Meanwhile today while CO2 is increasing, the Antarctic ice cap is also increasing.
Bill Illis writes about it:
Ice sheets formed in Antarctica about 35 million years ago when CO2 was about 1,200 ppm. Ice sheets also formed in Antarctica about 350 to 290 million years ago when CO2 was about 350 ppm. Ice sheets also formed in Antarctica about 450 to 430 million years ago when CO2 was about 4,500 ppm. The more common denominator is when continental drift places Antarctica at the south pole.
Below, Antarctica today.
New data illuminates Antarctic ice cap formation
From a Bristol University Press release issued 13 September 2009
A paper published in Nature
New carbon dioxide data confirm that formation of the Antarctic ice-cap some 33.5 million years ago was due to declining carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
A team of scientists from Bristol, Cardiff and Texas A&M universities braved the lions and hyenas of a small East African village to extract microfossils from rocks which have revealed the level of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere at the time of the formation of the ice-cap.
Geologists have long speculated that the formation of the Antarctic ice-cap was caused by a gradually diminishing natural greenhouse effect. The study’s findings, published in Nature online, confirm that atmospheric CO2 started to decline about 34 million years ago, during the period known to geologists as the Eocene – Oligocene climate transition, and that the ice sheet began to form about 33.5 million years ago when CO2 in the atmosphere reached a tipping point of around 760 parts per million (by volume).
The new findings will add to the debate around rising CO2 levels in the Earth’s atmosphere as the world’s attention turns to the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen which opens later this year.
Dr Gavin Foster from the University of Bristol and a co-author on the paper said: “By using a rather unique set of samples from Tanzania and a new analytical technique that I developed, we have, for the first time, been able to reconstruct the concentration of CO2 across the Eocene-Oligocene boundary – the time period about 33.5 million years ago when ice sheets first started to grow on Eastern Antarctica. “
Professor Paul Pearson from Cardiff University’s School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, who led the mission to the remote East Africa village of Stakishari said: “About 34 million years ago the Earth experienced a mysterious cooling trend. Glaciers and small ice sheets developed in Antarctica, sea levels fell and temperate forests began to displace tropical-type vegetation in many areas.
“The period culminated in the rapid development of a continental-scale ice sheet on Antarctica, which has been there ever since. We therefore set out to establish whether there was a substantial decline in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels as the Antarctic ice sheet began to grow.”
Co-author Dr Bridget Wade from Texas A&M University Department of Geology and Geophysics added: “This was the biggest climate switch since the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
“Our study is the first to provide a direct link between the establishment of an ice sheet on Antarctica and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and therefore confirms the relationship between carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and global climate.”
The team mapped large expanses of bush and wilderness and pieced together the underlying local rock formations using occasional outcrops of rocks and stream beds. Eventually they discovered sediments of the right age near a traditional African village called Stakishari. By assembling a drilling rig and extracting hundreds of meters of samples from under the ground they were able to obtain exactly the piece of Earth’s history they had been searching for.
Further information:
The paper:Atmospheric carbon dioxide through the Eocene–Oligocene climate transition. Paul N. Pearson, Gavin L. Foster & Bridget S. Wade. Nature online, Sunday 13th September.
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Joel said in reply to P Wilson
” I have no idea where your estimate of how much CO2 the oceans would release if warmed by 0.1 C comes from.”
This from Green World trust
“If you measure Endersbee’s SST slope, it shows 150ppm (300 Gt) apparent actual CO2 rise per degC SST rise (at 15ºC). But Climate Audit forum told me that the time span is too short for the figures to be trustworthy. Still, if true, they are significant, and it’s worth keeping an eye open.”
On another thread Ricard Courtney said to you that mans emissions represented some .02% of all the carbon in the system.
Most of this resides in the ocean which relates to the point I made in 16 30 20
tonyb
Well, Joel. Its fine to see at last an admission that anthropogenic c02 doesn’t just stay in the air. If its equal between oceans and air, then its so-called effect is even more paltry than claimed, as it halves c02 between 2 regions. Given that atmospheric c02 today is not exceptional, and that its been colder and warmer in the past, and given that oceans have been absorbing vast amounts of c02 over millions of year, i’d hope you think it fair to say that there isn’t any impending crisis
One more thing.. Given that ice core data shows that there is a lag between temperature and c02 increase of 800-2000 years, might there not be avalid argument to say that today’s increase in c02 is a direct result of the holocene optimum, or else the MWP, which curiously coincides with this lag period?
TonyB,
“…global temperature is a false concept…”
and so now your curious beliefs have led you to the point at which you can no longer answer the simple question: “Which is warmer, Earth or Mars?”
Tom P (15:28:26) : to TonyB,
Mars is much colder, despite its atmosphere being almost entirely, ahem, the heat trapping gas carbon dioxide
TomP
Sorry, this is becoming ever more surreal. Not only do you seem unwilling to answer a perfectly reasonable question posed above, but now we have somehow got to Mars. Do you have a second job writing riddles for Christmas crackers? 🙂
P Wilson has given you the answer.
Perhaps we could link this back into the basic hypothesis of man causing AGW and you can tell me how much co2 there is in the ‘system’ (see post to Joel above) and what percentage relates to man (without a tour of the solar system)
tonyb
P Wilson
Indeed Mars does have a mild greenhouse effect, but the greater distance from the sun rather trumps that effect.
But full marks for being able to deal with a tricky comparison of what TonyB believes are false concepts. You might like to explain to him how you were able to achieve this startling feat of philosophical gymnastics.
Tom P (15:28:26) :
Most of earths green house effect is from water vapor…. it depends whos figures you use for co2, but its responsible for between 2.3k and 6.93k of the 33k green house effect.
TomP
One last try. If you google ‘is the concept of a global temperature meaningless’ you will get 880,000 hits (not all of which will agree of course), There are however numerous studies out there thaso I have selected another one that gives some clear examples
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070315101129.htm
I am away for next day or two so please excuse any temporary lack of reply
tonyb
TomP
If you google ‘is the concept of a global temperature meaningless’ you will get 880,000 hits (not all of which will agree of course), There are however numerous studies out there thaso I have selected another one that gives some clear examples
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070315101129.htm
I am away for next day or two so please excuse any temporary lack of reply
tonyb
Tomp
sorry for post duplication but the last one ‘escaped’
tonyb
I should add, the lower figure is actually about double o some estimations, i was feeling generous and thought id give 10% o green house effect to other gases, instead o the 5% as of prof singer.
TonyB,
Please repeat your “perfectly reasonable question posed above”. I’m having trouble locating it.
I’ll do my best to answer the question, but I do ask in return you explain how P Wilson was able to solve my “riddle” as to whether the Earth or Mars is warmer given that you believe “global temperature is a false concept”.
If you are insistent that global temperature is indeed a false concept, there seems little point in discussing with you global warming or any other change in global temperature. It would be like arguing with a creationist over the rate of species creation.
Tom P (16:23:59)
what wories me as a human being than a scientist, or a scientific thinker, is that the greenhouse effect on earth can’t be relied on to provide warmth, so we could move into a cool – severly cool period at any time. Its in the balance. The difference between cooling before is that now we have over 6 billion to feed. this population increase has been facilitated by recent warming, which looked at in data perspective has been average to beneath average for a multi-decadal warming period. I fear the catastrophe, at least climatically, is going to be in the opposite direction from what the climate activists propose
Tom. Tony B maintains that the concept of a global average is something of a misnomer, especially in view of some of the eccentric proxies before the temperature record. as An example, Loele gives some justification as to why tree ring records might be inaccurate – above a certain temperature, tree rings are smaller due to water evaporation associated with higher temps. Anyway, here is the paper
:http://www.ncasi.org/publications/Detail.aspx?id=3025
Apart from that, the real effects of climate are always local than global, so record lows in the US, and record highs in Australia count more than a blandly averaged global uniform. When local areas are put in percpective, causes can be ascertained. Speaking of which, record temperatures haven’t been broken anywhere around the world for the last 40 years
oops.. Record high temperatures haven’t been broken. – Edit
P Wilson: If you don’t believe that the Stefan-Boltzmann Eqn applies to normal matter at room temperature, there’s really nothing to talk about. I can’t argue with someone who is basically telling me that they don’t accept basic physics concepts. Are you aware that when you see an infrared satellite picture, what you are seeing is essentially whatever it first hits, which will either be land surface or clouds tops? And, that they are using the Stefan-Boltzmann Eqn to determine the temperature (which then shows something about the clouds since higher cloud tops will be at a lower temperature)?
And, think about it: If the earth were really emitting significantly less energy than it absorbed, then it would heat up and as its temperature went up its emission would increase until the point when it was emitting the same amount of energy as it absorbs.
There is no conduction or conduction to speak of in space, so while these processes can transport heat away from the earth’s surface up into the atmosphere, it is only radiation that can ultimately cause it to leave the earth / atmosphere system.
The previous interglacial was warmer and CO2 levels were only a little bit higher than pre-industrial levels. Besides which, the ice core data is also what shows that at most one should expect about 20 ppm of increase for each 1 C of temperature rise.
When has that not been admitted? That is what ocean acidification is about: the ocean is absorbing some of what we have emitted. Unfortunately, because the buffering process saturates, it can’t absorb all of it.
That is already being accounted for as I explained when I talked about the rate of rise of CO2 in the atmosphere.
The level of CO2 is higher than it has been during the time that homo sapiens have been around. Yes, it has been much higher millions of years ago and yes, the climate has been warmer or cooler…and the sea levels have been hundreds of feet lower or higher. However, we are adjusted to the climate and sea levels as they are now, as are the various flora and fauna. As for the oceans absorbing CO2, because of the complicated buffering processes that occur, I believe what ends up being important is the rate of CO2 increase…which is extremely fast compared to other times over the last 750,000 years for which we have ice core data…and there is reason to believe it might be without any precedent in the past.
Think of the analogy of a fountain that just recirculates the water that goes out the drain and sprays it back out again. The water level in this fountain (ignoring evaporation) will be constant. Now imagine that someone comes with a hose and starts adding water to the fountain and the water level starts to rise. Even if they are adding water at a rate slow compared to the rate at which the fountain spits out water, it is they who will be responsible for the rise in the water level.
The previous interglacial was warmer and CO2 levels were only a little bit higher than pre-industrial levels. Besides which, the ice core data is also what shows that at most one should expect about 20 ppm of increase for each 1 C of temperature rise.
I have one weee contention with this logic, this interglacial is also the longest period clear of glaciation in the vostoc record(at least 400ky, as i understand there are issues with the data prior this period due to corruption from volcanism?), why? but that lil why aside, it would not be totally unreasonable to speculate that we have had enough time for greater deep sea mixing/warming gas exchange than previous interglacials, so as much as it is certainly speculation, i dont think its beyond the realms of possibility that natural, long term factors could be manifesting themselves. And i certainly think it would be premature too assume that this interglacials atmosphere should behave exactly the same as past ones considering the differences.
MikeE (18:25:30) this was in response to Joel Shore (17:56:10) :
and i will add that it is possible that this is the longest period clear of glaciation in 2.5million years from what ive read on the subject.
@ur momisugly Joel Shore (17:56:10) :
I believe what ends up being important is the rate of CO2 increase…which is extremely fast compared to other times over the last 750,000 years for which we have ice core data…and there is reason to believe it might be without any precedent in the past.
As Joel stated, the RATE is the key:
CO2 concentrations are known accurately for the past 650,000 years. During that time, they varied between 180 ppm and 300 ppm. As of March 2009 CO2 is 385 ppm which took about 100 years to increase. For comparison, it took over 5,000 years for an 80 ppm rise after the last glacial period.
Joel, what is your profession, may I ask? If you prefer you can email me. The link is on my Website.
MikeE says:
The numbers given here http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/01/calculating-the-greenhouse-effect/ are that CO2 contributes between 9% and 26% of the greenhouse effect, which are a little higher but not too far off what you say. Note that the two different estimates come from two different gedanken experiments: the 9% figure is how much the temperature would drop if you removed all the CO2 while leaving the other greenhouse gas concentrations unchanged. The 26% figure is the amount of the 33K greenhouse effect you’d get if you started with an atmosphere devoid of greenhouse gases and then added CO2 in. [This is slightly confused by the fact that the 33 K for the greenhouse effect is with the current albedo…and a climate state without clouds would have a lower albedo, but that aspect is ignored for this thought experiment.]
The most important thing to note, however, is that the assumptions of these experiments is that you change CO2 levels while keeping everything else constant. In the real world, that is not what happens…If you decrease CO2 levels and the temperature drops, the amount of water vapor will drop too and hence there will be more cooling. Likewise, if you increase CO2 levels and the temperature rise, the amount of water vapor will rise too and hence there will be more warming.
Of course, there will also be potential changes in cloud cover, which are pretty subtle to predict and, furthermore, the net radiative effect of clouds depends on their nature: An increase in high clouds tends to cause the trapping of more IR radiation than it does the blocking of solar radiation and hence tends to cause warming whereas an increase in low clouds tends to cause the blocking of more solar radiation than trapping of IR radiation and hence tends to cause cooling. How clouds respond is the largest source of uncertainty in predicting future climate change in response to changes in greenhouse gas levels.
Scott Mandia (19:00:29) :
you are assuming nature is linear with that reasoning?(a few sayings about assumption immediately come to mind) CO2 is what limits life on the planet(yah gotta laugh at the people going on about over loading the biosphere, and in the same breath preaching about the evils of co2.,.. or is that cry)
There is a period in the distant past comparable to today, that would be the end of the carboniferous period, again during an extended ice age, its also the only other period with comparable atmospheric co2 levels. And after that ice house period ended atmospheric co2 levels again elevated themselves too the “normal” hot house levels. We can speculate about mechanisms, but i think that is all we can really do at this stage. (inadequate resolution for the data)
I personally believe we have elevated co2 levels through the burning of fossil fuels… i dont however consider co2 a primary climate driver, im sure it will lead to “some” warming. But that it will be catastrophic is not a given. Or that the ideal climate for the earth is as it is today(or tuesday gone, or 200 years ago for that matter). It is going to change whatever we do. The belief in a static climate is idiotic, and a belief in maintaining the glacial/interglacial cycles of the past 2.5million years would be genocidal. We are adaptable, but i dont think we could grow much on a mile thick ice sheet. (although it would do wonders for real estate values down here in the SH)
Scott, I am a (condensed matter / statistical) physicist…and a computational guy, not an experimentalist. No formal training in atmospheric science, although I have had an interest since childhood in meteorology and, more recently, a growing interest in climate change over the last ~10 years.
@ur momisugly MikeE (19:37:00) :
you are assuming nature is linear with that reasoning?
No, I do not think so but I always try to keep my comments as simple as possible (although I know I am verbose at times). I frequently tell my students that most concepts are more complicated than how I present them because I do not wish to “lose the students”. (I teach science to mostly non-science majors).
I personally believe we have elevated co2 levels through the burning of fossil fuels
I believe we have found common ground, although I KNOW we have elevated CO2 – no belief is required. 🙂
i dont however consider co2 a primary climate driver, im sure it will lead to “some” warming.
I am quite sure that CO2 IS the primary climate driver and will lead to more than just “some” warming.
The belief in a static climate is idiotic
Agreed, although I prefer the word foolish.
We are adaptable
Yes we are but can we adapt quickly enough? Can we do so cost-effectively? Humans are not the only species affected by global warming. What about the other forms of life that might be significantly affected by global warming? Not to get too spiritual, but all life is interconnected and hurting one part of life invariably leads to a hit to others. And, for those fiscal conservatives, when the food chain takes a hit, so does your wallet.
@ur momisugly Joel Shore (19:40:04) :
Thanks. Check out my Weather Page at:
http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/met101/weather.html
Shameless plug.
REPLY: You could demonstrate how unbiased you are by inlcuding some of the content that I provide from IntelliWeather.com – shameless plug. – Anthony