From the University of South Carolina, comes this paper that offers strong evidence of ‘rapid climate change’ occurring within less than a thousand years, with some occurring over just decades to centuries, near the same scale that proponents of man-made climate change worry so greatly about today.
Climate connections
Rapid climate change influenced marine ecosystems off the coast of Venezuela tens of thousands of years ago and was accompanied by simultaneous changes globally
In common parlance, the phrase “global climate change” is often used to describe how present-day climate is changing in response to human activities. But climate has also varied naturally and sometimes quite rapidly in the past, with implications for the ocean and its ecosystems.
This is what University of South Carolina paleoceanographer Kelly Gibson and colleagues illustrate in a recent paper, which demonstrates the influence of rapid climate change on marine ecosystems off the coast of Venezuela tens of thousands of years ago and shows how changes there were accompanied by simultaneous changes globally.
One natural expression of global climate change familiar to most people is the coming and going of what are commonly called “Ice Ages” over the past several hundred thousand years, some of which coincided with the development of modern humans. The most recent glacial period, for example, occurred from roughly 90,000 years ago until 15,000 years ago, and Homo sapiens who had mastered the widespread use of fire were around for the entire duration.
The beginning and end of a glacial period are clearly times of global climate change, but there are also periods of abrupt change in climate patterns within those periods. Gibson’s recent paper, published in the journal Paleoceanography, contributes to a better understanding of just how the oceans reflect those rapid changes.
Using core samples from the ocean’s floor in the Cariaco Basin, a body of water in the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Venezuela, she measured the change in the ratio of two isotopes of nitrogen from about 35,000 to 55,000 years ago, right in the middle of the last glacial period.
Nitrogen isotope ratios can be used to estimate the change in the amount of bioavailable nitrogen over time. The various compounds containing nitrogen (such as nitrate, nitrite or ammonia) are essential nutrients for ocean life, particularly for phytoplankton that serve as the foundation of the food web. Measuring the ratio, Gibson says, can help scientists understand changes in primary productivity; that is, how much food there is for more complex forms of sea life, like crustaceans or fish, to “graze” on. And understanding primary productivity is important for understanding the changes in another compound of particular interest right now and for the foreseeable future: carbon dioxide.
“The primary producers, the phytoplankton, take carbon dioxide out of the surface waters and ‘fix’ it into a form of carbon that can sink down to the deep where it is stored,” Gibson says. “That’s one reason we care — the ocean is the biggest sink of carbon dioxide, and by looking at nitrogen isotopes we can indirectly look at what draws down carbon dioxide.”
Gibson and the team, which included her postdoctoral adviser Bob Thunell, a professor in the Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences in Carolina’s College of Arts and Sciences, then correlated the changes in the Cariaco Basin with changes in other markers of climate change at other sites all over the globe.
“That’s one thing this kind of research is really helpful for — showing the teleconnections in the climate system,” Gibson says. “So you see something in this one 4,000-square-kilometer basin off the northeast coast of Venezuela, but you see similar changes in the Arabian Sea and in the tropical Pacific, and you can link it all back to changes seen in an ice sheet in Greenland.
“So if ice is melting in the Arctic — you might think well, poor polar bears, but it doesn’t matter, right? It matters because you’re going to feel that effect everywhere. The global climate system is very interconnected.”
And the changes can take place very quickly on a geological, and even human, time scale.
“The climate transitions that we studied took place on millenial time scales, less than a thousand years, with some occurring over just decades to centuries,” Gibson says. “So over the course of a human lifetime, these would have been changes that an individual would experience.
“As remarkable as it is that climate can change that quickly naturally, what is even more remarkable is that some of the rates of change we’re experiencing today — increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide for example — are faster than anything we’ve been able to find in the past several million years of geologic history. The climate system has the ability to respond to these rapid changes, but only to a point. The more we know about natural rapid climate change, the better we can help climate modelers forecast how climate might change in the future now that human activity is added to the mix.”
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The paper:
, , , , and (2015), The influence of rapid, millennial scale climate change on nitrogen isotope dynamics of the Cariaco Basin during marine isotope stage 3, Paleoceanography, 30, doi: 10.1002/2014PA002684.
Abstract
Understanding changes to the marine nitrogen cycle on millennial and shorter time scales can help determine the influence of rapid climate change on the fixed N pool and its sources and sinks. Rapid changes in denitrification have been observed in the eastern tropical North Pacific (ETNP) and Arabian Sea; however, millennial scale δ15N records in regions influenced by N2 fixation are sparse. We present a sedimentary δ15N record from the Cariaco Basin during marine isotope stage (MIS) 3 (~35–55 ka). The δ15N record displays a pattern of millennial scale variability that tracks the Greenland ice core Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles, with higher values observed during interstadial periods, lower values during stadial periods, and abrupt transitions in between. Conditions during interstadials are similar to those at present in the Cariaco Basin, with the sedimentary δ15N signal reflecting a combination of local processes and an imported regional signal. If interpreted to reflect regional processes, the interstadial δ15N values (average ~5.1‰) support the argument that N2 fixation did not increase in the tropical North Atlantic during the last glacial. The lower δ15N values during stadials, when lower sea level resulted in increased physical isolation of the basin, can be explained primarily by local processes. In spite of the importance of local processes, striking similarity is observed between the Cariaco record and millennial scale δ15N records from the ETNP and Arabian Sea. The apparent synchronicity of changes observed in all three regions suggests an atmospheric teleconnection between the three sites and high-latitude climate forcing during MIS 3.
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A very laudable effort, Mr. Daniel Kuhn, but you must by now have realised that you were talking to people who, ensconced in their certitudes, ignore the rest of the world (non-US, that is). They do not know, for instance, that the Rhöne river, and a few smaller rivers, provide us (the French) with 37 TWh of hydro-electricity a year, thanks to canals and locks (not dams), that any construction built with concrete in a river bed is usually there to stay for a couple of centuries (and thus, any CO2 emitted during the process of making cement is negligible over that period), perhaps because History started a bit earlier in our areas, experience makes us more modest. They are unaware of the fact that, sixty years ago, in France, an olive tree would have barely survided North of Lyon, unless carefully protected during the winter, nowadays, olive trees bloom in the suburbs of Paris (far from any urban heat island effect, and you can even pick ripe olives. No climate warming there, I suppose, if I am to believe them, just the effect of the increase of CO2.
Francois,
I am fully aware of the piddling amount of hydropower produced without large concrete dams. I also know that it is a little warmer now in Europe than during the LIA, thanks to natural fluctuations in the climate. I recognize further that both this naturally produced warmth and the wonderful benefit of more CO2 have combined to extend the range northward of various species.
Nothing you say has anything whatsoever to do with alleged man-made global warming, but even if it did, any such warming has been greatly beneficial.
It’s a mighty curious Frenchman that writes about the Rhöne, instead of the Rhône. It looks more like a gnome from Zürich.
Oh well, neither of them can quite comprehend that a lock and dam system is not differently conceived by engineers whose mother tongue is not English.
Maybe, when they leave silly school they’ll be engineers and they’ll have lots of fun building water-wheels on mill-ponds.
Daniel, listen up! You need a Damm to make a Schleuse.
In other words, no Damm, no Schleuse. Do you see how that works?
The Damm (we call it a dam) impedes the flow of water and,thereby, a lock is formed. If a landslide causes the dam, then the Scots call it a Loch. It’s basic; Arrhenius figured it out in 1884.
François, your story about olive trees is another warmist fantasy from someone who has no idea that Parisian gardeners know that olive trees can only stand a few degrees of frost, so they keep them in pots that they bring indoors when you’re not looking or they wrap them up in layers and layers of burlap for the winter and then cry when it turns out not to have been enough.
Fellow commenters, please stop indulging these twits with their childish one-liners!
Coldest recorded temperature in Paris: -23.9°C in 1879.
Coldest recorded temperature in Paris last century: -15°C in 1954.
Coldest recorded temperature in Paris this century: -8°C in 2013.
Looks like min temps in Paris have been rising for a long time.
“In areas where the minimum winter temperatures are between -2°C and -5°C, olive trees require no winter protection and will even tolerate drops down to -7°C for short periods, providing the daytime temperature rises sufficiently.”
—Olive tree growing guide – Big Plant Nursery
“Francois” is indeed a fishy Frenchman.
Besides which, the Rhone system includes lots of conventional dams:
http://www.industcards.com/hydro-france-rhone-alpes.htm
This company produces 14.9 TWh per year:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compagnie_Nationale_du_Rh%C3%B4ne
Whence come the other 22-odd TWh?
nutso fasst,
A couple of trivial points;
“last century” was a span of 100 years
“this century” has spanned 15 years
A nursery is in the business of selling plants and does not generally shrink from optimistic overstatement.
You forgot something in the story
Funded by
NOAA’s World Data Center for Paleoclimatology
National Science Foundation
http://scotese.com/images/globaltemp.jpg
So, to those of an alarmist nature, where on this graph should we All become alarmed ?
What is this? The Daniel Kuhn show? Does anyone realize that this fellow has successfully handcuffed this thread with a string of trolls? Do you think it will stop? Unlikely. Hard to fathom how a barely-literate teenager can cause so much fracas, but here it is in black and white.
Mike Bromley the Kurd
Yes, and he/she/they/it has done it to several other threads, too.
But at least the Daniel Kuhn in this thread has not resorted to its favourite practice of asserting that everyone is “dishonest” if they refute its nonsense by presenting facts and information.
Richard
There is no reason why those of us who have bothered to learn something, should tolerate the likes of Daniel. I suggest that he be moderated out, for not trying.
Catherine,
Sorry to ask you to check your facts : 37 TWh is not “piddling”, it is over a third of our total production of hydel power (the rest of our electricity, 80 %, give or take 5 %, is mostly generated by nuclear power stations). The problem on this site is that many posters never double-check their assertions : I have seen people talking about “young Europe” (meaning our good old mitteleuropa), where 10 women have, as an average, 14 children during their reproductive age, and “old Europe” (meaning Western Europe). The population of France, in Western Europe, by the way (65 million, roughly) increases by 300 000 units per year, mostly thanks to the birth rate -net migration is just a trickle. Politicians and journalists rarely bother to go to the sources of actual and up to date information. OK, that is off topic, but it is a pity.
Sorry, Francois, but where I come from, that is a piddling amount of hydro. In the US, just one river system produces more hydropower than that from its high dams. Actually, I take back piddling. But the vast majority of hydropower in the world comes from great, big concrete dams.
I sympathize with you over the demographic problems of Old, tired, worn-out, self-destroying Europe.
In the declining economy of France, it’s significant.
In the global scheme of things, it’s piddling.
BTW, I’m Catherine, commenting from another device.
To “Seasmith”,
Sorry, but I have checked with my relatives, and none could remember having any knowledge of how life was for our ancestors during the late Permian or the early Eocene. There are not even any ammonites or dinosaurs left around here to tell us. This is the year 2015, you surely know, thing are different.
There are also d18O isotopes which have proven to be very reliable proxies for temperature in the distant past. There are even International Standards for how to use these proxies to estimate temperature. Search Vienna Standard Mean Ocean Water if you want to know more about this.
The climate history charts in the article at the main post are based on this proxy of course.
There are d18O isotopes which have been dated going back all the way to 2.6 billion years ago. In total, there are 40,000 dated dO18 proxies covering the periods back to this time. 40,000 reliable proxies is more than enough to make a call about this history.
When one runs the numbers in the proper way with these isotopes, one gets very close to Scotese’ temperature history. They can produce a higher resolution history than Scotese, however, which matches to a “T” the major developments in climate history that we know about from other disciplines like geology, paleontology etc.
Search Zachos and Veizer separately if you want to see the different databases of the d18O isotopes.
to François.
” ” We can determine the past climate of the Earth by mapping the distribution of ancient coals, desert deposits, tropical soils, salt deposits, glacial material, as well as the distribution of plants and animals that are sensitive to climate, such as alligators, palm trees & mangrove swamps….” ”
http://scotese.com/climate1.htm
Not my, or my family’s data, just one of many of typical non-political archeoecological studies…
Thank you for your understanding, Catherine/Gloria,
Comparing the US and France does not make sense (do I have to remind you that Texas alone is a lot larger than the whole of my country), comparing the Rhône river with the Mississipi does not make sense either. Big dams have their problems too (ask the Pakistanis, Tarbela on the Indus, Mangla, on the Jhelum, Warsak on the Kabul river are silting up at an alarming rate).
Demographically speaking, I was just trying to tell you that we are not faring too badly, when one looks at an age pyramid. Have you checked your country’s lately, and a few other ones, by the way?
To Smithsea,
How presumptuous it would be to deny the obvious fact that indeed, a very long time ago, it was quite hot on this planet (for whatever reason : CO2, orbit, drifting continents…) I think you missed the point, which is that there were not any people there then. It must have been fine for fungus, ferns, mussels and the like a few hundred million years ago, save for the occasional mass extinction, but it just so happens I inhabit the Earth now, do not feel too well whenever the temperature goes above 37°, and know for a fact that most varieties of rice stop growing past 30 something degrees.
And it is still fine for “fungus, ferns, mussels and the like”.
New Zealand (NZ) is home to many ferns, over 600 specise. The NZ Silver Fern apparently arrived over 2 million years ago. Ferns grow usually in tropical regions, NZ is temperate.
In Australia in 1994 the ” Wollemi pine” was discovered in a remote part of the Blue Mountains here near Sydney. The fossil record for this tree is claimed to be 150 million years old.
I’d say proof positive plants can handle the variation in temperature and climate quite well.
Most crops stop growing in the low 30s. There might be an effect on crops if the average temperature is 31 and not 30 but probably set off by an earlier start to the growing season and much higher CO2 levels.
That is f it does go up a degree in 100 years time.
As for yourself, have a cup of concrete and harden up. 37? We would take the afternoon off if it went over 40 but work in the Sun if it was anything lower.
Daniel gets his carbon from the atmosphere? Only by eating it in the form of plants. Which flourish when CO2 is much higher than today.
To Oisfranç
Yes, peoples are a relatively nouveau addition to the planet, but no reason to let nouvego get in the way of actual science …
Not surprising — if you want REAL climate change, go back into the mid-glacial periods where ice-sheets in the N hemisphere are far enough south to provide albedo positive feedback, and ice-shelves can bridge the Greenland-Iceland strait, blocking sea-ice flushing to the south. Result is rapid fluctuations from glacial temps to briefly near-interglacial temps and back in mere centuries or even decades — D/O and Heinrich events.
Climate changes today (especially warming excursions) cannot match those extremes ’cause the mechanisms are not present. Thank goodness for that.
The shape of the Earth libration orbit precession depends on the albedo of the planet, and not from the albedo depends on the person climat.Climate Change is a measure of the speed and one of the flags katastrofy.
Monumental Earth Changes.
1.Change shape of the Earth.”Een acute aanval van ontlastingsdrang die “ERNSTIG EN NAKEND” is.”…www.davidhanauer.com/bucscounty/rindingroks ,http://go.nature.com/w6iks3 , http://shar.es/lnJxx0
2.Change gravity http://news.discovery,com/earth/global-warming/earth's-gravity-dips-from-antarctic-ice-loss-141001.htm
3.Change precession “Earth Matters:Earth’s tilt brings big changes during seasons of the year-AltoonaMirror.com-Altoon,PA/News,Sports,Jobs,Comunity information-The Altoona Mirror” http://shar.es/1fFoSQ
4.Change orbit http://wp.me/p7y41-vDW , http://www.alphagalileo.org/View/tem.aspx?/tem/d=149399& CultureCode=en
This changes were mixed and the planet to shift the center of gravity in the Eart-Moon system which violated and violate the timing of rotation in the Earth-Moon system catastrophically rapid climate change has happened and will happen because of the proximity of the Moon to the Earth, which led and will lead to the tsunami and the earth’s happened happens at the speed of the Earth around its axis at a time/
It is a bit odd that some comments are printed a day after they have been sent, but right after the post they criticize.
To Mebbe : a thousand apologies, ( ¨) instead of (^) is just a typo -same key, you know.
Anything wrong with not being a native English speaker? So far as I know, a dam is a dam, a barrage is something else. I thought it was a Britisher who taught me that (a civil engineer, by the way, there are a lot of those in my family, so we know a number of them overseas).
Olive trees at the latitude of Paris (originally raised from seeds and cuttings from Provence (no hybrids, or genetically engineered plants), grow outside, with their roots deep into the ground, and don’t have to be taken inside or protected during the winter time. Oh, did you know that the right time for picking olives is December/January?
To Gloria : we have a few more rivers than the Rhöne in France : Rhine, Garonne, Loire, Seine etc. and their subsidiaries. I only wrote about the Commpagnie Nationale du Rhône.
To Seasmith : I did not get your point, or perhaps there was none, you just enjoy typing?
USGS volcanologist Peter Ward (retired) has shown that each Dansgaard-Oeschger warming event coincides with a dramatic upswing in the volcanic sulfate content of GISP2 ice cores (https://ozonedepletiontheory.info/abrupt-climate-warming.html). Puzzled at first at the counterintuitive implication that massive sulfate emissions should cause warming, he concluded, after several years of research, that the warming resulted not from the sulfate, which is simply a marker of volcanism, but from volcanic chlorine and bromine emissions (HCl, HBr) from quiet, effusive, basaltic volcanism (as opposed to explosive andesitic volcanism). The halogens depleted ozone, allowing increased solar UV-B irradiance, which caused the warming. From this, he further infers that the dramatic warming from 1975 to 1998 was caused by chlorine from anthropogenic CFC emissions depleting the ozone layer rather than by greenhouse warming from CO2. Since the Montreal Protocol shut down CFC production, global warming stopped, an expectable result.