Releases may have speeded end of last ice age — and could act again![[]](https://i0.wp.com/www.eurekalert.org/images/clear.gif?resize=8%2C1){kind=spacer}
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IMAGE: This pictures shows the locations of cores showing Antarctic upwelling.
Natural releases of carbon dioxide from the Southern Ocean due to shifting wind patterns could have amplified global warming at the end of the last ice age–and could be repeated as manmade warming proceeds, a new paper in the journal Science suggests.
Many scientists think that the end of the last ice age was triggered by a change in Earth’s orbit that caused the northern part of the planet to warm. This partial climate shift was accompanied by rising levels of the greenhouse gas CO2, ice core records show, which could have intensified the warming around the globe. A team of scientists at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory now offers one explanation for the mysterious rise in CO2: the orbital shift triggered a southward displacement in westerly winds, which caused heavy mixing in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, pumping dissolved carbon dioxide from the water into the air.
“The faster the ocean turns over, the more deep water rises to the surface to release CO2,” said lead author Robert Anderson, a geochemist at Lamont-Doherty. “It’s this rate of overturning that regulates CO2 in the atmosphere.” In the last 40 years, the winds have shifted south much as they did 17,000 years ago, said Anderson. If they end up venting more CO2 into the air, manmade warming underway now could be intensified.
Scientists have been studying the oceans for more than 25 years to understand their influence on CO2 levels and the glacial cycles that have periodically heated and chilled the planet for more than 600,000 years. Ice cores show that the ends of other ice ages also were marked by rises in CO2.
Two years ago, J.R. Toggweiler, a scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), proposed that westerly winds in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica may have undergone a major shift at the end of the last ice age. This shift would have raised more CO2-rich deep water to the surface, and thus amplified warming already taking place due to the earth’s new orbital position. Anderson and his colleagues are the first to test that theory by studying sediments from the bottom of the Southern Ocean to measure the rate of overturning.
The scientists say that changes in the westerlies may have been triggered by two competing events in the northern hemisphere about 17,000 years ago. The earth’s orbit shifted, causing more sunlight to fall in the north, partially melting the ice sheets that then covered parts of the United States, Canada and Europe. Paradoxically, the melting may also have spurred sea-ice formation in the North Atlantic Ocean, creating a cooling effect there. Both events would have caused the westerly winds to shift south, toward the Southern Ocean. The winds simultaneously warmed Antarctica and stirred the waters around it. The resulting upwelling of CO2 would have caused the entire globe to heat.
Anderson and his colleagues measured the rate of upwelling by analyzing sediment cores from the Southern Ocean. When deep water is vented, it brings not only CO2 to the surface but nutrients. Phytoplankton consume the extra nutrients and multiply.
In the cores, Anderson and his colleagues say spikes in plankton growth between roughly 17,000 years ago and 10,000 years ago indicate added upwelling. By comparing those spikes with ice core records, the scientists realized the added upwelling coincided with hotter temperatures in Antarctica as well as rising CO2 levels.
In the same issue of Science, Toggweiler writes a column commenting on the work. “Now I think this really starts to lock up how the CO2 changed globally,” he said in an interview. “Here’s a mechanism that can explain the warming of Antarctica and the rise in CO2. It’s being forced by the north, via this change in the winds.”
At least one model supports the evidence. Richard Matear, a researcher at Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, describes a scenario in which winds shift south and produce an increase in CO2 venting in the Southern Ocean. Plants, which incorporate CO2 during photosynthesis, are unable to absorb all the added nutrients, causing atmospheric CO2 to rise.
Some other climate models disagree. In those used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the westerly winds do not simply shift north-south. “It’s more complicated than this,” said Axel Timmermann, a climate modeler at the University of Hawaii. Even if the winds did shift south, Timmermann argues, upwelling in the Southern Ocean would not have raised CO2 levels in the air. Instead, he says, the intensification of the westerlies would have increased upwelling and plant growth in the Southeastern Pacific, and this would have absorbed enough atmospheric CO2 to compensate for the added upwelling in the Southern Ocean.
“Differences among model results illustrate a critical need for further research,” said Anderson. These, include “measurements that document the ongoing physical and biogeochemical changes in the Southern Ocean, and improvements in the models used to simulate these processes and project their impact on atmospheric CO2 levels over the next century.”
Anderson says that if his theory is correct, the impact of upwelling “will be dwarfed by the accelerating rate at which humans are burning fossil fuels.” But, he said, “It could well be large enough to offset some of the mitigation strategies that are being proposed to counteract rising CO2, so it should not be neglected.”
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Where are the NUMBERS ! (yelling at my screen). If they have ice cores, how many PPM of CO2 do they think was in the atmosphere?
And yeah, our orbit around the sun changes all the time….I think I feeeeeel ittttt happpeneeeeeing riiiiiiiight nowwwwwww. Hang on!
Ouch.
All of this conjecture is hurting my brain.
Does thi means the probem will be an alkaline ocean after all the CO2 are released? Is there any check on the CO2 content in the ocean during this period of high release? Certaintly there is some indicators for the lost ocean CO2.
Hey Mike Strong!
You’re a hoot! OT, but: I don’t know many Strongs so we must be related :0)
So, CO2 will be pulled out of the seas.
I guess we don’t have to worry about ocean acidification, then.
Phew.
“Claude Harvey (12:44:12) :
Noodling the aardvarks could have accelerated the positive feedback of the anthropological Jim-jams. I’ll need a research grant to further investigate this important finding.”
I’ve been casting an eye towards those damned jim-jams all along…just didn’t have any science to back me up. But everyone knows you can’t trust ’em. Ever.
Never thought of the grant idea… Brilliant!
That was one of the funniest replies I’ve read in awhile…thanks.
JimB
Some other climate models disagree. In those used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the westerly winds do not simply shift north-south. “It’s more complicated than this,” said Axel Timmermann, a climate modeler at the University of Hawaii.
Indeed AR4 models do not use interactive stratospheric chemistry (forced macroscopic parametrization instead)
EG
The Impact of Stratospheric Ozone Recovery on the Southern Hemisphere Westerly Jet
n the past several decades, the tropospheric westerly winds in the Southern Hemisphere have been observed to accelerate on the poleward side of the surface wind maximum. This has been attributed to the combined anthropogenic effects of increasing greenhouse gases and decreasing stratospheric ozone and is predicted to continue by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change/Fourth Assessment Report (IPCC/AR4) models. In this paper, the predictions of the Chemistry-Climate Model Validation (CCMVal) models are examined: Unlike the AR4 models, the CCMVal models have a fully interactive stratospheric chemistry. Owing to the expected disappearance of the ozone hole in the first half of the 21st century, the CCMVal models predict that the tropospheric westerlies in Southern Hemisphere summer will be decelerated, on the poleward side, in contrast with the prediction of most IPCC/AR4 models.
Once again we have a conflict with the other UNEP expert assessment committee
“…melting begets more melting.””
Unless it gets real, real hot and then it could beget steaming… or… it could get real, real cold and then it could beget icing… or…
Link for above post
Science 13 June 2008:
Vol. 320. no. 5882, pp. 1486 – 1489
DOI: 10.1126/science.1155939
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/320/5882/1486
Still trying to sell that old song, that CO2 can force climate.
There we go again. The last deglaciation is our fault : http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081217190433.htm
I find this part particulary FUNNY: “Using three different climate models and removing the amount of greenhouse gases humans have injected into the atmosphere during the past 5,000 to 8,000 years, Vavrus and Kutzbach observed more permanent snow and ice cover in regions of Canada, Siberia, Greenland and the Rocky Mountains, all known to be seed regions for glaciers from previous ice ages. Vavrus notes: “With every feedback we’ve included, it seems to support the hypothesis (of a forestalled ice age) even more. We keep getting the same answer.””
The reference a few posts back to the physics paper that supposedly falsified the whole premise of CO2 driving AGW has prompted me to post this question, as now seems as good a time as any…my brain is little and hampered by many other issues, so perhaps I am oversimpliflying…but is the gist of the AGW argument that more CO2 molecules in the air somehow “slows” the long-wave radiation from the earth back into space (some AGW proponent somewhere used the analogy of stoplights slowing traffic), resulting in more energy in the atmosphere (hence, warmer-ness). I got the weird picture in my mind of little vectors of energy bouncing from one CO2 molecule to the next like a bunch of billiard balls, somehow never quite making their escape into space.
Are they implying that CO2 somehow acts like insulation? Someone just point me in the right direction here, because all of a sudden, I’m very confused.
Thanks. And thanks for the odd pieces of poetry that have shown up here and there lately.
timbrom (13:15:11) :
Jae
Re chicken and egg. The egg came first, as the thing that laid it was not a chicken. Basic evolutionary theory.
And there was me thinking it was just created! 😀
Re the paper;
I’m not convinced by the conclusions proposed.
1) It suggests run-away warming is possible (orbital change creates warming, which influences CO2 release from the oceans, creating warming, which influences CO2 release…. and so on)
2) Whilst I understand the concept of the wind blowing warmer surface waters away and colder water rising to replace it, I doubt the depths suggested would be correct. Correct me if I’m wrong (I’m sure someone will) but we are talking about surface waters being shifted by the winds, maybe 20metres deep. This water moves, cools and sinks again. Surely there is a conveyor belt scenario of maybe a few hundred feet as opposed to a few thousand feet?
My oceanography knowledge isn’t that strong so advice would be appreciated.
Typical AGW crap. No real science, just speculation to build hysteria. Al Gore must have been in town to give them a refresher course:
“If they end up venting more CO2 into the air, manmade warming underway now could be intensified.”
How do they get away with that? No data, no evidence. Just issue the report so it can enter the “settled science”. Where’s Gavin on this. He must be lurking, but silent. Be a man, Gavin!
John F. Hultquist (12:09:22) :
rickM (11:45:06) : regarding surface winds and upwelling
Consider in the Pacific Ocean west of South America. The huge SubTropical High Pressure (STHP) system spins out wind that blows northward along the coast. The Coriolis Force causes these winds to turn away from the coast and move northwestward. These winds become the SE Trades. This is in a part of the world where we might expect the surface waters to be warm. Instead, the warmth input there by high sun gets shunted away and the cold water below rises to fill the void. The air blowing across this cold (Humboldt) current takes up moisture and generates fog but the cold air doesn’t rise and so makes coastal Chile a cool foggy place. Northward along the coast of South America we get into the El Nino area. Search on some of these concepts.
John, sorry! Through the fog of an intense headache, what I thought I had read seemed to indicate that the increasingly wamer winds impacting the Antartic …. arrghhh. I can’t remember what i thought I read. LOL
I’m very familiar with the Humboldt current. Chile is not the only country affected by this current. I’ve spent quite a bit of time in all those coastal countries – deserts reign in Chile, Peru and Ecuador(at least the southern regions)
Disregard my pervious comment! Going back to bed!
Why do these people have to improve the models.
I just ran across a Yale Environment 360 interview with Elizabeth Kolbert, a climate change reporter with the New Yorker, where she says:
LINK: http://www.e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2130
“I mean, Freeman Dyson has done a tremendous amount of damage saying, “I don’t believe models. We can’t model this.” Well, we actually can model
it very accurately, it turns out. And we’re talking about very fundamental science. It’s not a very complicated science.”
The press knows the science is settled, because it’s so simple.
I’m always amazed at how the AGW “scientists” just completely overlook the basic requirements of logic and physics. According to this, surface winds are sufficient to bring water to the surface from the deep ocean. Exactly what precedent is there for that? “Turnover” of fresh water lakes is driven by seasonal temperature changes, not wind. Even if you blindly assume there might be some truth in this idea, what provides the energy to produce the massive wind force that would be needed to produce this effect? And on and on it goes. These people do not deserve to be called scientists.
Claude Harvey (12:44:12) :
Noodling the aardvarks could have accelerated the positive feedback of the anthropological Jim-jams. I’ll need a research grant to further investigate this important finding.
But my own research shows that the noodling has accelerated at an alarming rate and both jims and jams are in immediate danger of extinction. I will also need a grant to discover the true rate of noodling acceleration and the effect of CO2 on the noodling curve. If my model is correct, we can save the noodling aadvarks but only if we ACT NOW! We have only 10 YEARS! of noodling left!
“”” Mike Monce (14:03:54) :
Two of the main points: the AGW hypothesis consistently mistakes absorption/re-radiation for reflection. However, the main “kicker’ is that the entire hypothesis violates the 2nd Law by claiming the atmosphere (cooler medium) can heat the surface (a warmer medium) without additional work input. i.e. the AGW idea is a perpetual motion machine.
Gerlich and Tscheuschner, “Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics”
arXiv:0707.1161v4 [physics.ao-ph] 4 Mar 2009 “””
I would be very careful before invoking the second law as an argument against CO2 (or other GHG eg H2O) cause of “surface warming”.
Wiki gives the following:- “” Also, due to Rudolf Clausius, is the simplest formulation of the second law, the heat formulation or Clausius statement:
Heat generally cannot spontaneously flow from a material at lower temperature to a material at higher temperature. “”
This is a very poor imitation of the Clausius from of the second law:-
“No cyclic machine, may have no other effect than to transport heat from a source at one temperature, to a sink at a higher temperature.”
A bit arcane, and also argumentative; it violates the edict; “Heat is NOT a noun !”
So Clausius should have said “heat ENERGY”, meaning energy that manifests itself in a form in which the concept of “temperature” even has a meaning; which usually is the mechanical energy of vibration of systems of particles.
But in any case the restrictioon is to “cyclic machines”.
So the “cool” earth atmosphere rdiates infra red EM radiation in all directions some of which are downward towards a (presumably) warmer earth surface; and also upwards towards a (presumably) cooler space, and on the way it has to pass through regions of the atmosphere which are at a decidedly higher temperature (but which is mostly empty space).
Eventually some of that IR radiation may actually strike the dark side of a night time moon, which is decidedly colder than the earth atmosphere, from whence it came.
That lunar disk subtends an angle of about 0.5 degrees. It turns out that the sun also subtends an angle of 0.5 degrees; hence total eclipses are possible. So a very similar cone of IR from a cool earth atmosphere is on its way to the sun, and will get there in about 8 minutes.
At the surface of the sun, those arriving earth photons, will encounter the photon police, who will look at their credentials, which will likely read: “I am an 80 meV photon (milli electron volts), and my optical wavelength is 15 microns. ”
The next question from the photon police will be;- “Where’s your damn temperature card ?” ; to which the photon will sheepishly reply; “They never issued me one.”
“Well we don’t take ANY visitors unless they have at least a 6000 Kelvin Temperature card; well maybe we accept 5900 or so; so no temperature card; no admittance; so get lost !”
Well the poor 80 meV photon is in a pickle. NOBODY can tell whether he came from the peak of a 15 micron swimming pool surface; or from the tail end of a 10,000 K laser heated carbon blowtorch (while it is evaporating).
So sorry to say; photons do not carry a temperature card around with them; and nobody; not even the solar surface photon police can tell what temperature source they came from; so they most surely will be admitted to the solar barbecue; and they will add to the total solar energy; and they aren’t breaking any laws.
Neither are the ones that strike the earth’s surface after originating from the atmosphere.
So go easy when tossing that second law around; it has conditional application.
George
Hal,
Prof. Freeman Dyson has forgotten more honest science than the NYer’s “climate change reporter” will ever learn. Here’s what he says about climate models:
The quote about “crowd of deluded citizens who believe the numbers predicted by the computer models” is right on point, isn’t it? Sometimes we even see them here on the “Best Science” site.
And Kolbert is one of those dingbats. In her March 9, 2009 interview, she comments on the economy: “…you see right now, for example, that obviously the economy is just through the roof.”
I would have said the economy is falling through the floor, but then I don’t write for the NYer.
If they really cared about humanity, as they claim, they would study what causes the jet stream to split and furthermore, what causes a split jet stream regime to get entrenched for several thousand year stretches. We may be at the beginning of one. If so, billions will die, as we end the interglacial.
I think they are blowing CO2 “against the wind” 🙂
Smokey
I have to say I’m a little suprised by Prof Freeman Dyson’s comments regarding the ocean. I’m not sure how climate scientists or climate models truly understand the ocean and its impacts on climate modelling when oceanographers are still working out the fundamentals.
“Neither observations or theory alone are enough to solve the mysteries of oceanic circulation. Physical oceanography is mature enough to have a substantial body of theory to aid in the interpretation of observations, yet the ocean is continually offering new data to challenge existing ideas of how the ocean works. The deepest understanding and most interesting results almost always evolve from the interplay between these two approaches. This interaction is what makes physical oceanography such an exciting subject and leaves plenty of opportunity for someone entering the field.”
Source
“When deep water is vented, it brings not only CO2 to the surface but nutrients. Phytoplankton consume the extra nutrients and multiply.”
Did anyone think to tell these guys that the Phytoplankton consume the nutrients AND the CO2?
And then they multiply and die, leaving the sediment layers that will be found years later by some AGW rent seekers who will exclaim, “Look! A lot of plankton! There must have been excess CO2 in the ATMOSPHERE!”
Sheesh!
The Earth’s orbit is always changing. The shift being referred to is a normal and predictable pattern in the Earth’s orbital behaviour. In the very long term, it is chaotic, but in the short term (at least a few hundred thousand years) it is calculable to reasonable accuracy using ordinary Newtonian mechanics. Effects include precession, orbital inclination, orbital elongation, etc. These are things we know independently of geology. A long way back in time, we might not be able to calculate the state of the planet in its various changes, but change it will have – it never stays the same.