marine anoxic event?
———————————————-
Scientists needing funding.
Mike Bromley the Canucklehead back in Kurdistan but actually in Switzerland says: At least they have the chain of causation in the right direction!
Comment correct, theory passes for first link in chain: CO2 didn’t cause vulcanism.
richardscourtney: …it asserts that atmospheric CO2 variations trigger climate regime shifts, but this assertion is contradicted by paleo data.
Comment again correct, theory fails for second link: Warming precedes CO2 rise.
I like the idea of looking at the last 500 million years to confirm the response of the Earth’s climate to an increase in forcing.
Here is what has actually happened.
Let us agree some facts first.
The warmists always like to state their argument in the form of, increased atmospheric CO2 = increased warmth. However, this is not an accurate representation of the science. What they should say, for accuracy, is that…… ‘Increased CO2 in the atmosphere, leads to an increase in Radiative Forcing on the Earth and an increase in Radiative Forcing leads to increased warming on the Earth’.
What is is true though, is that only the first part of that latter statement is a proven fact.
The ‘Greenhouse Effect’ is not a separate forcing, it acts as an amplifier of the radiative forcing effect of the Sun. Take that away and you are not left with the ‘Greenhouse Effect’ forcing you are left with nothing.
So let us agree to use the correct terminology in our agreed facts and talk about the increased Radiative Forcing (RF) caused by the increased CO2.
Warmists will say why not jump straight to increased CO2 = increased warmth, as physics demand that this must happen if we push additional energy, via increased RF, into a system and it makes it simpler to understand. I am sure a lot of the cleverer warmist scientists like to do this deliberately, because it deflects attention away from a rather obvious truth, that we will come to later.
So, is it obvious in physics, that applying increased heat energy to a system, will lead to a long term increase in that systems temperature?
Well in a non-dynamic system that is absolutely true. If I stick one end of a bar of metal in hot water, the other end will heat up after a time. If I stick the feet of a cadaver in hot water the head will heat up after a time. However, if I stick the feet of a living person in the hot water what happens to the head now?
Oops, what has happened to the physics? Nothing of course but in a dynamic system, like the human body, the input of heat at one point may trigger dynamic processes that cause no long term heating in the system as a whole. Indeed it is perfectly possible for the human to end up cooler for a time. It all depends on the strength of the triggered feedback processes and whether they are negative or not.
So we can all agree that increasing energy into one part of a dynamic system does not necessarily lead, automatically, to a general heating of that system.
Now the Earth’s climate system is a dynamic one, we can all agree on that, changing one process will often lead to a change in a connected process which may be a positive or negative effect.
So what empirical evidence is there that increasing Radiative Forcing long term on the Earth causes it to warm long term?
Err… that would be none then!
We do, however, have irrefutable evidence that the Earth does NOT warm long term in the face of increased RF.
We actually have a good record of the effect of an increase in Radiative Forcing on the Earth because of the Suns behavior. The Sun has been increasing its output and therefore the RF on the Earth, by about 1% every 100 million years and will continue to do so for billions of years. You could look at the ‘Faint Sun Paradox for starters which shows that three billion years ago liquid water was present on the Earth meaning that temperatures must have been similar to, or warmer than, today’s. It could not have been much colder. So the Earth has not warmed in the face of a 30% increase in RF for 3000 million years. However I do not use these facts, remarkable as they are, as evidence that the Earth does not warm in the face of increased RF, as the Earth was totally different then, different atmosphere, virtually no life etc.
No, instead let us look at the last 500 million years. If we went back then it would look familiar. The atmosphere was like today’s, life had colonised and exploded across the land, the carbon cycle was established, plate tectonics were in full operation etc. We would notice one thing different however.
http://www.eolss.net/Sample-Chapters/C01/E4-03-08-02.pdf
Well since that time the Sun has increased its RF on the Earth by about 5%, (equivalent to about five doublings of CO2) a very significant sum, amounting to about 65 WM2 at the top of the atmosphere.
So what would we notice that was different back then? Well it was hotter then. A lot hotter! The global temperature being about 22C compared to today’s 14C.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_temperature_record
Since that time there have been about three halvings of CO2 in the atmosphere, leaving a net increase of about two doublings, about 27Wm2 at the TOA.
So for hundreds of millions of years the Earth has been cooling long term in the face of significantly increased RF. This is a fact, not conjecture, real empirical, undeniable evidence.
So the warmists theory, correctly stated as………….. ‘increasing the RF on the Earth, by emitting more CO2, will automatically lead to a warmer Earth’, is falsified. Fact!
Alan
thunderloon says:
February 8, 2013 at 12:23 am
…..I’d surmise that increasing the photo impedance of the 10m to 30m depth of the oceans by 10% would have ten times more effect on climate than a doubling of atmospheric CO2.
I’d suggest a re-write of the theory that IGNORES carbon dioxide and explores the particulates and environmental response to the release of the other common chemical: sulfur.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You beat me to it. My thought exactly.
Haven’t these guys heard of the Laki volcanic eruption in 1783 that started the French revolution or the more recent volcanic eruption at Eyjafjallajökull? It sure wasn’t the CO2 that caused all the problems!
They are also missing Magnetic Reversals Linked to Massive Volcanism.