Opposite Behaviors? Arctic Sea Ice Shrinks, Antarctic Grows
September 2012 witnessed two opposite records concerning sea ice. Two weeks after the Arctic Ocean’s ice cap experienced an all-time summertime low for the satellite era (left), Antarctic sea ice reached a record winter maximum extent (right). But sea ice in the Arctic has melted at a much faster rate than it has expanded in the Southern Ocean, as can be seen in this image by comparing the 2012 sea ice levels with the yellow outline, which in the Arctic image represents average sea ice minimum extent from 1979 through 2010 and in the Antarctic image shows the median sea ice extent in September from 1979 to 2000. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio and NASA Earth Observatory/ Jesse Allen
The steady and dramatic decline in the sea ice cover of the Arctic Ocean over the last three decades has become a focus of media and public attention. At the opposite end of the Earth, however, something more complex is happening.
A new NASA study shows that from 1978 to 2010 the total extent of sea ice surrounding Antarctica in the Southern Ocean grew by roughly 6,600 square miles every year, an area larger than the state of Connecticut. And previous research by the same authors indicates that this rate of increase has recently accelerated, up from an average rate of almost 4,300 square miles per year from 1978 to 2006.
“There’s been an overall increase in the sea ice cover in the Antarctic, which is the opposite of what is happening in the Arctic,” said lead author Claire Parkinson, a climate scientist with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. “However, this growth rate is not nearly as large as the decrease in the Arctic.”
The Earth’s poles have very different geographies. The Arctic Ocean is surrounded by North America, Greenland and Eurasia. These large landmasses trap most of the sea ice, which builds up and retreats with each yearly freeze-and-melt cycle. But a large fraction of the older, thicker Arctic sea ice has disappeared over the last three decades. The shrinking summer ice cover has exposed dark ocean water that absorbs sunlight and warms up, leading to more ice loss.
On the opposite side of the planet, Antarctica is a continent circled by open waters that let sea ice expand during the winter but also offer less shelter during the melt season. Most of the Southern Ocean’s frozen cover grows and retreats every year, leading to little perennial sea ice in Antarctica.
Using passive-microwave data from NASA’s Nimbus 7 satellite and several Department of Defense meteorological satellites, Parkinson and colleague Don Cavalieri showed that sea ice changes were not uniform around Antarctica. Most of the growth from 1978 to 2010 occurred in the Ross Sea, which gained a little under 5,300 square miles of sea ice per year, with more modest increases in the Weddell Sea and Indian Ocean. At the same time, the region of the Bellingshausen and Amundsen Seas lost an average of about 3,200 square miles of ice every year.
› View larger The ice covering the Bellingshausen Sea, off the coast of Antarctica, as seen from a NASA Operation IceBridge flight on Oct. 13, 2012. Credit: NASA/Michael Studinger
Parkinson and Cavalieri said that the mixed pattern of ice growth and ice loss around the Southern Ocean could be due to changes in atmospheric circulation. Recent research points at the depleted ozone layer over Antarctica as a possible culprit. Ozone absorbs solar energy, so a lower concentration of this molecule can lead to a cooling of the stratosphere (the layer between six and 30 miles above the Earth’s surface) over Antarctica. At the same time, the temperate latitudes have been warming, and the differential in temperatures has strengthened the circumpolar winds flowing over the Ross Ice Shelf.
“Winds off the Ross Ice Shelf are getting stronger and stronger, and that causes the sea ice to be pushed off the coast, which generates areas of open water, polynyas,” said Josefino Comiso, a senior scientist at NASA Goddard. “The larger the coastal polynya, the more ice it produces, because in polynyas the water is in direct contact with the very cold winter atmosphere and rapidly freezes.” As the wind keeps blowing, the ice expands further to the north.
This year’s winter Antarctic sea ice maximum extent, reached two weeks after the Arctic Ocean’s ice cap experienced an all-time summertime low, was a record high for the satellite era of 7.49 million square miles, about 193,000 square miles more than its average maximum extent for the last three decades.
The Antarctic minimum extents, which are reached in the midst of the Antarctic summer, in February, have also slightly increased to 1.33 million square miles in 2012, or around 251,000 square miles more than the average minimum extent since 1979.
The numbers for the southernmost ocean, however, pale in comparison with the rates at which the Arctic has been losing sea ice – the extent of the ice cover of the Arctic Ocean in September 2012 was 1.32 million square miles below the average September extent from 1979 to 2000. The lost ice area is equivalent to roughly two Alaskas.
Parkinson said that the fact that some areas of the Southern Ocean are cooling and producing more sea ice does not disprove a warming climate.
“Climate does not change uniformly: The Earth is very large and the expectation definitely would be that there would be different changes in different regions of the world,” Parkinson said. “That’s true even if overall the system is warming.” Another recent NASA study showed that Antarctic sea ice slightly thinned from 2003 to 2008, but increases in the extent of the ice balanced the loss in thickness and led to an overall volume gain.
The new research, which used laser altimetry data from the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat), was the first to estimate sea ice thickness for the entire Southern Ocean from space.
Records of Antarctic sea ice thickness are much patchier than those of the Arctic, due to the logistical challenges of taking regular measurements in the fierce and frigid waters around Antarctica. The field data collection is mostly limited to research icebreakers that generally only travel there during spring and summer – so the sole means to get large-scale thickness measurements is from space.
“We have a good handle of the extent of the Antarctic sea ice, but the thickness has been the missing piece to monitor the sea ice mass balance,” said Thorsten Markus, one of the authors of the study and Project Scientist for ICESat-2, a satellite mission designed to replace the now defunct ICESat. ICESat-2 is scheduled to launch in 2016. “The extent can be greater, but if the sea ice gets thinner, the volume could stay the same.”
Maria-José Viñas
NASA’s Earth Science News Team
And if anyone asks for links, read the F’ing posts.
For clarity’s sake, he (Gary Lance) starts by saying that Co2 is the cause and then goes on to say that Paleo Co2 measurements cannot be accurate.
People can only write it, they can’t hold your hand and make you comprehend it.
Our measurements today for CO2 are accurate, but distant past measurements aren’t. That doesn’t mean we can’t see changes in the distant past of temperature and CO2, it just means we aren’t sure what the exact amount of CO2 was.
If you were bright enough to read a chart, you would notice the margin of error for CO2 measurements even millions of years ago is small, while it’s quite large hundreds of millions of years ago.
Now, since you are so smart, how can ice a mile or so thick over oceans be melted with a sun only putting out the irradiance of our ice age sun? How do you explain the oxygen levels in our atmosphere rising after Snowball Earth, if it wasn’t from CO2 and plants? In simple language, where did that oxygen come from?
According to scientists, the only thing that could get the Earth out of a Snowball Earth condition is volcanos adding CO2 to the atmosphere allowing melting in some area where albedo provides a positive feedback. The concept is the ice prohibited CO2 from making contact with the oceans and kept rising in the atmosphere over tens of millions of years. A person who doesn’t believe CO2 can warm a planet can’t believe there ever was a Snowball Earth, despite all the evidence there was.
According to scientists, if the world glaciates to the point where New Orleans has glaciers, a tipping point is reached to make a Snowball Earth.
From Gary Lance on October 26, 2012 at 6:53 pm:
Now here is where you’re confusing me, Gary. At the Indian Plate entry I see the oldest date by the old theory is 55-50 Ma for the start of the collision of the full plates. But the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) began at 55 Ma and was noted for a massive release of carbon, evidence pointing to a release of methane from clathrates that became CO₂.
So at a time of CO₂ dramatically rising to incredible levels, where is the drop showing the plates must have collided?
But the PETM was a geologically brief period, temperature rise over 20,000 years, recovery over 120-170,000 years by the C-13 isotope record.
Your mention of a CO₂ drop providing the timing of the collision is the only one I’ve seen. You’ll have to provide a reference for it. Modern dating methods such as using the paleomagnetic data say otherwise.
As Wikipedia says about the relatively quick recovery of the PETM:
The biological activity removes the CO₂, which comes with its own negative feedback as higher CO₂ spurs biological growth thus increasing CO₂ removal. More weathering which provides more nutrients also happens. But there is no requirement for mountain building, and volcanoes need not be offset as the nutrients they supply will help the removal.
You say:
We get quite a lot of geologists visiting the site. They look at the current temperature record in light of the variations during the Earth’s history over geological timescales, and wonder why there’s so much consternation over brief flickering noise. The inexorable rhythms of the planet are going to be irrevocably altered by mere humans? Humans are along for the ride, they’re not the driver.
BTW, 2007 research showed CO₂ lagged temperature about 3000 years at the start of the PETM.
Back when we were arguing at the Sea Ice post a week ago I linked to the Ira Glickstein articles explaining the greenhouse effect. CO₂ does change temperature, that’s been established. But the effect is logarithmic, and saturated at current atmospheric levels, and already small compared to the most important GHG, water vapor. Any further increases in atmospheric concentrations in the expected ranges won’t be providing any significant temperature increases, if they’re detectable at all.
Plus as it stands, we keep finding in the records and reconstructions that change in CO₂ lags change in temperature. The first 20ppm yielded over half the GHE seen at pre-industrial levels. CO₂ stopped being a causer of temperature increases, now it’s along for the ride.
Gary Lance says:
“Our measurements today for CO2 are accurate, but distant past measurements aren’t.”
It’s hard to believe someone can be so wrong about almost everything, but here we have Gary Lance as proof.
Ice core measurements are accepted by most all peer reviewed geologists, climatologists and atmospheric scientists. The error bands may be wider, but that is not what is important. What is important is the undeniable fact that ∆CO2 always follows ∆T. But there is no empirical evidence showing that ∆CO2 is the cause of ∆T.
Regarding the PETM, there is no evidence that CO2 was the cause. Again, the evidence shows that the rise in CO2 followedd the rise in temperature — as always.
So Lance’s Belief system just took another hit from kadaka, but Gary doesn’t care. His incurable cognitive dissonance protects him from the effects of doublethink. Good thing, too, otherwise his head might explode.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
October 26, 2012 at 7:32 pm
Since when is algae not a plant? Try Stromatolites!
Methane can be made by bacteria, but that only gets you carbon. The question was where did the oxygen come from and it was only about 6% of the atmosphere back then. The early oxygen was used to get rid of iron.
It’s deposits of iron not fully oxidized that supports the concept of Snowball Earth. Our present Earth gets cold enough to make dry ice out of CO2, so imagine a Snowball Earth. Water can’t exist in such a cold atmosphere long enough to warm a planet. Methane can’t exist long enough before it’s converted to CO2. The fact is the methane on Earth comes from life that doesn’t need oxygen.
Only CO2 can melt a Snowball Earth and only CO2 can provide the oxygen.
Your alchemy isn’t going to work.
Gary Lance:
At October 27, 2012 at 1:28 pm you write
I write to ask a clarification; i.e.
are you trying to imply that you have met some people who are “scientists”?
Richard
Gary Lance says:
October 27, 2012 at 1:28 pm
A person who doesn’t believe CO2 can warm a planet can’t believe there ever was a Snowball Earth, despite all the evidence there was.
…
Only CO2 can melt a Snowball Earth and only CO2 can provide the oxygen.
…
According to scientists, the only thing that could get the Earth out of a Snowball Earth condition is volcanos adding CO2 to the atmosphere allowing melting in some area where albedo provides a positive feedback.
Gary’s condescendingly exclusive use of the word “scientist” only provides observational data for other scientists, namely primate socio-biologists. What he is saying boils down to “were at the top of the tree, you’re at the bottom”. Professional scientists are paradoxically some of the most deeply primitive and old-world ape-like human social assemblages in terms of heirarchical politics. Its time that science matured into a profession and scientists into professionals.
The “CO2 only” obsession started as political expediency mixed with merely bad science. It is however evolving into something like religious fanaticism.
A real scientist in the original sense keeps an open mind to all data. Yes we all know about Arrhenius and IR absorption by CO2, but we also know about saturation, logarithmic tail-off of effect with concentration, interaction with water vapour etc with the real possibility of negative feedbacks (and the bizzare improbability of positive feedback and the knife-edge instability – never observed – that dominant positive feedback would entail).
“Only CO2 can…” is not a rational scientific statement. CO2 might in some circumstances warm a planet – e.g. when introduced starting from zero CO2 in the atmosphere. But other thing also can warm a planet. Massive volcanism in contact with seawater releases huge amounts of heat energy as superheated steam directly into the atmosphere. Volcanism can also heat ocean currents if on a large enough scale like a major continental separation or a flood basalt. And as already mentioned, on very long timescales (millions to 10s of millions of years) tectonic drift changes ocean currents which profoundly affects climate and temperature, on a scale dwarfing CO2.
Also the constantly repeating evidence of CO2 levels following temperature, not preceding them – must in rational minds still further question how CO2 could drive temperatures. The most convoluted and tortuous inversions of Occam’s razor have been shamelessle advanced to apparently explain the impossible, that the following, lagging signal is somehow driving the change and the leading signal.
Why this repetition of “only CO2 can produce oxygen”. No-one disputes that photosynthesis produced O2 from CO2. What is remarkable in the context of current CAGW hysteria is that ancient atmospheres dominated by CO2 did not cause runaway heating – if they caused heating at all they only did so such as to move climate into a life supporting regime – not away from one.
In the end it again and again points back to Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis – in a planet with a biosphere, living processes move climate to suit them, as demonstrated robustly in the varied series of “daisyworld” simulations. It is odd that the CAGW scare is proposing that anthropogenic CO2 now does the opposite – moves climate away from a life-supporting regime. It is more likely that the reverse is true.
We humans are “merely” organisms ourselves, not gods. There is no need for a Ragnarok environmentalist self-apocalypse. Life will find a way.
Gary Lance
http://resilientearth.com/files/images/Phanerozoic_Carbon_Dioxide.jpg
http://deforestation.geologist-1011.net/PhanerozoicCO2-Temperatures.png
“The immediate cause of extinction appears to have been the movement of Gondwana into the south polar region.”
“The event was preceded by a fall in atmospheric CO2, which selectively affected the shallow seas where most organisms lived.”
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordovician%E2%80%93Silurian_extinction_events
Thanks for the useful links. Is this not more evidence that continental tectonic movement and ocean current re-routing, profoundly changes global temperature? This is an important observation but nothing here points to primacy of CO2 effect – if anything it is again an index of ocean temperature change, no more. (Or did I miss your point?)
phlogiston says:
October 27, 2012 at 3:53 pm
It’s been pointed out that the only way out of the Icehouse Earth is CO2 and that explains the O2 increasing. There wasn’t the tectonic movement and ocean current re-routing you claim and you are just saying it was so without proof.
The extinction event that ranks number 1 was caused by ocean acidification and the Earth will respond whether man or volcanos cause that ocean acidification. Life went on has little meaning when you’ve wiped out 70% of the species.
If you don’t think it could happen again, look at this:
Climate-changing methane ‘rapidly destabilizing’ off East Coast, study finds
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/24/14670511-climate-changing-methane-rapidly-destabilizing-off-east-coast-study-finds?lite#__utma=238145375.2143556789.1351242687.1351242687.1351242687.1&__utmb=238145375.9.10.1351242687&__utmc=238145375&__utmx=-&__utmz=238145375.1351242687.1.1.utmcsr=nbcnews.com|utmccn=(referral)|utmcmd=referral|utmcct=/&__utmv=238145375.|8=Earned%20By=msnbc%7Ctechnology%20%26%20science%7Cscience=1^12=Landing%20Content=Mixed=1^13=Landing%20Hostname=www.msnbc.msn.com=1^30=Visit%20Type%20to%20Content=Internal%20to%20Mixed=1&__utmk=23152633
phlogiston says:
October 27, 2012 at 3:41 pm
There was a warming event and the Earth gained oxygen afterwards. What besides CO2 can do that?
If there ever was a snowball earth, it was most likely ended by exceptional volcanic activity with ash covering much of the globe. CO2 couldn’t do squat about it. Can you find a scientist who says it could? –AGF
agfosterjr says:
October 28, 2012 at 2:46 pm
If there ever was a snowball earth, it was most likely ended by exceptional volcanic activity with ash covering much of the globe. CO2 couldn’t do squat about it. Can you find a scientist who says it could? –AGF
You talk about volcanos ashing the whole world and finding a scientist who agrees with what all decent scientists agree! Where did this explanation about CO2 building up from volcanos originate? It was scientists, but you don’t even know what they are. Does your ash produce oxygen?
Sorry for not making it simple enough. Ash lowers albedo to the tune of (an increase of) several hundred watts per meter. CO2 only adds a few watts per meter. And I repeat, CO2 converts to O2 on a 1:1 ratio, meaning any harmless CO2 increase doesn’t make a measureable dent in O2 content. Once again, have you found a scientist that says CO2 ended snowball earth?
–AGF
More for GL:
Raymond T. Pierrehumbert writes: “In my simulations, the system remains far short of deglaciation even at atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations of 550 times the present levels (0.2 bar of CO2). ” (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v429/n6992/abs/nature02640.html)
A problem with postulating an atmosphere isolated from the ocean is that once the ocean freezes over no more precipitation is possible. The ocean is not likely to freeze to the bottom, nor is it likely to be evaporated entirely and deposited on the continents. Tropical glaciers can hardly be fed by frozen tropical seas, and could only be fed very slowly by near frozen tropical seas. This implies that photosynthesis cannot be interrupted without a synchronous interruption of precipitation and glaciation, which in turn precludes a connection between tropical glaciation and a build up of CO2. If for unknown reasons photosynthesis ceased in cold open water, CO2 build up would quickly ensue, bringing an end to tropical glaciation. Which is to say, the more warming we attribute to CO2, the more difficult it is to get a snowball earth in the first place.
Why don’t you describe for us your interpretation of the snowball? –AGF
agfosterjr says:
October 29, 2012 at 7:32 am
Sorry for not making it simple enough. Ash lowers albedo to the tune of (an increase of) several hundred watts per meter. CO2 only adds a few watts per meter. And I repeat, CO2 converts to O2 on a 1:1 ratio, meaning any harmless CO2 increase doesn’t make a measureable dent in O2 content. Once again, have you found a scientist that says CO2 ended snowball earth?
–AGF
1. Being of a number more than two or three but not many: several miles away.
Source: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/several
I take it when someone speaks English, several means at least 3, but not many.
The surface of the Earth only absorbs 161 watts per square meter, so maybe those watts per meter add all that extra energy you think the sun has.
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/research/profiles/images/2009/trenberth3.jpg
Every scientist who accepts Snowball Earth knows only CO2 can end it. How does that ash make oxygen or does the meter do it too?
phlogiston says:
“The ‘CO2 only’ obsession started as political expediency mixed with merely bad science. It is however evolving into something like religious fanaticism.”
Gary Lance’s “only CO2” nonsense is the old Argumentum ad Ignorantium fallacy. Lance displays similar scientific ignorance in every comment he posts.
The earth’s crust contains ≈47% oxygen. There is plenty of oxygen available without invoking CO2, which even at its highest concentration was only about 5600 ppmv — compared with oxygen at ≈200,000 ppmv. Obviously there are other more important sources of oxygen.
But as usual Lance is fixated on CO2, like all of Algore’s religious acolytes. Facts and reason cannot penetrate his CO2=CAGW belief, despite mountains of contrary evidence.
Lance says:
“Every scientist who accepts Snowball Earth knows only CO2 can end it.”
Notwithstanding the fact that rises in CO2 follow rises in temperature. That is just an inconvenient fact to be ignored by acolytes. Faced with the choice between empirical evidence and belief, Lance chooses belief. No surprise there.
Look, pinhead: this figure of 161/23 is a global/annual average indicating an albedo of 23/(23+161) = .125, a very low albedo. Snowball earth would have an albedo of about .9. The sun puts out over 1300W/m, and temperate weather stations routinely measure 1000W when the sun shines on a cloudless summer noon. That’s the kind of energy required to start ice melting to end an ice age, and the northern hemisphere only seems to get enough when Milankovitch Cycles favor it. Notice how high the albedo is in the IR range? I doubt it. You probably don’t know what albedo and IR mean. I’m trying to teach good science to a credentialed a**hole.
–AGF
agfosterjr says:
October 29, 2012 at 9:03 am
More for GL:
Raymond T. Pierrehumbert writes: “In my simulations, the system remains far short of deglaciation even at atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations of 550 times the present levels (0.2 bar of CO2). ” (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v429/n6992/abs/nature02640.html)
A problem with postulating an atmosphere isolated from the ocean is that once the ocean freezes over no more precipitation is possible. The ocean is not likely to freeze to the bottom, nor is it likely to be evaporated entirely and deposited on the continents. Tropical glaciers can hardly be fed by frozen tropical seas, and could only be fed very slowly by near frozen tropical seas. This implies that photosynthesis cannot be interrupted without a synchronous interruption of precipitation and glaciation, which in turn precludes a connection between tropical glaciation and a build up of CO2. If for unknown reasons photosynthesis ceased in cold open water, CO2 build up would quickly ensue, bringing an end to tropical glaciation. Which is to say, the more warming we attribute to CO2, the more difficult it is to get a snowball earth in the first place.
Why don’t you describe for us your interpretation of the snowball? –AGF
You are talking about a period of time with about 6% less sunlight, less than what’s presently is available in an ice age. Photosynthesis is confined to bacteria and complex multicelled life forms don’t exist until near the end of Cryogenia. We don’t have data on what the CO2 level was at that time, so to claim CO2 levels couldn’t allow a Snowball Earth is just making things up. Do I have to walk you through the process again of how the CO2 can slowly build up in the atmosphere after the Earth freezes over and prohibits water from removing it from the atmosphere? Cryogenia (850 to 635 million years ago) was suppose to have lasted 315-320 million years, so that is a very long time.
The early photosynthesis was doing a job on iron. The early Earth’s surface and oceans had huge amounts of iron. CO2 was needed to make oxygen and remove the iron and there is no evidence of oxygen returning CO2 by life. During the Snowball Earth times, iron was deposited in a state showing a lack of oxygen, which is one of the reason to suspect it. Eventually, the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere would rise to 34%, so the Earth had to give up a lot of carbon to get rid of all that iron and eventually make all those carbonate rocks.
There was very little land mass near the tropics. The chemical signals in rocks points to CO2 losing it’s contact with the oceans, building up in the atmosphere and losing the ice cover. There is evidence of acid rain consistent with large CO2 concentrations and the increase in oxygen after Snowball Earth. That world would be cold enough to form dry ice from CO2 at the poles.
Here is the late period:
http://www.angewandte-geologie.geol.uni-erlangen.de/p_650.jpg
agfosterjr says:
October 29, 2012 at 11:28 am
Look, pinhead: this figure of 161/23 is a global/annual average indicating an albedo of 23/(23+161) = .125, a very low albedo. Snowball earth would have an albedo of about .9. The sun puts out over 1300W/m, and temperate weather stations routinely measure 1000W when the sun shines on a cloudless summer noon. That’s the kind of energy required to start ice melting to end an ice age, and the northern hemisphere only seems to get enough when Milankovitch Cycles favor it. Notice how high the albedo is in the IR range? I doubt it. You probably don’t know what albedo and IR mean. I’m trying to teach good science to a credentialed a**hole.
–AGF
The sun loses some energy just getting to our atmosphere. I see you have lost another debate and need to go ad hom. How much sun does the Earth get at night or at poles during a winter? What about seasons and times of day of getting sunlight at low angles. Those figures are the amounts for each square meter or meter as you like to call it throughout time. Having a low albedo means you don’t reflect much sunlight, so as that 23 is reduced the Earth will absorb more. Here is an older one:
http://www.optocleaner.com/images/Solar-Radiation-Budget-650.jpg
Snowball Earth would probably have a snow white albedo and would reflect about nine tenths of the sunlight of a sun putting out 6% less sunlight. Snow would be rare, but it would still happen, so mass should even out on the surface. I would still expect winds. Ice will also flow with gravity and the time scale is millions of years.
You mention Milankovitch Cycles and do you have evidence such conditions haven’t changed? What makes you think the axial tilt was the same?
GL: “Do I have to walk you through the process again of how the CO2 can slowly build up in the atmosphere after the Earth freezes over and prohibits water from removing it from the atmosphere?”
What? No precipitation? Then how can it snow? How can glaciers form? I thought tropical glaciers were the main evidence. “…very little land mass near the tropics”? We’re lucky any evidence survived at all. “…cold enough to form dry ice from CO2 at the poles”? Then why wouldn’t it all collect at the poles and stay there?
“…there is no evidence of oxygen returning CO2 by life” but “complex multicelled life forms don’t exist until near the end of Cryogenia”? Let me walk you through this contradiction:
You are claiming multicellular life evolved during snowball earth! But did so without photosythesis, or at least without returning O2 to the atmosphere (or did you mean to say there were no 02 consumers–hard to tell). Or did you mean to say they did not evolve till after the snowball? Primary evolutionary radiation in freezing water seems highly unlikely, especially in light of the fact that tropical physiology is the rule for complex life; cold adaptation is the aberration.
It seems you have a few problems to deal with. –AGF
agfosterjr says:
October 29, 2012 at 1:22 pm
Cryogenia is the name of a long geologic period, so when did I say it was all Snowball Earth? Try checking the facts and stop acting like you know something! Cryogenia is not equal to Snowball Earth. You are too busy trying to correct people who know more than you do. Correct yourself and learn the basics!
Gary Lance:
re your post to agfosterjr at October 29, 2012 at 2:29 pm.
I write to ask a genuine question because I am truly curious.
Why do you claim superior knowledge every time you have been shown to be wrong by somebody who obviously knows much, much more than you?
Richard
Gary Lance says:
October 29, 2012 at 2:29 pm
=========================
Not even a Google search brings up “Cryogenia.” It seems to be your own word for the Cryogenian period, and thus you’ll have to excuse me for not being up to date on your idiosyncratic vocabulary. I mean, if you’re going to fault me for shortening “meter squared” to “meter,” I’ll sure as hell fault you for faulting me for not knowing the meaning of words that you make up. I think I’ve had enough of this circus. –AGF
agfosterjr says:
October 29, 2012 at 3:13 pm
Gary Lance says:
October 29, 2012 at 2:29 pm
=========================
Not even a Google search brings up “Cryogenia.” It seems to be your own word for the Cryogenian period, and thus you’ll have to excuse me for not being up to date on your idiosyncratic vocabulary. I mean, if you’re going to fault me for shortening “meter squared” to “meter,” I’ll sure as hell fault you for faulting me for not knowing the meaning of words that you make up. I think I’ve had enough of this circus. –AGF
Sometimes when I type I hit a letter that doesn’t come up. I guess it happens to you too, six letters in a row.
Is there anything showing the Cryogenian was Snowball Earth?
The problem you have with science is you don’t believe changes in greenhouse gases can cause changes in the Earth’s energy balance, because your agenda is to prove CO2 emissions can’t be causing our present warming. Your agenda doesn’t take into account the consequences. I’m sure you’d jump on any bandwagon to claim it isn’t warming with glaciers, permafrost, snow cover, ice sheets and arctic sea ice melting away.
I was taking Geology courses before global warming concerns and there was no one objecting to a CO2/global temperature connection, until after it stayed warm and the fossil fuel industry felt threatened. Now, we have all these experts, who couldn’t pass a freshman class with their answers.
We already have 3 times the area of Greenland or the arctic sea ice minimum lose of snow cover in June. Whenever a glacier leaves the Earth, that solar radiation doesn’t have to spend time to melt it, so that heat is available to do other things, like raise temperatures or warm waters. The amount of heat required to melt ice at 0 degrees C to liquid water at 0 degrees C is the same amount of heat needed to warm 4 times that 0 degrees C water to 20 degrees C. That is 68 degrees F. It takes much more heat to raise the temperature of water than to raise the temperature of air. Not only do you have the albedo change, but heat can’t melt ice that isn’t there.
Let’s see if the people want to hear how natural the weather is in the next three years!