From UCSB News: (h/t to David Schnare) UCSB Geologist Discovers Pattern in Earth’s Long-Term Climate Record
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(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– In an analysis of the past 1.2 million years, UC Santa Barbara geologist Lorraine Lisiecki discovered a pattern that connects the regular changes of the Earth’s orbital cycle to changes in the Earth’s climate. The finding is reported in this week’s issue of the scientific journal Nature Geoscience.
Lisiecki performed her analysis of climate by examining ocean sediment cores. These cores come from 57 locations around the world. By analyzing sediments, scientists are able to chart the Earth’s climate for millions of years in the past. Lisiecki’s contribution is the linking of the climate record to the history of the Earth’s orbit.
It is known that the Earth’s orbit around the sun changes shape every 100,000 years. The orbit becomes either more round or more elliptical at these intervals. The shape of the orbit is known as its “eccentricity.” A related aspect is the 41,000-year cycle in the tilt of the Earth’s axis.
Glaciation of the Earth also occurs every 100,000 years. Lisiecki found that the timing of changes in climate and eccentricity coincided. “The clear correlation between the timing of the change in orbit and the change in the Earth’s climate is strong evidence of a link between the two,” said Lisiecki. “It is unlikely that these events would not be related to one another.”
Besides finding a link between change in the shape of the orbit and the onset of glaciation, Lisiecki found a surprising correlation. She discovered that the largest glacial cycles occurred during the weakest changes in the eccentricity of Earth’s orbit –– and vice versa. She found that the stronger changes in the Earth’s orbit correlated to weaker changes in climate. “This may mean that the Earth’s climate has internal instability in addition to sensitivity to changes in the orbit,” said Lisiecki.
She concludes that the pattern of climate change over the past million years likely involves complicated interactions between different parts of the climate system, as well as three different orbital systems. The first two orbital systems are the orbit’s eccentricity, and tilt. The third is “precession,” or a change in the orientation of the rotation axis.
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This is real climate science. Like the earth – this rocks!
And this is supposed to be NEWS? Hasn’t she ever heard of the Milankovich curve?
I guess the sole reason for this rehash lies in the sentence:
“This may mean that the Earth’s climate has internal instability in addition to sensitivity to changes in the orbit,”
Now if she had an explanation why the glacial cycles switched from the 41,000 year obliquity cycle to the 100,000 year eccentricity about a million years ago, that would be NEWS (note that the graphics stops at one million years).
This has been known for ages, e.g., the Milankovich cycles. I don’t understand what is new about her research unless it correlates new ocean sediments with these cycles as opposed to previous studies that have shown the same thing.
On one hand we have satellite data for 30 years. On the otherhand, many cycles and oscillations are longer than that. We have a problem They are trying to measure the distance to the moon with a 12 inch ruler.
This looks to be real science, with a real scientist at work that appears not to have a climate-related political bias one way or the other. Observations of real events with data that can be analyzed by other scientists. Discoveries with surprises that create more questions to be answered and begging more research to find those answers.
Science looking to solve the mysteries of our universe, not to alter politics. How refreshing!
This is clearly very interesting, but I’m sure the AGW people will say it’s irrelevant.
To them, nothing but CO2 can explain the “recent sudden rise in temperature”. Even if we could prove that 100% of any temperature increase was explained by this — or any other — theory, they still wouldn’t accept it. The fact that increasing CO2 concentration leads to increasing temperature overrides any natural explanation whatever it might be.
Careful tty, she knows where you live. 😉
PDF here: http://www.leverhulmeclimatesymposium.org/uploads/documents/posters/Lisiecki.pdf
CO2 anyone? This suggests that NADW formation is strongly
sensitive to factors beyond ice volume and summer insolation at high northern latitudes
Obviously, CO2 is pretty much meaningless … we’re all doomed no matter.
The graph makes perfect sense to me, although this isn’t newly discovered in any way. Is all that’s happened here is a thorough review of Milankovich?
Wow! Real science!
Uhhh… I just looked at the diagram again. Is it just me or does it look like it’s about to get real cold?
So where does the Goracle’s orbit around the rest of us fit into this theory?
This will be fun. Like the Creationists arguing that God arranged the fossils, I’m half expecting to see Realclimate suggest that Big Oil has secretly been arranging sediments (while pretending to drill for oil) as part of their grand conspiracy to kill the planet.
Agree with tty, particularly the last point.
This stuff is giving me a headache…. why no say; it’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter and tell Al Gore to go blow himself.
So, once again C02 has little/nothing to do with “climate change”?
Should we expect this information to be in the next IPCC report?????
Not to put a damper on this new research, but it clearly does not demonstrate how CO2 controls the orbital variations of the earth.
So what’s new here that James Croll and Milankovitch didn’t already discover?
hmmmm….from the same lady:
Sunlight Has More Powerful Influence On Ocean Circulation And Climate Than North American Ice Sheets
ScienceDaily (Nov. 7, 2008) —
The distribution of sunlight, rather than the size of North American ice sheets, is the key variable in changes in the North Atlantic deep-water formation during the last four glacial cycles, according to the article. The new study goes back 425,000 years, according to Lorraine Lisiecki, first author and assistant professor in the Department of Earth Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara….
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081106153633.htm
tty (12:00:43) :
And this is supposed to be NEWS? Hasn’t she ever heard of the Milankovich curve?
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“Lisiecki’s contribution is the linking of the climate record to the history of the Earth’s orbit.”
There are assumptions and theory, but nothing beats having empirical, duplicable hard data to back up assumptions and theory.
tty, it’s news if few people heard of it. I recall reading about this a long time ago, but could not remember it clearly, and that was before the internet, anyhow. Good article, IMO.
Looks like we are right at a peak, and that’s a pretty sharp drop off staring us in the face. Not a good thing. (Time to buy stock in the company that makes Sorells.)
The real news is that a young woman at UCSB is actually making observations and writing about climate mechanisms that don’t somehow depend upon carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This “blasphemy” is somehow getting some legitimate attention without the geologist being completely condemned.
Looks like progress to me.
My thoughts exactly.
More stuff from Mrs. Lisiecki is here:
http://lorraine-lisiecki.com/