Icy ebb and flow influenced by hydrothermal activity
Release of magma from beneath earth’s crust plays significant role in earth’s climate
From the UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT
The last million years of Earth’s history was dominated by the cyclic advance and retreat of ice sheets over large swaths of North America. During cold glacial intervals, ice sheets reached as far south as Long Island and Indiana, while during warm interglacial periods the ice rapidly retreated to Greenland. It has long been known that ice ages occur every 40,000 years or so, but the cause of rapid transition between glacial and interglacial periods has remained a mystery.
While conventional wisdom says that this icy ebb and flow is an interaction between the world’s oceans, the ice itself, and the earth’s atmosphere, an article appearing in the Jan. 28, 2016 issue of the journal Science sheds new light on the role that the earth itself may play in this climatological ballet.
David Lund of the Department of Marine Sciences at the University of Connecticut and his colleagues have studied hydrothermal activity along the mid-ocean ridge system — the longest mountain range in the world which extends some 37,000 miles along the ocean floor. Their research suggests that the release of hot molten rock, or magma, from beneath the earth’s crust in response to changes in sea level plays a significant role in the earth’s climate. This change is attributed to the release of heat and carbon dioxide (CO2) into the deep ocean.
Lund says, “Mid-ocean range magmatism — the release of molten rock through volcanic vents or fissures — is driven by seafloor spreading and decompression melting of the upper mantle” — the partially molten layer just beneath the earth’s crust.
“This activity is controlled by the rate of pressure release at any given location. There’s clear evidence that when ice sheets grow, sea level lowers and significant pressure is taken off the ocean ridges. This causes melting in the mantle, which should in turn promote the release of heat and carbon into the oceans — and that’s when glacial termination begins — meaning the ice starts to melt. Then, sea levels begin to rise, pressure on the ridges increases, and magmatic activity decreases.”
Well-documented sedimentary records from the East Pacific Rise (EPR) — a mid-ocean ridge extending roughly from Antarctica to the Gulf of California — show evidence of enhanced hydrothermal activity during the last two glacial terminations, the last of which took place about 15,000 years ago.
According to Lund, the southern East Pacific rise (SEPR) has the fastest spreading rate and the highest magmatic budget of any ridge in the global mid-ocean ridge system. Due to its elevated magmatism, the SEPR has over 50 known active vent sites.
He says, “The coincidence in timing between hydrothermal maxima and glacial terminations implies that there may be a direct causal relationship between hydrothermal activity and deglaciation … Our results support the hypothesis that enhanced ridge magmatism, hydrothermal output, and perhaps mantle CO2 flux acts as a negative feedback on ice-sheet size … ”
In this study, core samples from both sides of the ridge axis were analyzed and included radiocarbon and oxygen isotopic analyses of microscopic shells to provide age control for each core. Major and trace element concentrations were determined using x-ray florescence and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry.
The EPR results establish the timing of hydrothermal anomalies, an essential prerequisite for determining whether ridge magmatism can act as a negative feedback on ice-sheet size.
###
[Update by Willis] The underlying paper in Science magazine, “Enhanced East Pacific Rise hydrothermal activity during the last two glacial terminations”, is paywalled here. From the magazine:
Searching sediment for climate signals
Sediments on the ocean floor may provide clues about the interplay between ice ages and mid-ocean ridge magma production. Lund et al. present well-dated and detailed sediment records from hydrothermal activity along the East Pacific Rise. The sediments show changes in metal fluxes that are tied to the past two glaciations. Ice age changes in sea level alter magma production, which is manifested by changes in hydrothermal systems. The apparent increase in hydrothermal activity at the East Pacific Rise around the past two glacial terminations suggests some role in moderating the size of ice sheets.
Science, this issue p. 478
Abstract
Mid-ocean ridge magmatism is driven by seafloor spreading and decompression melting of the upper mantle. Melt production is apparently modulated by glacial-interglacial changes in sea level, raising the possibility that magmatic flux acts as a negative feedback on ice-sheet size. The timing of melt variability is poorly constrained, however, precluding a clear link between ridge magmatism and Pleistocene climate transitions. Here we present well-dated sedimentary records from the East Pacific Rise that show evidence of enhanced hydrothermal activity during the last two glacial terminations. We suggest that glacial maxima and lowering of sea level caused anomalous melting in the upper mantle and that the subsequent magmatic anomalies promoted deglaciation through the release of mantle heat and carbon at mid-ocean ridges.
And here is one of their figures, with the original caption:
Fig. 4
Normalized metal fluxes at 11°S compared with EPR bathymetry.
The hydrothermal time series are from the eastern (magenta) and western (black) flanks of the EPR and include (A) Fe flux, (B) Mn flux, and (C) As flux. We normalized each record by subtracting the mean and dividing by the standard deviation of each time series to facilitate comparison between cores with different mean metal concentrations. The results include both discrete samples (thin lines) and time series smoothed with a 20-ky-wide Gaussian window (thick lines) to approximate the resolution of the bathymetry compilation at 17°S (gray lines) (4). Fluxes from 0 to 40 ky are based on the results from Fig. 2; the interval from 40 to 200 ky B.P. is based on results shown in Fig. 3.
“Hillier & Watts (2007) surveyed 201,055 submarine volcanoes estimating that a total of 3,477,403 submarine volcanoes exist worldwide. According to the observations of Batiza (1982), we may infer that at least 4% of seamounts are active volcanoes. We can expect a higher percentage in the case of the count taken by Hillier & Watts (2007) because it includes smaller, younger seamounts; a higher proportion of which will be active. Nevertheless, in the spirit of caution and based on our minimum inference of 4% seamount activity from Batiza’s observations, I estimate 139,096 active submarine volcanoes worldwide. If we are to assume, in the absence of other emission figures for mid oceanic plate volcanoes, that Kilauea is a typical mid oceanic plate volcano with a typical mid oceanic emission of 870 KtCpa (Kerrick, 2001), then we might estimate a total submarine volcanogenic CO2 output of 121 GtCpa. Even if we assume, as Kerrick (2001) and Gerlach (1991) did, that we’ve only noticed the most significant outgassing and curb our estimate accordingly, we still have 24.2 GtCpa of submarine volcanic origin.”
http://principia-scientific.org/volcanic-carbon-dioxide.html/
I thinking the rising plume of material which has given rise to the Hawaiian island chain, and leads all the way back to Midway before changing direction and continuing for another very long distance, is quite a large hotspot as undersea volcanoes go. I doubt it is any sort of average, but rather on the very high side.
I strongly agree. Remember that the “Big Island” is actually the highest mountain on Earth. rising well over 10,000 meters above it’s surroundings. It is most definitely not an average volcano.
The mid-ocean ridge is under several miles of water. During an ice age sea levels drop by 100 to 200 feet.
That doesn’t seem like enough of a pressure change to cause what they are postulating.
For mantle rock the partial derivative of temperature with respect to pressure at constant entropy is about 10K per GPa of pressure. The variation of pressure corresponding to 200 feet of water is about 700kPa or 0.7MPa or 0.0007 GPa; which equates to 0.007K. In other words the decompression leads to a temperature change so small only climate change scientists are able to see it as significant. Unless the rocks are already very near melting, I can’t see how this would affect much of anything.
“During an ice age sea levels drop by 100 to 200 feet.”
At glacial maximum the drop is more like 400 feet, though 200 feet may be a reasonable average over the whole 100,000 year glaciation.
I seem to recall that there was some question as to what causes the spreading centers and subduction. Is the upwelling at the spreading centers pushed the oceanic crust so hard it has no where to go but under the adjacent continental plate, or is the subducting plate pulling the crust apart at the spreading center?
Seems likely there is some sort of chicken and egg relationship, and besides there are spreading centers with no subduction occurring on the other end of the plate…like in the Atlantic. How are the North American plate and the adjacent oceanic crust in the Atlantic connected, or are they not connected? Is the oceanic plate pushing North America? North American is six times thicker than the Oceanic plate behind it, so it would seem more likely that the continent is pulling the oceanic plate. Hmm…issues with both.
And is rifting that causes continents to split to begin with due to upwelling mantle material, or due to other forces putting the continental plate under tension, which then splits and induces upwelling?
And did I understand correctly that all of this is based on a study of one spreading center?
“I seem to recall that there was some question as to what causes the spreading centers and subduction. Is the upwelling at the spreading centers pushed the oceanic crust so hard it has no where to go but under the adjacent continental plate, or is the subducting plate pulling the crust apart at the spreading center?”
M. Think of a pot of boiling, roiling water. Are the “billows” being pushed up or sucked down? I think the answer is neither or maybe both depending on what sort of mental model you want to use. What’s happening is that the whole pot is subject to turbulent flow as large amounts of water vapor tries to find it’s way out. Why not bubbles as will occur from CO2 outgassing before boiling starts? I have no idea. But anyway, I think the movement of continental plates is probably a similar phenomenon on a much grander and much slower scale. The rocks we see are just scuzz on the surface created when the surface material on the pot freezes as it is roiling around.
200 feet of water is 100psi (about) or 7 tons of pressure for every square foot, or 300,000 tons per acre.
I dunno, but that sounds kinda big.
Air pressure (STP) is about 43,000 tons per acre. That sounds kinda big, too. But we don’t implode.
Heavy, man.
Heavy.
So that is like a ton per square foot?
Which is the weight of the air column above it?
So, how much less weight is on that acre when the barometer drops during a hurricane, than when it is under high pressure?
Surprised the ocean does not just fly up into the storm from the release of pressure.
The ocean is around 4 miles or so deep, or around 20,000 feet. Which makes any number you care to quote about 200 feet, about 1% as big as the number for the whole water column.
http://biomesfirst11.wikispaces.com/file/view/Open_Ocean_Depth_Map.jpg/262119524/Open_Ocean_Depth_Map.jpg
The average depth is actually about 12,000 feet, so the c. 400 feet drop at glacial maximum is about 3,3 %. However the average depth of the mid-ocean ridges is only about 8,000 feet, so there the drop is about 5 %. Not a negligible amount.
Aah. Thank you for the correction.
I wonder what mechanism could cause a sudden surge in magma upwelling though, since the water is removed from the ocean and added to the continents over a long period of time…although less time for the melting apparently.
And how to explain such as the Younger Dryas, under this particular hypothesis?
In any case, I have decided some time ago that one cannot get a horse sense of matters cosmic or geological by considering our impression of the size of the numbers involved.
I don’t know about the ridge system being a major source of CO2 in the oceans, but its input of H+ helps maintain ocean pH. Rivers carry bicarbonate and carbonate to the ocean, and there must be a mechanism that prevents the oceans from becoming increasingly alkaline over time. H+ ion released in the mid-ocean ridge system probably supplies that mechanism.
Even as hot as the water around the “smokers” is, it is not a particularly large input of heat in the overall energy budget for the oceans. The ridge system provides maybe a third of overall heat flow.
a mechanism that prevents the oceans from becoming increasingly alkaline over time
well since a lot of that is from chalk and limestone – fossil sea creatures – I would have though t there is a fairly obvious mechanism…
Interesting. It warrants a lot more data collection from other ridge systems.
“when ice sheets grow, sea level lowers and significant pressure is taken off the ocean ridges. This causes melting in the mantle, which should in turn promote the release of heat and carbon into the oceans”
So… ice causes the heat???
Too dumb for words…
I wonder about oceans: it seems that the water covering most of our planet goes down into the crust, too. If I’m wrong, there’d better not be a plug…
Since the oceans must go into the crust, just like a river extends well below a riverbed, then what holds it up?
The answer (maybe; I’ll defer to Willis on this) must be that as the oceans extend downward, at some point they become steam due to temperatures increasing with depth. I know pressure is involved, but it gets pretty hot down there.
It’s steam that is holding up the oceans. Otherwise, the water would all drain to the center of the earth…
I forgot where I was going with this. But there it is.
Not steam. The temperature and pressure place the water in the super critical regime. Its a high density fluid.
Thanks, Kevin. So then what holds up the high density fluid?
Gravity. When you throw a rock in water, it does not float. It is denser than water (mantle rock, about 5 times denser.)
Are you asking what supports the fluid above? The pressure in the fluid is sufficient to support the fluid above.This is the reason for the hydrostatic gradient in any fluid. Did I understand your question correctly?
DbS, clever. You forgot nothing.
There is a fascinating emerging branch of basic geology trying to figure out what water (in the form of ultrasupercritical steam and other stuff I do not understand) does to Earth’s lithosphere. Impacts seismology, mantle composition theories, mineral formation theories. We have only just reached diamond anvil technology to start to explore in the lab extreme pressure/temperture hydrated mineral formation. As an amateur rock hound, I enjoy spending evenings reading up on the frontiers of geology and minerology. Mantle water stuff is the equivalent of an Apollo space program. Less well funded, of course.
So, maybe the steam escapes from the surface of the ocean and forms them hurricanes, the lower pressure from the ‘cane pulls the oceans up, which allows more steam to escape, forming more hurricanes.
Anyway, under the crust, DB, in your analogy the continents are like the mop wringer of the ocean sediments?
I have wondered what happens to seamounts and such when the reach a subduction zone?
Do they get scraped off, or sucked in and under?
Not long after the team from UCSB and Scripps did one of their Alvin deep dive studies of the EPR Black Smokers, I and a few others went to check out some CO2 wells near Brawley, which is in the area where the EPR is under the Colorado Delta, just south of the Salton Sea. There is definitely CO2 coming out of the Mid-Ocean Ridges.
That’s because that area is a subduction zone not a mid ocean ridge.
I thought that area was an extension of the San Andreas fault system, and is thus more of a strike slip, or transform fault.
I could be wrong, but is not the Baja peninsula riding on the Pacific plate along with everything else west of the San Andreas, and moving roughly north-northwest?
I think that’s a bit tricky James. Yes, the East Pacific rift zone does meander up that way. But the land on both sides is continental rock with the west side being moved off in the general direction of Tokyo along the San Andreas fault system. So you really don’t know if the CO2 in the Imperial Valley is bubbling up from the mantle or is somehow being liberated from sediment beds. I believe that either is possible .
I look forward to more input from Geologists,
People tend to overlook the fact that we are sitting on a ball of fire that cracks open every now and then and releases a lot of heat into the system.
Blow up a party balloon to about 1ft diameter and see the thickness of the rubber skin, that’s about the thickness of the Earths Crust.
What has the most Influence on Earths surface temperature, core temperature,CO2, or the Sun?
Food for thought.
Diameter of earth is about 8000 miles, thickness of crust, about 30 miles = 266/1
Diameter of balloon 1 ft or 12 inches. Cannot find a source readily for inflated toy balloon wall thickness, but I think it must be in the ballpark of a sheet of paper, or perhaps thinner.
A ream of typing paper is about two inches (off the top of my head), and is 480-500 sheets, so one inch is about 250 sheets of paper, twelve inches is about 3000 sheets or 3000/1
Check: Metric, one foot is 2.54 x 12 30.84 centimeters or 308.4 millimeters, sheet of paper listed as 0.05 to 0.1 millimeters or about 3000/1 to 6000/1
Nope. Seemed off at first glance.
I once calculated the relative size of all the oil ever extracted from the Earth, and the Earth.
I came up with a number for oil of about the volume of a large mountain, and compared to the Earth, this relative size is about the same relative sizes of a cue ball and the worlds largest bacteria, roughly speaking.
DI, I owe an apology. If one uses thickness of ocean crust, and my estimate of balloon equaling sheet of paper is off, and it is really more like two to five sheets, the numbers match up pretty well.
So Solly!
Largest current influence on Earths surface temp?
a) Sun
b) C02
c) Earth core
d) Data interpretation
e) none of the above
In absolute, instantaneous terms, (a).
Changing a) to insolation would make more sense
If Gates and Menicholas agree, it must be a).
Either that, or the Devil has just got himself a pair of ice-skates.
If it involves an interaction of suspension or solution between the gaseous and liquid portions of the planet’s atmosphere, isn’t it ALL “climate”? Since when was water not part of the climate?
This is an important part of it. There are phases from warm to cool every century on avg every 25-30yrs. We are in cooling now after warming 1981-2011 then cooling 1950-80.There are small yet more drastic cooling/warming every 2-400 years then there are times of Great Lakes forming or Palm Trees growing on a Tropical Arctic ice free Ocean year round. We are nearing a mini ice age where Atlanta has climate of Syracuse in 2020s but it starts with the Sun. The Sun is doing its thing right now. The Atlantic Ocean is very important per once things show up on earth & can change in an instant as in weeks not years. Good article but as always; whattsupwiththat has great articles on climate. I suggest it for everyone I know.
Ridiculous stuff! This new ‘theory’ doesn’t even begin to explain why all Ice Ages start very suddenly like some turned on that hot thing in the sky that is yellow during the day and voila: the ice melts. Then this fades away again and the ice returns.
The hot yellow thing!
Although I have to say it looks distinctly whitish to my admittedly untrained eye.
Never mind the tectonics, It has to be the all-powerful CO2!
The trick to solving holistic problems is to summarize all of the observations and let the observations lead to the correct solution.
There must be a physical explanation for everything that is observed, increased volcanic activity, sudden changes to the geomagnetic field, and cyclic abrupt climate change.
See below for other anomalous observations. Solar cycle changes is the primary driver of all the changes. The sun is significantly different than the standard model. The sun cyclically changes in manners which we believe is not possible. There are hundreds of astronomical observations to support that assertion and dozens of solar system observations that also support that assertion. The observations in question are sufficient to definitively solve the problem.
The increase in volcanic eruptions and the increase in plate tectonics is due to electric charge movement due to changes in the sun from the ionosphere into the core of the planet which is the reason why the geomagnetic field intensity is now dropping at 5%/decade (starting in the mid 1990s) where it was before dropping at 5%/century.
Does every one remember the Northern Hemisphere burn marks (eight locations two different continents at different latitudes) that coincide in time with the Younger Dryas abrupt cooling event? (See below for details as to what the YD event was.) There must be an explanation as to what caused the burn marks, why there is a geomagnetic excursion at that time, and why the planet abruptly cooled for 1200 years. The charge movement cause the abrupt change to the geomagnetic field which in turn causes the cooling. The geomagnetic field in the liquid core in time integrates the surface based charge change which explain the duration of the cooling.
Large volcanic eruptions correlate with deep solar magnetic cycle minimums. There is an increase in volcanic eruptions when the solar magnetic cycle slows down and again when the solar cycle restarts. We have already experience the increase in volcanic activity and earthquake activity that is associated with the slowdown of the solar cycle (2010 for example there was a threefold increase in volcanic activity in Indonesia.)
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/39934297/ns/world_news-asiapacific/#.VRe6PGctGUl
We are going to have a chance to watch the mechanisms live. We are going to first experience Dansgaard-Oeschger cooling and then when the solar magnetic cycle restarts Heinrich event type cooling. Very, very large volcanic eruption correlate with the restart of the solar magnetic cycle.
This paper is not asking the correct questions. Volcanic eruptions only result in cooling for a couple of years. What physical change causes there to be suddenly an increase in volcanic activity all over the earth (i.e. both hemisphere)? Magma chambers are change due to local conditions. There is no current mechanism that would suddenly cause there to be an increase in volcanic activity all over the planet.
The abrupt cooling events are followed by sustained cold periods of hundreds of years. The Younger Dryas abrupt cooling event which occurred 11,900 years ago at which time the planet went from interglacial warm to glacial cold and the cold period lasted for 1200 years.
Volcanic eruptions cannot and do not cause the planet to cool and stay cold. The restart of the solar magnetic cycle causes geomagnetic excursions which is the reason for the hundreds of years of cooling. It is the mechanism that causes there to a geomagnetic excursion (massive movement of electrical charge for the ionosphere to the earth’s surface that both cause geomagnetic excursions and large volcanic eruptions.
http://www.pnas.org/content/101/17/6341.full#otherarticles
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39934297/ns/world_news-asiapacific/
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/04/photogalleries/volcano-lightning-pictures/
What caused an abrupt change to the geomagnetic field cyclically in the past (the geomagnetic field excursion) is what caused five geologically separated (different magma chambers, same location on the planet, same island) volcanoes to erupt simultaneously and to capture a geomagnetic excursion. Do you see why it is anomalous that five geologically separate volcanoes would erupt at the same time and also capture the rare geomagnetic excursion?
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006/2006GL027284.shtml
The restart of the solar magnetic cycle causes geomagnetic excursions which is the reason for the hundreds of years of cooling
More nonsense. Go play with Vuk.
Leif your beliefs are independent of the observations. Everything that I have stated in this forum is supported by observations. For you it is unimaginable that the sun is physically different than your beliefs.
Sun spots and solar coronal holes are currently disappearing. The pathetic effort to prop up the sunspot number will only highlight the abrupt end, the interruption, to the solar cycle. There is a race going as to which will be the first announcement the end of global warming or the interruption to the solar cycle.
Why has the geomagnetic field intensity decrease suddenly change in the mid 1990’s. In the 1990’s the drop in the increase in the geomagnetic increase by a factor of 10 from 5%/century to 5%/decade? What is the physical reason for the sudden change to the geomagnetic field intensity? Note geomagnetic field abrupt changes correlate with abrupt climate change. The mechanism reason is the geomagnetic field blocks GCR. When the geomagnetic field has multiple poles there is cooling at the new pole locations which are now in low latitude regions due to the increase GCR which causes increased cloud cover.
The sudden unexplained drop in the geomagnetic field intensity is the reason why the Europeans spent $300 million dollars to launch three specialized satellites (SWARM) to monitor the entire geomagnetic field with laboratory accuracy.
The geomagnetic field intensity has now dropped 10%. The speed in the drop the geomagnetic field intensity is 10% faster than a core based change can cause even if there was mechanism that could suddenly cause massive widespread change in the liquid core of the planet starting in the mid 1990s.
http://iopscience.iop.org/1742-6596/440/1/012001/pdf/1742-6596_440_1_012001.pdf
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar…than-expected/
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/BardPapers/responseCourtillotEPSL07.pdf
https://www.rug.nl/research/portal/files/6661387/2000QuatIntRenssen.pdf
http://www.iisc.ernet.in/currsci/apr252003/1105.pdf
solar coronal holes are currently disappearing
hardly: http://services.swpc.noaa.gov/images/animations/GOES-15-CS-PTHNA-0.4/latest.png
A progressive thinking scientist (a rare creature indeed) could be interested in fact that the Earth’s CAM oscillates synchronised in periodicity and the phase with sunspot cycles
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/J-V.gif
What might be the solar system’s clockwork driving both?
It is clear from your graphs that the phase is not the same [nor the amplitude].
Hi doc
You are stating the obvious “[nor the amplitude]” .
the Earth’s core and the sun’s convective zone have vastly different properties, and since one is unlikely to be driving the other, but available data indicate degree of similarity in the bi-decadal oscillations (unlikely to be a coincidence), a progressive thinking scientist (a rare creature indeed) could be asking: what might be the solar system’s clockwork at work here?
Very likely a coincidence. What do Jackson and Bloxham say about this? Perhaps they are not ‘progressive thinking scientists’ …
That is more like it, now you are getting interested.
They don’t even know it exists unless they read my comments, which is extremely unlikely.
J&B data is here: http://sbc.oma.be/data1.html
You can have a go at it, use ‘rough’ rather than intermediate or smoothed data.
Method 1 easily reproduced by anyone: subtract 21 year moving average from the original data. Since you do not believe that there is fundamental difference between odd and even SSN cycles plot absolute so obtained value abs(x) against your new sunspot series, since I used the old one.
Method 2 is more scientific approach: use suitable high pass filter (I used 6db down at 40 years fourth-order zero-phase shift Butterworth, front and back 20 year padded).
There are some (non-essential) differences in result between two methods, also for a good reason the first and the last 10 years are discarded in both methods.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/E-CAM.gif
p.s. I don’t do science; I am interested in a lesser knowns.
I don’t do science
That is clear as day. BTW, the decadal changes in dLOD/dt since 1962 are not in phase with sunspot cycles:
http://www.leif.org/research/Changing-LOD.png
and more BTW: There is a strong 5.9-year variation in CAM.
Now you are sidestepping your responsibility (as possible progressive thinking scientist) to reproduce and verify what was discussed.
As you well know the LOD’s oscillations are affected by multiplicity of causes, the Earth’s core electromagnetic coupling is not only but it is the major one.
http://op.gfz-potsdam.de/champ/media_CHAMP/luehr_2_geodyn.gif
“and more BTW: There is a strong 5.9-year variation in CAM”
Absolutely, 5.93 years is Jupiter’s abs(perihelion – aphelion – perihelion) periodicity
progressive thinking scientist might ask: why?
Now you are sidestepping your responsibility (as possible progressive thinking scientist) to reproduce and verify what was discussed.
Pseudo-science does not deserve to be discussed, only to be dismissed.
Good scientists are not ‘progressive thinking’, but are conservative and do not jump on hare-brained schemes. And, as you said, what you do it not science.
There is no doubt that there are decadal and intra-decadal changes in the CAM, but there is no evidence that those are in any way connected to whatever clockwork you postulate.
Earth’s core electromagnetic coupling is not only but it is the major one
This is nonsense, as there is no such coupling. The field at the surface is simply the core field seen at a distance of 3000 km.
Doc
You are making a wrong assumption. Electromagnetic coupling is between the liquid core and the conductive mantle; they happen to sit next to each other.
Science is not about outright rejection (that’s religion’s job) science is about collecting data, investigating, probing, reproducing and verifying whatever might be in there.
It might go against what we know, or what we think we know, nature doesn’t care about anyone’s views or opinions, it just do what it comes to it naturally.
Electromagnetic coupling is between the liquid core and the conductive mantle; they happen to sit next to each other.
This is correct [although you in the past maintained that it was with the surface field or the magnetosphere or the sun or Jupiter or …], but the coupling is weak as the mantle is not that conductive compared to the core, and is not the dominant one.
nature doesn’t care about anyone’s views or opinions, it just do what it comes to it naturally
And hence nature does not care about your opinion.
“And hence nature does not care about your opinion.”
But reverse is true, I do respect nature’s ‘opinion’ despite the fact that I hardly understand any of it.
See you some time again, by then I’ll update the graph with your SSN numbers.
They are not ‘my’ SSN numbers, but the official SSN from the World Data Center for Sunspots.
Geomagnetic storms – Disregarded climatic factor – evaporation – 2/28/2014-01/01/2015
Very interesting ren. Seems to be a connection there…wow.
Prior to the Vema discovering the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, and subsequently the Glomar Challenger mapping and dating sea floor sediments in relation to the ridge, and the light this shed on sea floor spreading and a mechanism for plate tectonics, it was inconceivable to many highly expert geologists that continents could move relative to one another. In spite of much independent evidence that they apparently had done so.
I do not know if the current state of knowledge of solar dynamics, what might be called the orthodox view, is accurate or not but…well…I think there is circumstantial evidence that the output and magnetic activity of the sun may vary over time scales which may not be very well understood.
These are of course separate topics, and one idea does not give any indication of the veracity of the other, but it does highlight how easy it is to be very well informed and yet overlook important evidence.
but it does highlight how easy it is to be very well informed and yet overlook important evidence
It is even easier to be very ill informed and jump to unfounded conclusions…
Yes, just like the CAGW proponents did.
A potential test for this dubious hypothesis would be to identify increased magma activity the further south one observed the East Pacific Rise, since sea level change was a function of arc distance from the center of the northern ice mass: the weight of ice shifted the entire lithosphere southward relative to the hydrosphere, enhancing the southern sea level change. In other words, the northern ice mass moved the solid earth’s center of gravity. –AGF
It would be interesting to compare the somewhat quantifiable positive albedo feedback of ice sheets to the supposed negative negative feedback proposed here, or to compare the direct heat of magma activity with theoretical effects of outgassing GHGs (which of course follow the T rise in the cores). After all, it’s not the actual heat our engines produce that brings on doom, but the CO2 they produce. Is that a valid analogy or not? –AGF
I’ve added the following graphic and original caption from the study to the head post:
?w=480
Fig. 4
Normalized metal fluxes at 11°S compared with EPR bathymetry.
The hydrothermal time series are from the eastern (magenta) and western (black) flanks of the EPR and include (A) Fe flux, (B) Mn flux, and (C) As flux. We normalized each record by subtracting the mean and dividing by the standard deviation of each time series to facilitate comparison between cores with different mean metal concentrations. The results include both discrete samples (thin lines) and time series smoothed with a 20-ky-wide Gaussian window (thick lines) to approximate the resolution of the bathymetry compilation at 17°S (gray lines) (4). Fluxes from 0 to 40 ky are based on the results from Fig. 2; the interval from 40 to 200 ky B.P. is based on results shown in Fig. 3.
The post-Eemian minimum passed the test, for what it’s worth. Thanks. –AGF
“We normalized each record by subtracting the mean and dividing by the standard deviation …” Willis, this is more your cup of tea: How do we determine a standard deviation of a varying quantity?
Two beach boxes just sold in Melbourne for $280 thou each ,I’m told the Australian doomsayer Flannery has also in the last few years bought a beach front house .
WUWT
You mean it’s hot down there? Surely not. If that were true climate scientists would be buzzing about it constantly. In reality, they can’t change that subject fast enough.
It’s rather like when you mention that centuries of min/max temps are not the same as centuries of temps. Nobody argues, because the subject would kill the game. So the subject gets changed, and even the most scholarly types go on talking of “temperatures” when they are actually talking about min/max records.
The two great subject changers: the heat below, and the clouds above.
Why do we get switching between galcial and interglacial? The overall context as explained by Bill Illis above is that the earth’s climate has been steadily cooling for 15 million years. And 3 million years ago this cooling reached a level to initiate the glacial period we are now in.
However such transitions are rarely tidy and clean cut. We are in a transition period of oscillation between deep glaciation and interglacial. These two states represent “attractors”, that is, islands of stability in a chaotic dynamic system. Sometimes at the transition between one state and another, due to a slow change in a system’s overall state – e.g. our 15 million years of slow cooling – there is a period of switching between two states.
A nice way to illustrate this is the classic demonstration of the switch between laminar and turbulent flow of water from a tap (faucet). As shown here:
http://youtu.be/kszTFBdE0hc
Here the flow rate has vern finely adjusted to be right on the transition between laminar (weak flow) and turbulent (stronger flow, tap fully open). If you look carefully you can see little jumps as the system tries to jump from one state to the other. This is actually not difficult to do – depending on what sort of faucet you have.
That us where our climate is now. Finely balanced between glacial and interglacial. So – I hear you ask – what about ole Milankovich? We’re just coming to him (and of course Kroll). Consider this state of fine balance between two states. In this state a tiny external forcing can tip the system from one state to another. Now the Milankovich forcings are, and aleays have been, acting on the earth. However it is only during slow transition between non glacial and glacial, when the system is sufficiently finely balanced between the two states / attractors, that the very weak Milankovich forcing manifests a pacing role on the earth’s climate. Thus as the system switches between glacial and interglacial, it does so at a Milankovich frequency, reflecting its delicately poised condition.
Of course, there is not just one Milankovich frequency but several. Thus as glaciation gradually deepens, one million years ago at the mid Pleistocene revolution the system switched from being driven by the obliquity cycle of 41 kyrs to something resembling the eccentricity cycle of 100 kyrs. This makes it a highly interesting example of a system in quasistable transition switching between alternative external periodic forcings.
In future if the secular trend continues there will be an eventual transition to permanent glaciation with no interglacials. It is interesting to speculate if all the previous deep glaciations e.g. the Cryogenian, 700 mya, also began – and ended – with such transitional periods of glacial-interglacial oscillation.
For all the elegant (and doubtless meritworthy) theories put forward to explain climate variation, is science collectively not at risk of missing a possibly obvious point i.e. that the theories advanced (and the data underpinning them) need not be either (i) “the” driver of climate variation, nor (ii) necessarily competing or contradictory.
Is it not just conceivable that each new theory based on each new dataset/observation might in fact complement other theories and datasets? Might they not all be inter-connected at any number of levels over time?
We are groping for explanations for climate variation in a fog of ignorance – we see certain things apparently clearly standing out in the fog (as we see features standing above a real fog).
Those that see those things first are tempted to trumpet “their discovery” as “the” answer that will dispel the fog of ignorance. But almost always they are not.
In science, should we not proceed as a sailing master does when enveloped by fog? Noting a feature, then another, and another, checking and verifying what the features are, and proceeding very cautiously, trying to form a mental image of the coastline?
KO, see many of my comments above for agreement with you.
When all is said and done, if this study were true then in order to stop global warming we must first increase global warming to melt more ice to increase the pressure on the ridges to decrease the magmatic activity which will bring us out of this warming period. What to do, what to do.
What to do?
We need to build a large thermostatic looking control and place it in the UN building in New York and call it ET.
The world’s UN delegates could spend endless hours debating where to set the ET(earth’s thermostat) thereby looking useful AND appearing to save the world as well.
Oh wait…….
I’ve heard it said that the cause of El nino is volcanic activity emanating around solomon ridge. any validity or disproof for this? seems plausible.
I am the source of such rumours.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/ENSO.htm
thanks for taking the time,
you said below “Volcanic eruptions of the area are most likely not a direct cause”.
I would be interested in understanding why this would not be the case. an irregular heating event emanating from an ill-measured(?) volcanic region seems to be the obvious candidate for the source of heating. by “not a direct cause” do you mean something else such as magnetic fields causing volcanics which in turn generates El nino heating events?
EM, I would suggest you read Bob Tasdales work on ENSO if you want to understand it. He is quite clear. And nothing to do with undersea volcanos.
Mr. Tisdale does a great work on ENSO and PDO, but I am not convinced by his ENSO originating hypothesis.
The area is one of world’s tectonically most complex.
http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/vwdocs/volc_images/southeast_asia/papua_new_guinea/PNG1.jpg
Volcanic eruptions of the area are most likely not a direct cause, but I am suggested they are a numerical proxy (see red line in my link further above at 8:13 am), for a possible mechanism that I am not in position to satisfactory explain.
As I have stated, it is unimaginable to many that our sun could be significantly different than the standard model. I get that.
For that reason I am waiting till there is in your face evidence that the solar cycle has been interrupted and that the planet is abruptly cooling to present in detail, in a manner that can be understood by a general audience, the solution to the puzzles.
It is a fact that there are hundreds of astronomical observations (paradoxes that do make sense – such as the alignment of quasars that are billions of light years apart and ‘strings’/’web’/’lattice’ of galaxies and quasars, and alignment of dwarf galaxies in a plane rather than distributed in a sphere about the large galaxies – concerning ever pillar of cosmological theory) that support the assertion that our sun, the stars in the galaxies, and quasars are significantly different than the standard models. The difference concerns what happens when very massive bodies collapse, the physics of massive objects.
What forms when a very massive object collapses, determined based on hundreds of observations in peer reviewed papers, which are identified as anomalies and paradoxes, is an active object that changes with time. The theoretical hairless black ‘hole’ theory that was developed at the turn of the last century is not correct, based on observations.
How the sun is different than the standard model explains how the recent change to the sun caused the earth’s geomagnetic field intensity drop, to increased from a drop of 5%/century to a drop of 5%/decade starting in the 1990’s. Note a drop of 5%/decade is not possible for any liquid core change. There is no mechanism to sudden cause massive changes of liquid movement in the earth’s core and even if there was, a back emf is generated in the liquid core that resists fast field changes.
The current unexplained observed changes to the sun has happened before and is the reason, the physical cause as to why the earth’s climate was changed cyclically in the past, sometimes abruptly with a very, very large change (unimaginable large and rapid). There is a physical reason, a physical cause for what is observed in the paleo climatic record and the paleo geomagnetic record. The immense forcing change that causes what has happened in the past is the sun.
Greenland Ice Sheet Temperatures Last 100,000 years
http://www.hidropolitikakademi.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/4.gif
It is interesting that the Dansgaard/Oescheger events which have characteristic period of 1470 years have continued throughout the Holocene interglacial period. As there are cosmogenic isotope changes that are concurrent with all of the Dansgaard/Oescheger events (also referred to a Bond events named after Gerald Bond who tracked 23 of the cycles) and the Heinrich events it is obvious a specific solar cycle change is causing what is observed.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif
The last super large abrupt climate change was the ‘Younger Dryas’ abrupt climate change event. The YD abrupt climate change event occurred 11,900 years ago at which the time the planet went from interglacial warm to glacial cold with 70% of the cooling occurring in less than a decade and with the cooling period lasting for 1200 years – with a change that is capable of and does terminate an interglacial period. The YD abrupt climate change event is cyclically, not a one of event.
http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1438/
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1409.6098v1.pdf
Alignment of quasar polarizations with large-scale structures, September 23, 2014
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/07/140721100418.htm
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v511/n7511/full/nature13481.html
Can we clear up an issue I have of using the term “ice age” to refer to a glacial period? The term ice age properly refers to the at least 5 snowball Earth periods when the planet was uber cold. These million’s of years of snowball Earth, more or less, conditions are theorized to be at least partially caused by plate tectonics leading to million’s of years long term changes in solar insolation and climate patterns. These changes are irregular and do not have an obvious typical pattern, partly due to the gross measurement systems used to detect these snowball Earth periods. However, it is thought they generally cycle with an abrupt rise to warmth followed by a slow jagged descent.
During these major ice ages, there are more regular periods of glacial and interglacial climate patterns that have a sudden rise to warmth followed by a slow jagged decay to cold. We are presently in an ice age and are experiencing glacial and interglacial conditions. The most prominent theory is that these more regular oscillating periods are triggered by orbital mechanics.
I believe the study posted above is referring not to ice ages but to glaciation periods and interglacial periods. The rift theory will have to compete with the orbital mechanics theory. And I believe it falls short of replacing it.
For an easy read about the differences between ice ages and glacial/interglacial periods see the following:
http://geology.utah.gov/map-pub/survey-notes/glad-you-asked/ice-ages-what-are-they-and-what-causes-them/
The next time you will attempt to redefine a peer review 🙂
Seriously, Britannica and Wikipedia differ on this one. Should we ask Her Majesty, or the Supreme Court, or Comrade Xi, to decide?
Scientists have recorded five (at least) significant ice ages: the Huronian (2.4-2.1 billion years ago), Cryogenian (850-635 million years ago), Andean-Saharan (460-430 mya), Karoo (360-260 mya) and Quaternary (2.6 mya-present).
In our present Quaternary ice age, there have been about a dozen or so major glaciations interspersed with interglacials. The most recent glaciation period is often referred to informally as the “Ice Age,” which peaked about 18,000 years ago. We are in the present warm interglacial Holocene which started about 12,000 years ago.
I guess Hollywood decided that “Glacial” just doesn’t roll off the tongue like “Ice Age” does.
The reason I want to separate this vocabulary is that the epic ice ages are likely caused by continental positioning/repositioning, while the glacials are likely caused by orbital mechanics interacting with stable continental positions.
There is a difference.
PG
Do you know of any evidence that those previous major ice ages also began (and ended) with transitional periods of oscillation between glacial and interglacial?
If major ice age epochs were driven by tectonic plate movements, I would imagine a jagged response up and/or down towards ice or warmth. What that looked like in detail is not available compared to the last 400,000 years of ice-core evidenced Milanchovitch driven changes. Why? Because the evidence is in rock formations and age, not ice cores. Meaning that fine detail just isn’t available due to erosion of the rock data versus the preservation of ice-core data. That said, the following article includes that the smaller time spans of Milanchovitch cycles were active during epoch ice ages at least in part or at certain times.
http://www.brynmawr.edu/geology/documents/Eyles2008Palaeo.pdf
Pamela
Thanks – that’s a great reference.
I guessed it would be a question of resolution, the Vostok etc. ice cores are quite special in that regard. Good day to you!