Why does our planet experience an ice age every 100,000 years?
Deep storage of carbon dioxide in the oceans may have triggered this unexplained phenomena, new research shows
This mysterious phenomena, dubbed the ‘100,000 year problem’, has been occurring for the past million years or so and leads to vast ice sheets covering North America, Europe and Asia. Up until now, scientists have been unable to explain why this happens.
Our planet’s ice ages used to occur at intervals of every 40,000 years, which made sense to scientists as the Earth’s seasons vary in a predictable way, with colder summers occurring at these intervals.
However there was a point, about a million years ago, called the ‘Mid-Pleistocene Transition’, in which the ice age intervals changed from every 40,000 years to every 100,000 years.
New research published today in the journal Geology has suggested the oceans may be responsible for this change, specifically in the way that they suck carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the atmosphere.
By studying the chemical make-up of tiny fossils on the ocean floor, the team discovered that there was more CO2 stored in the deep ocean during the ice age periods at regular intervals every 100,000 years.
This suggests that extra carbon dioxide was being pulled from the atmosphere and into the oceans at this time, subsequently lowering the temperature on Earth and enabling vast ice sheets to engulf the Northern Hemisphere.
Lead author of the research Professor Carrie Lear, from the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, said: “We can think of the oceans as inhaling and exhaling carbon dioxide, so when the ice sheets are larger, the oceans have inhaled carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, making the planet colder. When the ice sheets are small, the oceans have exhaled carbon dioxide, so there is more in the atmosphere which makes the planet warmer.
“By looking at the fossils of tiny creatures on the ocean floor, we showed that when ice sheets were advancing and retreating every 100,000 years the oceans were inhaling more carbon dioxide in the cold periods, suggesting that there was less left in the atmosphere.”
Marine algae play a key role in removing CO2 from the atmosphere as it is an essential ingredient of photosynthesis.
CO2 is put back into the atmosphere when deep ocean water rises to the surface through a process called upwelling, but when a vast amount of sea ice is present this prevents the CO2 from being exhaled, which could make the ice sheets bigger and prolong the ice age.
“If we think of the oceans inhaling and exhaling carbon dioxide, the presence of vast amounts of ice is like a giant gobstopper. It’s like a lid on the surface of the ocean,” Prof Lear continued.
The Earth’s climate is currently in a warm spell between glacial periods. The last ice age ended about 11,000 years ago. Since then, temperatures and sea levels have risen, and ice caps have retreated back to the poles. In addition to these natural cycles, manmade carbon emissions are also having an effect by warming the climate.
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Related, the 2014 AGU presentation suggests it’s thermohaline circulation changes:
“ice ages every 100,000 years”
“The last ice age ended about 11,000 years ago. ”
” In addition to these natural cycles, manmade carbon emissions are also having an effect by warming the climate.”
Well, since we are only 10% in, can we really say that anything is affected?
Or, is this a clue to explaining the next one in 2030?
” In addition to these natural cycles, manmade carbon emissions are also having an effect by warming the climate.””
This may have been the obligatory reference to climate change to insure future funding.
Was just thinking the same thing – what a wonderfully detailed concluding point. Not!
I’d also say this was the obligatory bit to justify the grant. Sad science. 🙁
There should be an editorial standard to place this BS in quotes or a different font.
This is similar to the obligatory sentence about “imperialistic repression of the proletariat” (or some such) that scientists of the former Soviet Union often had to put in the foreword to their publications.
Don’t forget that ice ages last a good 80,000 years out of each cycle.
Yes, lorcan. That’s something people forget, they think our human horizon is the geological norm.
Me think its because of gradual depletion of Earths Atmosphere.
I thought the same. The resulting low pressure yield cooler temperatures and more precipitation. And if the atmosphere is suddenly depleted by an external event…
I would tend to think so as well since pressure affects both heat transfer and heat retention capacity.
Actually, its about 110,000 ice age years followed by 10,000 interglacial years and repeat. There’s also a roughly 120K periodicity in how the ellipticity of the orbit varies and while the connection may not be clear, when you look at what happened after the last interglacial went to an ice age, it started to warm up after about 40K years and again at about 80K years later, but in both cases, it got turned back around into a deeper ice age. Even the current interglacial didn’t reach the peak of the last one, although it has lasted quite a bit longer. It’s really very simple to explain as 3 individual orbital related effects with different periods whose interference pattern results in ice ages and interglacial periods of varying depth and length. You definitely don’t need CO2 to explain this.
The article starts in assuming CO2 is the cause and looking for a correlation whcih can then be turned into a cause. My alarm clock brings up the sun, too.
And their reasoning is backwards.
“We can think of the oceans as inhaling and exhaling carbon dioxide, so when the ice sheets are larger, the oceans have inhaled carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, making the planet colder. When the ice sheets are small, the oceans have exhaled carbon dioxide, so there is more in the atmosphere which makes the planet warmer.
Okay geniuses, “What makes it switch over? Larger Ice sheets, inhaled CO2, colder to Smaller Ice sheets, more CO2, warmer. At some time when High CO2 it gets colder and Low CO2 it get warmer. Missed their explanation of that.
CO2 is put back into the atmosphere when deep ocean water rises to the surface through a process called upwelling, but when a vast amount of sea ice is present this prevents the CO2 from being exhaled, which could make the ice sheets bigger and prolong the ice age.
When did the current deep ocean currents change their upwelling points. Currently East Africa near Red Sea, East Pacific off Oregon / California and around the edge of the ice sheets of Antarctica. Never hear of Ice Caps at those locations. It is ‘Down-welling’ in the North Sea.
I thought it was one long ice age that consisted of glacial and interglacial periods.
The interglacial periods last on average about 10,000 years, we are 11,500 years into this one and the temperature has been steadily dropping for the last 7,000.
Interglacial durations are quite variable.
Based on a variety of proxies for the past 800K years (Marine Isotope Stages 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17 and 19) the previous interglacial, the Eemian (MIS 5), lasted longer (and was warmer) than has the Holocene so far, as did most of those from before the Mid-Brunhes Event (MBE), c. 430 Ka (transition from cold MIS 12 to warm MIS 11). By contrast, only MIS 7 was definitely shorter than the Holoceme, while MISs 9 and 19 were similar in duration to our present interglacial. MIS 11, the longest, is a candidate for potential Holocene and near future analogue because of similar orbital configuration, but MIS 19’s Milankovitch parameters were also comparable.
In some proxy data, MIS 13 appears split by a brief cold snap, and others may be similarly double-peaked.
It really doesn’t explain the 100 ky problem, and also gets the cart before the horse. The best data on the correlation between CO2 levels and temperature remains the ice cores from Antarctica and Greenland. Those cores very plainly show that CO2 changes lag temperature. So CO2 withdrawal might enhance, but can’t explain glacials. The cores also show that the planetary atmosphere was extremely dry during glacials, enough that precipitation (as reflected in ice accumulations – so use a bit of salt) correlates positively with temperature. That is, during the glacials increases in temperature are paired with increases in ice accumulation rates. At the beginning of the Holocene this changes, and during the last 10 ky ice accumulation is correlated inversely with temperature. This is true in both hemispheres. Why these patterns appear is not at all clear and the linkages between them are also really unclear. And, if you consider the temperature shifts revealed in the dO-18 data used to produce the first graph. the planet has been cooling steadily and the climatic oscillations have been increasing during the last 5 million years and more. There are numerous arguments and “explanations” such as the formation of the Isthmus of Panama joining of North and South America which would have had enormous effects on marine circulation. None of them really cover the ground adequately enough to let you sigh and lean back, thinking, “now I get it.”
That’s actually a glacial period of the current Ice Age starting every 100,000 years. The last one started about 100,000 years ago, so… We’re about due for one now.
?dl=0
But interglacials of the current Ice Age have lasted anywhere from 4,000 years to 28,000 years. Some Warming Alarmists are stating that this Holocene interglacial (warm part of an Ice Age) will last 61,000 years or more. But that’s based solely on Milankovitch cycles. Are we at a new Pleistocene transition, or do we merely have to learn more about climate? Is some other major factor involved in steering climate?
Based on the patterns of warm periods found in the GISP2 cores (Alley, 2000), the Holocene is showing signs that it may already have started to shut down in preparation for the next glacial period. And governments still want to cool down the planet?
Global Warming made civilization possible 12,000 years ago. That’s something precious. Triggering the end of the Holocene could give us another 90,000 years without summers, rain, crops, food and civilization. Something I think we need seriously to consider in our climate debates. But hey, I like life and civilization. Color me prejudiced.
We live in an Ice Age. What begins roughly every 100,000 years is a glacial period of the current Ice Age.
Ice ages or major glaciations last 100,000 years and are separated by interglacials like the one we are about to finish that last an average of 11,500 years. Time is just about up people.
Bollocks. #1, CO2 has little effect on temps (it’s the other way around). #2, these things are regular as clockwork, 10K interglacial, then 100K of glaciation.
Right. Once again, the unquestioned assumption on the part of the authors is that less CO2 necessarily results in a colder climate. There can be no thinking outside the CO2 box. It’s “CO2 or perish” in the academy.
I always am amazed at people who continue to argue that the temperature of the tea is largely decided by the composition of the tea, and not the height of the flame under the kettle.
Ice ages came with a periodicity of 40.000 yrs a few million yrs ago and switched to 100.000 fairly recently (geo timescales).
Your comment has no point. I suppose you are objecting to their being taken to task over injecting a human time scale into their article. Since humans had no input on the 40k cycle nor the change to the 100k cycle, their last sentence was both inappropriate. As to science we still have no clarity as to what drove the 40k cycle. Nor do we have clarity as to the cause of the change.
“Ice ages came with a periodicity of 40.000 yrs a few million yrs ago and switched to 100.000 fairly recently (geo timescales).”
No. Ice ages have been on a pretty regular 41K year cycle, except that the peak warming of the last 2 warming periods was lower than either the current one or the last ‘hot’ interglacial. Since there’s more than one factor involved (axis changes, precession changes, obliquity changes, hemispheric asymmetry, etc.), the expectation that every interglacial period must be as warm as the last is a broken assumption since the maximum effects of each influence rarely coincide.
A chart would be nice. So many times this climate/ice age issue lacks fundamental charting. Let’s start at the onset of the ice age OK? Like when the planet had warm poles and go from there. There is a distinct lack of willing to do that.
And supposedly the ice age BEFORE THIS ONE had even higher seas than now. So how do you explain that?
What are our drowned coastline DROPOFFS but the edge of the ice/land under the frozen shell ala Kirschvink?
Here in Cape town one can clearly see that water levels have been up to 30 m higher as what they are today…..
I am a skeptic. I am only telling you the answer that CAGW has given as a reply so that you know. To wit.
Ice ages came and went because of co2. It was gradual. As plants died they released the co2 back into the atmosphere and it would warm back up. We know that co2 last a very long time in the atmosphere, hundreds of years. Co2 would build up over thousands of years, and would become warmer. Eventually, co2 would be absorbed again gradually. And the cycle would repeat.The difference today is that never before has so much co2 been put in the atmosphere. And co2 levels have never been higher than in the last several millions years. As a way of conveying the urgency of reducing co2 emmisions we have a graph showing co2 levels and temperature. When looking at this graph, ” what pops out at you ” . ( direct quote). With sudden and never before seen levels of co2, the world could reach a tipping point and we will have a run away global greenhouse effect. There will be stronger and more frequent hurricanes ” get use to it ” . There will be more and longer droughts. ” Our children just won’t know what snow is “. Science is predicting that by 2013, the Arctic will be ice free. The Antarctic ice sheets will melt and collapse causing sea levels to to rise by 20 feet. By 2015, they will be millions of climate refugees and deaths. People that refute CAGW are in denial and should be tried in the same league as war criminals. There is a 97% concensus among scientists that this is correct. Even if co2 went to zero today, temperatures will continue to rise by 4 – 5 C by the end of 2100. The window of opportunity is closing people. We must do something before it’s too late.
How quickly CAGW forgets. Least we forget, this isn’t a someday the Arctic will melt, there is so much heat being retained and 20 years from now this will happen because we are releasing x amount of co2. That’s the science I am trying to disprove. Despite all efforts to lower co2 emissions, they went up, way up. In contrast, temperatures leveled off and stayed there for 18 years.
While I think that there is a slight warming trend, I don’t know that for sure. All I have to work with is the official numbers that have been adjusted several times that I know of. They’ve been adjusted in favor of AGW.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/10/25/claim-reconstructing-climate-from-300-million-years-ago-from-fossils-says-were-in-trouble-now/#comment-2326106
+ comments following
there is no man made global warming,
or if there is, it is too small to be measured [by me]
I have it at 3% of observed warming… if there is warming. Co2 warming may not come in as background noise. Some tell me that the 3% is too high.
I have it at 3% of observed warming… if there is warming. Co2 warming may not come in as background noise. Some tell me that the 3% is too high
@risgrac
how did you determine or estimate the 3%?
Factoring out the retained heat version of the IPCC primarily. And by acknowledging that co2 has the potential to retain some heat slightly more than other gasses. You can use a physics view or a chemistry . I didn’t bother to post the exact method , as others in previous blogs have done with much greater detail, which is lower than my 3 % of observed heating. You might have been one of them.. I didn’t disagree. I probably thought their results were better. There are some talented and skilled people on here.
You can look at the heat differences between different gasses and the percentages that make up the total. This doesn’t even begin to factor other processes, which has been indicated holds no more energy than to melt a snowflake … which I’m not so sure of .
As an example of how small I think co2 has an influence, if the observed temperature rose 1.5 C then only 0.045 would/could be attributed to co2. It’s background noise to the general climate.
I think I left out ” even ” . As in ” not even background noise”.
that seems very small
but like I said
there is no room in my equation for any man made warming
everything seems to be dropping naturally:
it is globally cooling, most notably from the top latitudes down
http://oi60.tinypic.com/2d7ja79.jpg
HenryP, I don’t think you’re wrong.
I fully admit that 3% of observed warming is high. Whether it 3% or 0%, it’s purely academic to the main argument of AGW. I think your equation was better. I’m not going to argue with better.
Even if co2 amounted to 10% of observed warming, that wouldn’t be reason to destroy our economy, our way of governing, or way of life. It would still mean that there is another mechanism for rising or falling temperatures.
Roots of quadratics can be negative as well.
My response is out of place. I was responding to a question what the IPCC has stated about ice ages.
exactly
tabnumlock says: #1, CO2 has little effect on temps (it’s the other way around).
They have cause and effect wrong, exactly as with the icecore temp and CO2 where CO2 lags behind temperature.
They look feverishly to find out a justification of CO2 as a climate driver in the past climate. there is the false axiom CO2 is the main climate driver and all this ‘science’ builds unfortunately on that.
The ice ages caused the increased accumulation of CO2 in ocean’s colder waters, but that was not the cause for the colder waters.
Once the Panama isthmus was closed that triggered a gradual cooling of the global oceans which lead to the ever increased ice ages. The oceans drive the climate, but there is no real effort to model how that works.
This is very clear once one looks at the transformation that happened with the Panama Isthmus closure, but all efforts are done to ignore the ocean and use the atmosphere.
The ocean modelling would be more complex and would require true energy balance calculation.
Couldn’t have put that better myself. Total bollocks. Even a cursory examination of the graphs shows global temperature changes of 10 degrees C and CO2 changes of 180ppm to 280ppm. Not even a ‘doubling’, Obviously CO2 isn’t having much to do with it,
Inverting cause and effect as a usual.
Why 100,000 years? – that is not addressed.
The warmists are now trying to airbrush out Milankovich.
As one clever commentator said here recently, CO2 in the atmosphere must control the orbit of the earth around the sun. Truly a magic molecule.
And the cycle is not 100 ky.
Over the last 450 ky, it has been 90 ky or 115 ky, and that is a major difference.
Only for scientist.
Could it be that during ice sheet advancment and terrestrial flora in decline, the oceans were the primary source as a carbon sink?
Seeing as the oceans need to be colder to absorb more CO2 this may be more correct
“more correct”…implies that there are degrees of correctness…
I suspect that like a soda the cooler it gets the longer the oceans can hold the CO2. Further the colder the CO2 the more easily accepted by the cooling ocean.
Or another way of stating the change is a different state in a chaotic situation?
I hate to be a nit picker, but aren’t we in an ice age, and only in an interglacial now? So they are actually saying (if my nomenclature is correct) that the glaciations are being pushed farther apart?
So if we want to stay out of the next glacial period we need to keep CO2 on the rise.
Exactly right Tom, just need to make sure dumping 30Gt into the atmosphere in the geological blink of an eye is not over-doing it.
According to NOAA half of that currently gets sunk, and it’s a little more than 30, it’s 38. If you do the chemistry on the production to the ppm/v that ends up in the atmosphere since 1998, the actual amount of co2 disappearing ranges from 65 % to nearly 80%. I can see why you quote 30. It’s a little easier to explain away where the co2 is going. Of course NOAA has a few tricks that they were adding into the mix, which they’ve taken out. Still the absolute numbers are still there. I don’t like this hocus pocus game they are playing. By the way, as far as anthropogenic co2 is concerned, this is the first year since 1998 that production and sinks are in line. Whether it’s anthropogenic co2 or naturally occurring that is increasing the co2, while I’m sure that a certain % that is sampled will be anthropogenic, I’m not at all sure that all of it is due to, the rise in co2, anthropogenic co2. There is too much uncertainty.
Of course, all that’s needed for this argument to go away is to adjust the numbers, which NOAA is pretty good at.
Compared to the weight of already existing CO2 not to mention the weight of the atmosphere itself, 30Gt is nothing.
Regardless, it’s merely getting the world a smidgen closer to normal CO2 levels of 1000 to 2000 ppm.
If only it were so. I suspect the causes of warming and cooling are still hidden from us. I also suspect, CO2 levels are driven by temperature rather than driving temps. I would not be unhappy to be wrong.
“CO2 levels are driven by temperature rather than driving temps.”
Absolutely correct. Anyone who thinks its the other way around needs some remedial scientific training.
Don’t they have this backwards…The oceans “breath in” more CO2 AFTER it gets colder (cause unknown) and “breath out” more CO2 as it gets warmer (cause unknown) ??
Yes, except the cause is known: Henry’s Law. CO2 is more soluable in cold water than in warm water.
What causes it to get warm again , Sleep a lot, to release the co2? Water just warms up all by itself?
..I was talking about what causes the oceans to cool enough that it draws in more CO2 !
“ What causes it (ocean water) to get warm again , ”
“what causes the oceans to cool enough that it draws in more CO2 !”
“DUH”, haven’t y’all ever been told about the earthly equinoxes and the “changing of the season” in their respective hemispheres?
Here is a graph that should surely help explain it to you, to wit:
http://i1019.photobucket.com/albums/af315/SamC_40/keelingcurve.gif
Cougar, there is something wrong with that graph. I mean obviously wrong.
rishrac – October 28, 2016 at 8:43 pm
Obviously wrong, …… HUH, …… rishrac?
Well now, …… rishrac, …… iffen your comment was not meant to be “satirical” …… then I hafta assume that you REALLY are seeing something “obviously wrong” with the above graph that I posted ……… therefore I hate to inform you that a serious problem exists with either your eye glasses, ……. your eyeballs ……. or your misnurtured (miseducated) info/data that is recorded/stored in your brain neurons that was re-called by your subconscious mind as a “response” for your conscious mind to inform me of what you were taught to believe is “true n’ factual”.
And iffen you are dubious about my reason(s) for inferring a “problem of misnurturing”, I offer you this published commentary for your reading pleasure ….. which I am the author of.
And iffen the above cited commentary was of any interest to you, then you might also
find this published commentary interesting reading …. which I am also the author of.
There shouldn’t be any increase or decrease through out the year. The earth receives the same amount of energy every day except for changes in orbit. Whether it’s winter, summer or change of seasons. If co2 is increasing it should be a constant rather than dropping by so much then rebounding. I’ve been so informed that the percentage of co2 is well mixed through out the entire envelope of atmosphere. So during that time frame co2 is lagging behind the energy fluxes that the earth receives with changes in orbit.
rishrac – October 29, 2016 at 9:49 am
“There shouldn’t be any increase or decrease through out the year. The earth receives the same amount of energy every day except for …. yada, yada, yada”
rishrac, me no think you have a good understanding of the sciences of the natural world.
Sam C, ….. AB Degrees in Physical and Biological Science, …. GSC 1963.
Sam the sine wave matches the aphellion and perihelion. You haven’t compared the incoming energy levels. What is the reason for decreasing co2 levels ? When it becomes spring in the northern hemisphere? What is it in the southern hemisphere when it is winter here ? The southern oceans are a much bigger sink than the land in the north. Co2 follows temperature. The sun is closet to the earth during the northern hemisphere winter. If what I’m saying is correct then you would expect that when the sun is further away for co2 levels to drop. And since the mixture is even through the the entire atmosphere, the uptake in the southern oceans during the northern hemisphere should be greater. There is no other reason other than temperature for the swing. Ever been to the Arctic? The sun comes up for a few minutes and it warms from minus 23 F to minus 21. I can’t feel it, but it’s there.
Since you have a degree in the biological sciences, did you protest the use of tree rings as a proxy for temperature. After all they had to cut down 70 odd trees to get the right one. Or do you maintain that’s valid ? I suppose you informed them right away about the paper from 1976 about that they can tell temperature from tree rings, but it’s not the width it’s the ion bonding. Or about the Henson Horizon ? I didn’t see your name anywhere on that. If they had used that, it’s a complete refuting of AGW, isn’t it .
rishrac – October 30, 2016 at 10:31 am
NO, rishrac, …. that per se “sine wave” does not match earth’s aphelion (summer solstice) or perihelion (winter solstice) simply because, as defined on my above posted graph ….. that per se “sine wave” is aligned with the occurrence of the Vernal and Autumnal equinoxes.
And “DUH”, rishrac, …. why in hell should I care about incoming energy levels when you already told me they are steady and consistent day-after-day, year-after-year?
And “DUH”, “DUH”, rishrac, …. the reason for the bi-yearly decreasing CO2 levels, as defined on my above posted graph, is directly attributed to the bi-yearly decreasing in/of temperatures.
And you are absolutely right, rishrac, when you posted this ……. “The southern oceans are a much bigger sink than the land in the north. Co2 follows temperature.”
rishrac, ….. GETTA CLUE, …… atmospheric CO2 follows the temperature of the ocean water. The near-surface air temperatures really don’t mean diddly squat relative to the bi-yearly cycling of atmospheric CO2. And the FACTS are obvious, rishrac, ……. even to someone like you, …… with said FACTS denoted on this proxy graph of Global Average Atmospheric Temperatures AND the mid-May Mauna Loa measured CO2 ppm quantities, …… to wit:
http://i1019.photobucket.com/albums/af315/SamC_40/1979-2013UAHsatelliteglobalaveragetemperatures.png
rishrac – October 30, 2016 at 10:31 am
You are correct, …. but ONLY about the Sun being closest during the NH winter ….. even though that FACT has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the bi-yearly cycling or “dropping” of atmospheric CO2 ppm quantities.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, …. rishrac, … so GETTA nother “clue”.
If it is “wintertime” in the NH, then the SH ocean water is “warmer” and is thus outgassing CO2 into the atmosphere. And when it is “summertime” in the NH, then the SH ocean water is “colder” and is thus ingassing CO2 FROM the atmosphere. And the Keeling Curve Graph that I posted above EXPLICITLY defines the aforesaid bi-yearly cycling of atmospheric CO2.
“DUH”, I don’t engage in protests of anything, be they be good, bad or indifferent. But when I 1st heard/read about that “tree ring temperature proxy” … I thought it was one of the stupidest-assed things I had ever heard of or seen published as a “study” abstract in a Scientific Journal.
Dendrochronology is quite useful for “dating” post-n’-beam constructing, ancient wood artifacts, etc. But not for determining PAST near-surface temperatures, rainfall amounts, Sun shinny days or insect infestations.
by me, you are exactly right
perhaps Mr Cougar can learn something from you….
sorry
that comment was @marcus
Nonsense.
Last Ice Age was terminated by the Icelandic volcanic eruptions:
“Temporal variation in the eruption rate and lava composition in the rift zones of Iceland is associated with deglaciation. Average eruption rates after ~ 12 kyr BP, were up to 100 times higher than those from both the glacial period and recent. This peak in volcanic activity finished less than 2 kyr after the end of deglaciation.”
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/IIAV.gif
Where do you get the volcanic activity from Vuk?
The dust peak just before each interglacial came from the Gobi desert, not from volcanoes.
R
Vuk – you are exactly right. The termination if ice ages is rapid and a straight line increase of 8 to 10 degrees. This requires huge energy injection into the oceans. Regular episodic large scale mid ocean ridge magmatism is what you need. Spot on.
vukcevic = October 26, 2016 at 2:11 pm
Vukcevic, ….. the start of the Holocene (12 kyr BP) does not “mark” the end of the “last ice age”.
In actuality, the Holocene simply “marks” or defines the near-surface (proxy determined) air temperatures for the past 12,000 years (to 12 kyr BP) [see conjoined graphs below]
And in actuality, neither does the often mentioned “15 kyr BP” date, ….. often denoted as “Meltwater Pulse 1A” …….. “mark” the end of the “last ice age”.
In actual actuality, the “Last Ice Age was terminated” approximately 21,000 years ago (21 kyr BP), as defined on the following ‘conjoined’ graphs, ….. and often denoted as “Last Glacial Maximum” …….. …. and the actual, factual reason(s) for said termination has yet to be determined.
And vukcevic, 50% of the post glacial sea level rise (60m or 180ft) had already occurred by 12 kyr years ago …….. and for that to be possible ……. the average near-surface air temperatures during that initial post-glacial 12 kyr time period had to have been pretty damn warm, don’tja think?
post glacial sea level rise and Holocene temperature variations
http://i1019.photobucket.com/albums/af315/SamC_40/HoloceneInterglacialmeltwatertemperatureMediumWebview.jpg
Open Access publication.
http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/early/2016/10/20/G38636.1.full.pdf+html
The usual CO2 runs everything storyline, even the cycle of the ice ages (especially when they cherrypick and don’t use all the data).
But here are all the reliable CO2 estimates for the last 40 million years. The Northern Hemisphere glaciers should have started about 24 million years ago. Antarctic shouldn’t have had glaciers at 33.6 million years ago.
And then a better zoom-in on the last five million years with sea level from Miller 2005 (just for another perspective on the ice age cycles). Sorry, the story does not hold together because the 100,000 year ice age cycle should have started (24 million years ago again) or 7.7 million years ago or 3.0 million or 2.0 million years ago.
http://s17.postimg.org/fwhaavhz3/CO2_Sea_Level_Last_8_Mya.png
And Dr. Hansen’s 450ppm tipping point is again refuted. Several times, in this chart.
In fact, as 450ppm is about the highest (shown in the graph) before a downturn it’s a bit more worrying now that we have reached 400ppm….
Bruhaha
Rubbish. This is only 8 million years. For most of the 600 million year (Phanerozoic) history of multicellular life – that’s us – CO2 levels have been >1000 ppm, sometimes as high as 20,000 ppm. With no apparent implications for lifeforms of any phyla whatsoever.
The entire discipline of geology refutes AGW. To remain a true believer you need to deny geology. Period.
Well, there wasn’t humans 600 million years ago. Or dinosaurs.
What is interesting is not what brings glaciation every 100,000 years, but rather what keeps it away for 10,000 years.
Ptolemy2
I got enough of people playing with my name in primary school (how childish)
I am totally aware that a long time ago the CO2 was a lot higher. But if I was analysing trends, I would think that a trend that has been cycling for 10my is more likely to continue rather than revert to levels that haven’t occurred for the past 25my.
And by the way, I totally refute CAGW and have not had any convincing argument sway me to believe CO2 plays any significant role in AGW, and very little to think that it is more than hubris to assume that the human race can affect natural climate change in a significant way
ptolemy2
October 27, 2016 at 4:03 am
IMO CO2 level has never been 20,000 ppm at any time in the Phanerozoic Eon (541 mya to present), or even the past 600 million years, which would include much of the Ediacaran Period, last of the Precambrian. It was however 7000 ppm during the Cambrian Period and still above 4000 in the Ordovician and Silurian, despite an ice age at the boundary between the latter two periods.
Bill Illis, I like the graphs. Where do they come from? Published?
CO2 content in the ocean does rise and fall based on the water temperature. But maybe CO2 has very little to do causation and just reflects the fact the ocean water has become warmer or colder?
Did they stop to consider this and just maybe it is something else responsible? Nah.
rbabcock, iffen the temperature of the ocean water stayed the same ……. the CO2 content in the ocean could or would rise and fall based on the near-surface air temperatures becoming warmer or colder. If the air temperature is colder than the water …… then the water will outgas CO2.
CO2 is like thermal “heat” energy, …… they both will migrate to the “colder” entity.
@sam
you say
If the air temperature is colder than the water …… then the water will outgas CO2.
henry says\
that does not fit my chemical equations which I have just tried to explain?
Try to understand that at the top layers of the [70%] water, when it reaches boiling – which it does due to UV –
it warms,
so when air T gets warmer – due to solar increase- the oceans will outgas the HCO3- to CO2(g).
@ HenryP
A mind is a terrible thing to lose.
I am sure Henry’s law does not apply here as the T is not constant and neither is the volume [of air above earth]
– which is why CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere follow warming and cooling –
HCO3(1-) giga tons dissolved in ocean water + heat => CO2 (g) + OH(1-)
When it is getting cooler the oceans act like a sinc for CO2
H2O + CO2 (g) + cold => CO3 (2-) + 2H(1+)
perhaps to understand I should ask you the question: how it is possible that we have clouds and rain when it is clear that none of our ocean water ever get to boiling point, wherever and whenever we measure it? [max 35 degrees C in the tropics?]
Henry’s Law certainly does apply here.
Henry’s-law constant H for CO2
-water solutions is 1.42×10^3 atm/mole
fraction at 20 C. Using simple Henry’s-law solubilities
(p=H*x), the oceans should hold only 30% of the 2,900 giga
tonnes of the atmospheric CO2 at
equilibrium, but the actual figure is >50 times this
amount. In fact, for an ideal vapour-liquid equilibrium
system obeying Raoult’s law, an atmospheric pressure of
175 atmospheres would be required to contain this colossal
amount (50*2,900=145,000 giga tonnes) of CO2 in
the oceans. The majority share of CO2 is taken up by the oceans competing with the biosphere’s
CO2 requirements for
plant growth and food supply. Non-ideality accounts for its
large solubility in water and clearly it is sequestered and
fixed by chemical and biological reactions. They involve the
formation of carbonate rocks and phytoplankton growth
through photosynthesis. The reactions remove
> dissolved CO2 from the equilbrium equation,
> driving it to the right, thereby giving the oceans a near
> limitless ability to absorb CO2.
in practice it is the varying amount of UV – due to solar forcing – that heats the top layers of the oceans to boiling point to produce water vapor and CO2 gas from the unending supply available.
if it were not so we would not be here to argue about it. Henry can go and stand on his head….
I wrote a reply saying , ” I don’t think that’s how it works ” but in the course of writing , I thought you might be right. I have to think about this this one… reduction in pressure does cause the ocean to ” boil “.
I do believe you are right. Is that claptrap’s law that you are quoting?
you’re a bit dim aren’t you
if you have some results of your own to show you may bring them,
that would be great,
in that case I won’t consider you dim.
HenryP – October 29, 2016 at 10:44 am ….. did askith of me:
Oh my, my, …. HenryP, ….. dat shur nuff is an easy n’ simple one fer me ta answer.
Why we have lots n’ lots n’ lots of “clouds and rain” wid out da ocen watter eva heatin up to da boilin point …… simply because of the “evaporating” sweat (H2O) from the sweat glands of the 9 billion hard working humans that now habituate the earth.
Why all dose “hard working” billions of people …. each sweat out several gallons of water most every day.
And HenryP, I have a question for you: did you, per chance, have a sexy acting, really good looking, 20-something year old female ……… for your High School Science Teacher? ….. ALRIGHTY, then, …… that explains your miseducation in/of what is now called the Earth Sciences.
Wow
you figured it out all right
must be that google ol texan education in biology and metrology…
OK can someone out there explain the Magic to me??
Now I was under the impression that an already colder ocean was needed to dissolve (Sink) more Carbon Dioxide. Yet, as it has been “Proven” today, a warmer climate means a warmer ocean = less CO2 sinking.
Perhaps their models are mistaken about which happened first? I would think that the climate would need to cool, to cool the oceans sufficiently to increase their capacity to dissolve CO2.
Most water in the ocean is deep and cold and the temperature down there is fairly constant even across ice ages. This deep cold water mixes very little with the upper ocean layers which are far more variable in temperature and can exchange gases easily with the atmosphere. The amount of CO2 in the upper layers is a direct function of temperature as you point out, and varies along with it. However because of the limited mixing and generally constant temperature of the deep ocean, the amount of CO2 dissolved in the deep ocean waters varies much less and is much less directly linked to surface temperatures. The argument as I understand it is that slow variations in this deep ocean CO2 content are driven mainly by changes in the THC which mediates the rate and nature of the mixing and exchange between deep and shallow ocean waters. That is my take on it anyway.
Perhaps THC, as inhaled by the authors, explains quite a lot.
The data says temperature controls atmospheric CO2 levels. Reversing cause and effect “may” require a few doobies.
The end of an ice age has an elegant mechanical explanation in the dissertation of Hans Oerlemans 1980. He calculated that the land icecaps on scandinavia an canada grew so high and heavy that they simply deformed southward, the top of the icecaps sank rapidly below the level of sustainability. This also explains why icecaps bounded by oceans like antarctica and greenland survived the ice age.
A second, more important question: where did the huge amounts of snow come from that formed the canadian and scandinavia icecaps, and why wasn’t there ice in siberia?
A shift in the position of the north pole is one possibility. The theory goes that as ice builds up to some large amount eccentrically it pulls the lithosphere over the mantle, there being a fluid zone between them.
Siberia did have large glaciers in the early part of the greater last ice age period. Maybe as early as 3.2 million years ago to let’s say 2.0 million years ago.
But today, the land that is above sea level in Siberia is too far south to build up large ice-sheets. The climate science community likes to pretend that it was too dry, but the reality is that the summer sun is strong enough to melt out the winter snow once you get down to 70N or so even in the very deepest downturns of the Milankovitch Cycles.
Glaciers need to build up on land first starting at 75N before the albedo feedback can then push them south. They don’t start at 65N because the summer sun is too strong and they don’t build up on the ocean.
Siberia had its glaciers starting at 3.2 million years ago but these were farther north in the East Siberia Sea which has now been pushed below sea level by the weight of successive glaciations in the early part of the last ice age period.
In fact, The East Siberian Sea, the Laptev Sea, the Kara Sea and the Barents Sea have all hosted large ice-sheets at various times in the ice age cycles. Either just early in the epochs and have now just become continental shelf below sea level or off-on at various times in ice age cycles as the conditions were right.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0tmgqDtP4QY/UkxXplF8U5I/AAAAAAAA1FY/txdfvb2tLgk/s400/icesheets-1.jpg
There is tons of evidence for this including this paper.
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n10/full/ngeo1904.html
Maybe it’s outdated now, but CLIMAP showed an ice sheet in the Taymyr region of Siberia (~80 to 120 degrees East) even during the Last Glacial Maximum.
Also, last I read, the eastern boundary of the Weichselian Barents-Kara Sea Ice Sheet was ill-defined. Maybe it isn’t any more.
Not only can heat hide in the deep ocean, now CO2 can as well.
Its the CO2 that takes it down there! Probably to have its wicked way with it! Once sated and bored it releases it and itself back to appear on to the screens of unsuspecting modern day graphic artists (climate scientists).
Next time (if) our graphic artists survive a full on ice age I suspect there maybe a different slant on surrealism?
This strikes as a cause & effect problem. Did cooler temperatures cause more CO2 absorption or did the increase in CO2 absorption cause cooler temperatures?
Based on the fact that this is the second coolest interglacial of the last five AND the most stable interglacial period, you would think that carbon dioxide is not the primary driver of temperature changes.
http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/CO2-chart-780.jpg
Did you possibly graft Mauna Loa measurements on ice core data?
CO2 has nothing to do with the start or ending of Ice Ages. It follows the temperature does not lead.
This suggests that extra carbon dioxide was being pulled from the atmosphere and into the oceans at this time, subsequently lowering the temperature on Earth and enabling vast ice sheets to engulf the Northern Hemisphere
I had to post my post again under this article ,which is even more ridiculous then AGW theory.
For the record I don’t know for sure why and how the climate changes and why abrupt climate changes happen , so I am not separating myself from everyone.
I have thoughts as I have expressed and will once again
Nevertheless I am frustrated because every theory every thought including my own can be shown to be deficient to one degree or another.
We have so many potential good thoughts(other then AGW theory) but if one is really honest they all do not stand the test of time 100%, in other words exceptions can always be found no matter how tight or reasonable the theory may be.
Nevertheless , I keep coming back to these items to explain the climate puzzle which is I agree in the very big picture Milankovitch Cycles and Land Ocean arrangements are very important but they do not explain the abrupt climatic changes superimposed upon the gradual climatic trends.
I still think and I know I have very little fanfare here is that primary solar variability is greater then we think as evidenced by the Maunder Minimum.
I also think there have been periods of solar variability that have exceeded the Maunder Minimum in the historical past . That aside even from the depths of the Maunder Minimum to the solar maximum of the last century it looks like solar irradiance increased by some .3 or .4%. Which is much greater then the .1% we constantly hear. Another lie.
I think the secondary effects even from slight changes in solar variability play even a bigger role especially when it come to changes in UV light and cosmic rays and their impacts upon the climate.
Lastly the geo magnetic field as VUK has been pointing out has a role in all of this.
For my two cents to sum it up I think it is Milankovitch Cycles ,Land /Ocean arrangements control the climate in the big picture, while primary and even more importantly secondary solar effects moderated by the strength of the geo magnetic field are vital in the small climatic picture which are able to bring about abrupt climatic changes by driving the terrestrial items that control the climate to threshold values which cause a complete flip or reorganization of the climate system.
I think this is the best explanation but I know it will be shown by others that it falls short as everyone does with every single climatic proposal that is put out there.
This is why I hope this prolonged minimum solar period that has just become established once again will lead us away from the AGW theory scam which has no data past or present to back it up.
Salvatore del Prete, good post and I agree with you, especially about the per se, noninfrequent increases in solar irradiance …… because how else can one explain the sudden and terrific increase(s) in glacial ice melting as defined on these proxy graphs, to wit:
http://i1019.photobucket.com/albums/af315/SamC_40/HoloceneInterglacialmeltwatertemperatureMediumWebview.jpg
The first thing is that 0.12 % is an assumption. Second, instrument error was 0.1 % off. If the sun did decline by the 0.12 % they quote, the numbers change significantly because now they are over 0.2 %. The bottom line is that just from the instrument error, it wipes out 1/3 of the supposed global warming by co2, by their math. I think if the sun actually declined currently by 0.12 % that we would see cooling. Any further decline beyond 0.12% would be catastrophic. I’m not saying that this is only factor or cause or what causes energy outputs to increase or decline. ( a decline of 0.15% and problems would begin to become noticeable. Makes me wonder why they settled on 0.12%… I think I know why, they could rule out solar variability… by a stroke of chance 1368 to 1370 w/m^2 agreed with the other calculations of C/AGW . They are trying to restate the number they used at 1365. Nothing could be further from the truth. They rounded up in all calculations to 1370 from 1368. )
So how does the earth come back out of the ice age when CO2 is all stoppered up? Insolation alone brings us out of the ice age but then somehow CO2 is vital and controlling? The logic is lacking imo.
Much better to think of the Earth going through warming and cooling cycles where the warming, greening planet pulls C02 from the oceans and the cooling, waning cycle of life sees it sequestered there again.
Where does the warming come from? Unknown by science today…but the best ice core science tells us its not CO2 as the controlling force.
What I think is it’s a combination, when the earth is too cold for the water cycle to work, co2 would be a or the strong ghg, and I think that volcanic activity does start to build a much higher co2 level, as the really cold water is iced over, and then the orbit slowly increases isolation, and the very high co2 levels help warm the planet up enough that the water cycle starts again, water vapor regulates night time cooling through dew points.
micro6500 writes
Very unlikely. CO2 via volcanism is a slow process and the CO2 released would be sequestered into the cold ocean faster than its released. This is simply an excuse to have CO2 being the controlling force when the ice core record tells us that its not because the CO2 levels follow temperature and not the other way around.
My scenario is mostly based on the oceans being covered in ice, so the path for co2 into cold water is closed off.
micro6500 writes
But they’re not. This isn’t snowball earth.
micro6500 – October 29, 2016 at 5:12 am
Oh mercy me, ….. micro6500, …. you just rendered your “argument” worthless and of no scientific value whatsoever via your stated prerequisite of “ice covered oceans”.
If the oceans are all covered in ice and snow, …… then so is all the land, And that condition is referred to as “snowball earth” ….. and when that happens it matters not a twit how much CO2 is in the atmosphere simply because all solar irradiance is being reflected off the snow and ice …… and thus there is NO, NONE, ZILCH, NADA …… Infrared Radiation (IR) being transmitted through the atmosphere for the CO2 molecules to be absorbing as thermal “heat” energy …. and thus no “warming” of the atmosphere …… and no melting of the ice and snow. To wit:
Other than an abnormal extra-terrestrial initiated event, the only way to terminate a “snowball earth” situation is volcanism, ….. either massive or super-volcano events ….. or thousands of years of normal volcano events. And forget about the volcanic CO2, ….. it is the “dust particulate” from the erupting volcanoes that settles on the ice and snow …… and absorbs the solar irradiance …. and re-emits it as IR and/or conducts (transfers) it as thermal “heat” energy and the “melting” of the ice and snow is accomplished.
“the only way to terminate a “snowball earth” situation is volcanism”
Volcanism is the most likely influence that could cause a snowball Earth, either that or a massive reduction in solar output. There is far too much direct Sun in the tropics to facilitate the creation of, much less sustain, ocean ice.
The whole snowball earth scenario is somewhat flaky. It’s far more likely that the supposed evidence is misplaced and the land they though was in the tropics and froze was actually at the poles. At 2 inches per year of tectonic motion, the plates will have migrated 20K miles in 650 million years which is nearly double the distance between the poles and the equator.
How did we end up with a bunch of morons…that it’s always CO2 first
Well, that’s quite easy to explain.
If you want further research grants and have a successful career as a scientist you must follow the orthodox doctrine nowadays…
You may say, that’s religion and not science anymore, and well, you’re right. We live in the age of post-enlightenment already.
But … these are special morons.
They just don’t realize that they’re just puppies like the rest of us.
Able to focus on only one bouncing ball at at a time.
Puppets?
The paper starts with the assumption that CO2 is the global temperature control knob. The problem is, of course, that CO2 lags temperature. (Of course, some brilliant ‘scientist’ will invent bafflegab to prove that isn’t the case.)
The main reason we have glaciation in the first place is plate tectonics. link
The period between interglacials changed about a million years ago. For an explanation, I would look to changes in ocean currents induced by changing geography.
Why do we come out of glaciation? CO2 is absorbed into the colder ocean and plants experience CO2 starvation. That means no ground cover and increased dust blowing around. The dust settles on the ice and reduces the albedo. More heat is absorbed and the glaciers melt. The CO2 comes out of the warming ocean and the plants come back. link
Good points. Physical absorption of CO2 by water is inversely related to temperature as everyone seems to recognize, but in reality the situation is complicated by numerous factors and feedbacks, not the least of which is marine biology. Certainly, plant growth, sequestering CO2, tends to favor warmer temperatures and sunlight. This sink can actually increase CO2 flux into the oceans. Then there is dust in the wind.
I wish they could have explained why 40,000 cycles was not a problem for science to understand but 100,000 year cycles is a problem? The article explains this as “Earth’s seasons” happening in a predicable way. What seasons are these? Anyway I am not buying it as they have not given an explaination as to what causes alge to all of a sudden have a party every 100,000 years.
40,000 years is directly explainable in terms of Milankovich cycles. The switch to 100,000 years is perplexing and not understood. All they’ve really done is observe that the change from 40,000 to 100,000 year cycles happened at the same time as a change in the pattern of thermohaline circulation — deep ocean currents. That observation is interesting and must be taken into account by those seeking to formulate explanations. But I don’t think anyone yet (except perhaps for a few excitable science media people) is claiming to know what caused the shift.
There was a nice article recently, it was either here or on Judith Curry’s site, that pointed out that the 100,000 year cycle is only a rough average over 5 or 6 glacial periods, and that individual cycles are quite close to 2 Milankovich cycles (82,000 years) or 3 Milankovich cycles (123,000 years).
The irregular pattern had bothered me, and I visualised the glacial/interglacial alternation as not really being a cycle but representing a series of changes between two states. Perhaps ocean circulation was the culprit. You can play with the concept in a thought experiment and come up with explanations that are at least as valid as those presented by this article.
The warmist lexicon has a retort to Milankovich being the driver: “Yes, solar cycles started the warming, but when the ice sheets began to melt, there was a massive release of CO2 and CH4 from thawing permafrost and that’s what REALLY drove the interglacial warming”. Honestly, you can’t win with these people; it’s like talking to a con artist or a car salesman.
As I recollect from reading about the FFT analyses in Science back in the ’70s, it isn’t the astronomical cycles alone that control the climate, but it is the phase differences between them such that there are periods of constructive interference and destructive interference that can amplify or suppress the effects. It isn’t simply a case of finding a particular cycle and then attributing everything to that one cycle. Rather, all the various cycles have to be taken into account. Maybe the 100,000 year ‘problem’ is because the current crop of climatologists never read the seminal work on the problem.
Possibly the need for rain rather than just warmth to melt the NH ice in the summer.
When the oceans get colder, they absorb more CO2; when they warm, the process is reversed. The warming and cooling of the oceans drive changes in the CO2, not vice versa. What an odd concept this study presents: that the CO2 enters the oceans to cause them to cool, and then exits to cause them to warm.
You just hit the home run here!!! Well said!!!
Javier has a nice article at Climate, Etc.about glacial cycles, and they are not on a 100,000 year cycle.
https://judithcurry.com/2016/10/24/nature-unbound-i-the-glacial-cycle/
Heavy but a very interesting paper, that presents a cogent argument for the failure of the Milankovich theory of planetary cycles to fully describe earths glacial-interglacial periodicities.
Technically I believe that we are currently in an ice age and have been for the last 3 million years. We just happen to be fortunate to be living in an interglacial portion of the ice age. During this ice age we have experienced numerous cycles of 100,000 years or so of glacial advance, punctuated by interglacial periods of 10 to 20,000 years. If we don’t get the geologic terminology right, things get a bit confusing
Silly thought, but I found the idea of the oceans inhaling and exhaling every 100,000 years kind of cool. Cheesy, but cool. “It’s alive!”
It’s co2, the magic molecule ! What else can it be ? … this article isn’t even good science fiction. And somehow the co2 got released back into the atmosphere after 100,000 years ? Was it a tipping point for run a way greenhouse planet? Seriously, the more you think about this, the stupider C/AGW becomes.
Can anyone explain why the glaciation during the glacial periods is in the Northern Hemisphere? Do not the land masses in the Southern Hemisphere (South America, Africa, Australia and New Zealand) become sufficiently cold also? If not, why not?
Geography is the short answer. Antarctica of course is permanently glaciated – assisted by its circular shape centred on the pole. But all the other land masses in the southern hemisphere are either too far north or too narrow and closely surrounded by ocean to support large thick permanent ice sheets. The large land masses in critical locations where they may or may not support ice sheets are all located in the north. Therefore only the northern hemisphere can tip us into ice age when ice starts to accumulate in these places from one season to the next.
Thanks.
Last time I checked, cold water could hold a lot more CO2.
Sounds like these researchers have once again reversed cause and effect.
Cold waters sucked CO2 out of the atmosphere, rather than oceans sucked CO2 out of the atmosphere making everything cold.
just a layman that drank soda in his youth but it seems to me that COLDER water or soda HOLDS IN co2 much better than when the soda warms???? rather than “sucking in” co2 i submit more likely the oceans are releasing LESS is how the buildup happens……..
Vukcevik (thank you!) put me on to Dr. Judith Curry’s nascent(?) theory of “Stadium-Wave” whereby there are numerous long-term natural cycles which might resonate & amplify and drive each other.
I’m thinking that, with the right conjunction of independent natural cycles, Earth is prone to such resonant amplifications (such as periodic Ice Ages?) (If I’ve got this wrong, I stand to be corrected, please)
The massive energy exchanges of such swings between ‘amplified rogue-waves’ surely vastly overwhelms the pathetic contributions of AGW.
Methinks we are chasing a chimera ….. we shd be looking to understand better the paleo-historic cycles, and not running around like headless chickens trying to blame a minor (in historical terms) up-tick in CO2 which — of itself — is well within paleo-historical limits and can easily be explained in the context of the Big Cycles.
When will this madness end, and money be diverted to USEFUL ends?
All I see here is bad pulp science fiction – ‘this leads to that, which leads then to thus’. It’s 100% idle chatter and 0% data, mechanism, or analysis. Post hoc rationalizations…
if they had a workable mechanism they should be able to demonstrate why the Mid-Pleistocene Transition occurred exactly when it did, and not sooner or later, and why it went from ca. 40Ky to ca. 100Ky.
More importantly, they should be able to account for the purely periodic changes without relying on non-periodic feedback mechanisms such as ‘CO2 inhalation and exhalation’.
Finally, there is absolutely no mention of the fundamental fact of chemistry that CO2 is far more soluble in cold water than in warm: http://docs.engineeringtoolbox.com/documents/1148/solubility-co2-water.png which would indicate that the temperature changes control the CO2 availability and not vice versa.
+ 1.. tad Chem.
These people have carbon on the brain. They are so invested in the CO2=evil concept of climate, they either can’t or won’t even consider there may be causes for climate change other than CO2, causes like solar output and activity, precession, orbital eccentricities, volcanic activity, etc, etc, etc.
Until they get their collective head out of the CO2 sand, they will be unable to see anything that resembles truth.
“We can think of the oceans as inhaling and exhaling carbon dioxide, so when the ice sheets are larger, the oceans have inhaled carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, making the planet colder. When the ice sheets are small, the oceans have exhaled carbon dioxide, so there is more in the atmosphere which makes the planet warmer.
So then why all this nonsense about burning fossil fuel which represents 400 parts per million. When the Ocean decides to inhale again atmospheric CO2 will dropped to 40 parts per million and we will all need to relocate to panama despite all the wind turbines and solar panels.
A little leery about the fixation on co2 as the god of climate change
It is quite likely that carbon dioxide had nothing whatsoever to do with glacial cycle length. It looks like they brought it in to justify more funds for the project. It so happens that the “Mid-Pleistocene Transition” coincides with the closing of the Panamanian Seaway. This blocked the west to east current that had existed across the Seaway and forced a reorganization of oceanic current systems of both Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Among other things, this established the ENSO oscillation in its present form. More than likely, the glacial cycle length is related to the reorganization of the oceanic current system when that seaway closed.
There are some significant objections to Milankovitch cycles as the cause of ice ages. If you dig into the history of how M-cycles became correlated with global temperature, it is fraught with assumptions, virtually no independent dating, and self-proving, squeezing and expanding of curves for deep sea cores and M-cycles until they match. The claim is then made that because orbital cycles match global temperature, the correlations must be correct! For example, take a look at how global temperatures for hundreds of thousands of years are dated–the fact is they aren’t. The temp data comes largely from delta 18O of shells in deep sea cores that can’t be dated accurately–most of the age determinations depend on sedimentation rates based on a few dates here and there. Then, assuming the sed rates never change, the thickness of sediment is used to calculate ages. (sed rates are notoriously suspect because any change throws age calculations off). So do these age determinations match orbital variations? Not really, because the next step is to squeeze and expand the two sets of curves until they match–ie. it’s self proving.
Synchronous glaciations in both hemisphere argue strongly against M-cycles but this is largely ignored. Many D/O abrupt climate reversals (the most prominent being the Younger Dryas) argue even more strongly that full-glacial climate changes take place much more rapidly than M-cycles can account for. The discovery of the abrupt YD climate change that went from full interglacial temps to full glacial temps in a few hundred years and stayed there for >1000 years before abruptly warming to full interglacial again in a few hundred years showed that glacial/interglacial temps could change far more abruptly than could be accounted for by M-cycles. This led many to conclude something other than M-cycles controls glacial/interglacial cycles. Various schemes attempted to ‘save’ the Milankovitch concept, i.e. deep ocean current changes, but these had to be discarded because we now have abundant 14C and 10Be dates that show temp changes in both hemispheres were very synchronous. Whatever causes glaciations and interglaciations does so for the entire planet synchronously.
So M-cycles don’t satisfactorily explain climate variations from glacials to interglacials. Bottom line is that we need a new hypothesis to explain climate changes–perhaps something like the Svensmark concept.
Exactly Don and I think we should look to the sun’s primary variability and the secondary climatic effects associated with that solar variability moderated by changes in the strength of the earth’s geo magnetic field.
These factors bringing the terrestrial items that influence the climate either toward a warmer mode or cooler mode, and if these terrestrial factors are pushed far enough in one direction or another climatic thresholds could be reached which result in a complete reorganization of the climate.
THE TERRESTRIAL ITEMES
changes in atmospheric circulation patterns
changes in oceanic current patterns
changes in frequency of major volcanic activity
changes in sea surface temperatures
changes in global cloud coverage
changes in global snow coverage
changes in global sea ice coverage
i suspect M-cycles, continental placement and solar variability are the three main drivers of ice ages.
For interglacials solar activity and M-cycles are the two main drivers, where solar activity is able to “offset the M-cycle”
then i didn’t take volcanic activity, cloud cover, ocean current changes into account, as i believe they to have a multi Kyr cyclic behaviour that is yet to be discovered, and the changes of the magnetic poles/earth’s magnetosphere,….
a simple example: a huge volcanic event under the WAIS that destroys it creating a meltwater pulse, triggering a glaciation…
in short: loads of variables that are able to add or substract to the M-cycle periodicity, but more, that are able to change climate on bigger scales then a M-cycle can do on it’s own.
however i do not discard the M-cycle completely. I rather see it as one part of the big whole
Don
So M-cycles don’t satisfactorily explain climate variations from glacials to interglacials. Bottom line is that we need a new hypothesis to explain climate changes–perhaps something like the Svensmark concept.
Or maybe just plain old chaos theory that everyone for some bizarre reason avoids like the plague.
Its a weakly periodically forced nonlinear oscillator.
Planet 9 – ??? GK
Don – completely agree. The key to this is to understand the amount of energy change required to end an ice age. And the shape of the graph – it is not curved to some new equilibrium, it is straight up 8 to 10 degrees. Over a very short period. Then drops away again to its natural equilibrium 8 degrees colder than today. What causes that energy injection ? The evidence points to episodic large scale mid ocean ridge magmatism.
“What causes that energy injection ?”
WR: Perhaps it is not an energy injection but it is a diminishing / stop of the Earth’ Water Cooling.
From the Deep Sea every year more than a million cubic kilometers (!) of cold water is welling up and has to be warmed. When that upwelling/downwelling process would be strongly diminished / stopped for a thousand years, this would add to the effects of the Milankovitch cycles.
When the surface layer of the oceans is not ‘refreshed’ regularly, warming of that relatively thin surface layer can be quick. The atmosphere will follow quickly in warming etc. etc.
The two processes, more insolation and a stop of the Water Cooling (Upwelling) could be the start of a lot of follow up processes.
So how much (ppm CO2) is their in say a gallon of cold water compared to a gallon of warm water say wth a temperature difference of 30c?.
That would depend on whether the water is at saturation or not. It is possible at a subsaturation concentration that the two could have exactly the same concentration of CO2. Example: two identical containers of water one at 10C the other at 40C in a room of 400ppm CO2 at equilibrium will both have 400ppm.
If you graph the concentration vs time as you bubble CO2 through the two containers, the colder will rise to a much higher concentration. Example: our two water containers from the first example. The 10C container will quickly approach 2500ppm while the 40C container will only approach 1000ppm.
I can’t find the data for subsaturation outgassing, but as it follows a log pattern I suspect the farther you are from the saturation point, the slower the change will be.
I really need to actually do this experiment again, the one problem I see is in the apparatus to maintain the temperature in the two containers, In Chem 1 lab back in 1981 we assumed the temperature didn’t change significantly in the process but we didn’t measure it. We weren’t too concerned with the numbers as it was more of a qualitative concept lab rather than a quantitative one. It seems like it should be an easily done undergrad lab though.
At 400ppm CO2, the oceans from -1C to 30C should be able to hold 400ppm CO2 and there should not be any ocean reinforcement of CO2 concentrations due to outgas or absorption of CO2 due to temperature – water at 30C doesn’t saturate until 1250 ppm. At -1C the oceans can take about 3300ppm CO2 concentrations.
Of course the data above is for fresh water. The chemical processes in the ocean buffering solution and any biological processes completely throw the numbers off.
This does not make sense. There was an ice age 30,0000 years ago and 70,000 years ago. We went from 100 to 40 NOT 40 to 100,000 years.
There were Pleistocene glaciations ~130,000 yrs BP, 70-90 yrs BP, 30-40,000 yrs BP, 21-24,000 yrs BP, and 17-19,000 yrs BP. Plus the Younger Dryas for about 1000 yrs. These do not fit the M-cycles.
After all that inhaling the PH must have around 5/6. Did any of the coral die???
Well, it doesn’t. The 100 kyr cycle doesn’t exist. It is an artifact. The interval between glacials and interglacials is determined by obliquity, and thus follows a multiple of 41 kyr. Milankovitch Theory is incorrect.
https://judithcurry.com/2016/10/24/nature-unbound-i-the-glacial-cycle/
As you can see there are 11 interglacials in a period of 800,000 years. How can anybody defend a 100 kyr cycle with so many interglacials and none of them coming 100 kyr after the previous?
Counting terminations by MIS numbers, it changes.
plazaeme,
Of course it changes if you follow a different criterion, However you are deceiving yourself by changing the rules at mid-game. You are counting as single interglacial what 1 M years ago you would consider two that are separated by 41 kyr.
It is as simple as contrasting the eccentricity (100 kyr cycle) with the obliquity (multiples of 41 kyr cycle):
The black curve is EPICA temperature, the blue curve is obliquity, and the red curve is eccentricity normalized. I hope you see the problem. Out of 9 peaks eccentricity runs into very serious problems in 4. Three interglacials fall outside the peak (red stars), and two interglacials fall inside one peak (red dots). And even when the interglacials MIS 17 and 19 fall inside a peak, they are showing an obliquity distance (blue bar). So that leaves you only with the distance between MIS 13 and 11 to support your case. And both can hardly be described as typical interglacials.
Obliquity offers a much better match to empirical evidence. There are no doubt some irregularities, but the norm is that when temperatures rise, they almost always follow the obliquity curve with a slight lag of 5-10,000 years.
Javier, I am not deceiving anyone, not even myself. I had the curiosity to see “what if” we use MIS terminations and Lisiecki and Raymo. I’m not considering it “the truth”, nor something special. Don’t get excited.
I don’t get excited plazaeme,
It is clear that there is a 100 kyr periodicity in the data because it has been recognized repeatedly for the past 45 years by many authors. So it is not surprising that you also find it. I do too. The question is never finding a periodicity in a frequency analysis, but demonstrating that the periodicity found corresponds to a real physical phenomenon. As my graph shows, the eccentricity periodicity does not fit temperatures, so if you find a 100 kyr period that is not the eccentricity, what do you make out of it? It is likely not to be a real cycle.
And then there is the problem of the dating of Lisiecki and Raimo LR04 benthic stack. They use an age model that has a significant deviation from astronomical data. Plotting obliquity for the entire stack gives a quite bad fit. The dates from EPICA appear to be a lot more precise.
actually it’s something i also noticed: glaciation and interstadials do follow a 41kyr “harmonic”.
To me it’s obvious: since the closure of the Panama Isthmus the smaller amplitude 41 kyr cycles took place for harmonic variants of the 41kyr cycle with a bigger amplitude. Only 2 of them do have an unexplainable “offset” (in the graph MIS 11 and MIS 7e) and that’s where i find it a pity that curry didn’t made a full harmonic scale graph. which would place MIS 9 and MIS 7c without the offset.
in that full harmonic graph you would notice that:
-MIS 9 would be following MIS 13 by 160000 years which is roughly 4 41Kyr cycles
-MIS 7c would be following MIS 9 by 120000 years or roughly 3 41kyear events.
-only MIS 11 and 7e are in offset, MIS 11 due to it’s unusual length and MIS 7e due to it’s unusual short period. However MIS 11 and 7e do follow an individual harmonic of the 41kyear cycle: roughly 160000 years or 4 41kyr cycles.
that’s something i noticed from Curry’s graph.
My graph, actually. I think that can be seen very well in any temperature graph that includes obliquity.
My comment may be less than informed having only read summaries of the article such as…
http://3tags.org/article/why-does-our-planet-experience-an-ice-age-every-100-000-years
However it seems that Prof Carrie Lear and friends have explained nothing.
They make the observation …
‘By looking at the fossils of tiny creatures [ foraminifera] on the ocean floor, we showed that when ice sheets were advancing and retreating every 100,000 years the oceans were inhaling more carbon dioxide in the cold periods, suggesting that there was less left in the atmosphere.”
Prof Lear is a long time carbonista http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Has_The_Mystery_Of_The_Antarctic_Ice_Sheet_Been_Solved_999.html
So it’s all the fault of CO2.
But even for fully fledged carbonistas there is the problem of why CO2 varied before the appearance of nasty fire – using homo erectus and descendants.
However there are others who think that it’s not all the fault of CO2 [and even got published in Nature].
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v500/n7461/abs/nature12374.html
Prof Carrie Lear and friends explain nothing.
They claim to have found an approximately 100,000 year cycle in the deposition of forams.
If there is an approximately 100,000 year cycle in glaciation/water temperature that’s what you might expect and that’s what you might try and find [if that’s what you’ve postulated and received research funds for].
Doesn’t explain the cycle’s existence, if it exists
Sigh, when is the science community ever going to get its act together………..? The Quaternary, and Pleistocene began roughly 2.5 million years, as the result of the Isthmus of Panama coming together and joining into one land mass. Before that time, warmer waters of the Pacific Ocean were able to transition directly into the Atlantic, without having to take the long road around through the Indian Ocean. With more warm waters moving over to the Atlantic, more heat was able to be deposited in the Arctic regions. As the Isthmus slowly linked the two Americas together, this loss of warm water was just enough to cause the periodic glaciations, caused by the Milankovitch Cycles, due to varying orbital cycles of the earth around the sun. Common Sense 101
See the problems with M-cycles above.
Their theory assumes that CO2 affects climate but there is no real evidence that such is the case. There is no such evidence in the paleoclimate record. There is evidence that warmer temperatures cause more CO2 to enter the atmosphere but no real evidence that the additional CO2 adds to warming. In terms of greenhouse gas theory, the primary greenhouse gas is really H2O yet that fact is ignored.
If CO2 did affect climate then one would expect that the increase in CO2 over the past 30 years would have caused at least a detectable increase in the dry lapse rate in the troposphere but that has not happened.
A real greenhouse does not stay warm because of the action of heat trapping greenhouse gases. A real greenhouse stays warm because the glass reduces heat loss by convection. It is a convective greenhouse effect. There is no radiative greenhouse effect associated with a real greenhouse. So to on Earth. The Earth’s atmosphere keeps the surface 33 degrees C warmer then it would be without an atmosphere because of gravity and the heat capacity of the atmosphere. It is a convective greenhouse effect. As derived from first principals, the convective greenhouse effect accounts for all 33 degrees C. There is no additional radiant greenhouse effect. The convective greenhouse effect has been observed on all planets in the solar system with thick atmospheres. There is no radiative greenhouse effect anywhere in the solar system, not even on Venus. The radiative greenhouse effect is science fiction as are all conjectures that depend upon it including the AGW conjecture.
The reason CO2 does not affect climate is that it does not ‘store’ heat. It is actually the inert gases that store heat. So, the sign is wrong, and all the assumptions about CO2 ‘trapping’ heat are also false. Why? The gas laws state clearly that the composition of any gas mixture is independent of what gases make up the mixture. So, temperature, volume and pressure are all independent of the types of gases involved. That is the first point: CO2 alone cannot violate these laws. There is no gas law for CO2 by itself.
The thermal laws state that everything above absolute zero (0 K) radiates. The warmer it is, the more it radiates (a simplification, but in essence correct.) There are two types of gases – inert and radiative. So called greenhouse gases RADIATE constantly – not just when they absorb a photon. They can absorb photons, and they can absorb energy from inert gases during collisions – but they constantly radiate, which is a COOLING effect. Yes, CO2 is not a warming influence, but a cooling one, as are all the other greenhouse gases.
Some scientists are not well schooled in multiple disciplines and thus often make assertions using the ones they understand, and leave out other important points. You must understand both gas laws and thermal laws to make sense of how it all works.
CO2 cannot ‘trap’ heat. Inert gases ‘trap’ heat, as they can only give heat up (or gain energy) through collisions, either with each other, the surface of the earth, or in collisions with radiative molecules. With no radiative gases in our atmosphere, the only avenue for energy loss in our atmosphere would be through collisions with the earth’s surface and each other. Thus, the atmosphere would be warmer (no radiation out of the atmosphere), more energy would impinge on earth’s surface, and it would both warm AND radiate more.
Oh, and one more thing – CO2 is not ‘well-mixed’ in the atmosphere, as is always stated. How could it be? It is virtually ALL released at the earth’s surface, in a never-ending release. It HAS to be more dense at the surface than in the higher reaches of the atmosphere. We have decades of measurements to prove that is true, but the claim is still made that it is ‘well-mixed’. We know about ‘CO2 domes’ around some cities, yet it is well mixed? This is what happens when you focus too narrowly on general assumptions.
The point of all this is to point out that the so-called ‘greenhouse gases’ are not responsible for heating the earth, at all. If anything, they have a miniscule role in cooling it.
@shotsky
good comment
I agree with most\
however
” and one more thing – CO2 is not ‘well-mixed’ in the atmosphere, as is always stated. How could it be? It is virtually ALL released at the earth’s surface, in a never-ending release./’
seems incorrect.
put a number of amounts of gases in a bottle, shake it, and what do you get?
there is diffusion making every point in that bottle reflecting the composition of what you originally put in. It is the Law.
earth is like that bottle. there maybe points where CO2 is more or less – indeed people may have died of asphyxiation [not CO2 poisoning] in areas where large amounts of CO2 were released in a short period of time, much more than the average, but shake the bottle enough [weather and wind] and all gases will diffuse to show you that the average is about 400 ppm, as reported by a number of stations.
The only thing wrong about this theory is that cold oceans absorb more Co2, and colder oceans release more Co2 — the exact opposite of what these researchers claim is true.
Correction: The only thing wrong about this theory is that cold oceans absorb more Co2, and warmer oceans release more Co2 — the exact opposite of what these researchers claim is true.
true
see my correction
“The last ice age ended about 11,000 years ago. Since then, temperatures and sea levels have risen, and ice caps have retreated back to the poles.”
NO. The first 3/4 of the current interglacial were WARMER than now.
Temperatures have FALLEN since then.
Also there is plenty of evidence that during the first 3/4 of the Holocene, the Arctic was summer sea ice free quite regularly. The current level of Arctic sea ice is much HIGHER than the earlier Holocene average.
These guys obviously have studied AGW scam rather than reality.
The authors of that paper should have looked at this paper:https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/06/28/new-paper-modulation-of-ice-ages-via-precession-and-dust-albedo-feedbacks/
The ice ages are triggered by earth orbital cycle. However the albedo of the ice prevents the earth from warming causing the ice ages to last through several orbital cycles. However as the earth cools CO2 drops to a point where plants have a hard time growing. This leads to dust storms and that darkens the ice eventually leading to the ice melting. As the dirty ice melts the earth and oceans warm. CO2 moves from the ocean to the air causing CO2 levels in air to increase.
Even if you accept the IPCC’s take on CO2 and climate, you can’t get more than a very small fraction of the 100,000yr temperature cycle being caused by CO2.
CO2 lags temperature at ALL measured time scales, both during warming and cooling periods AND in the short and long term. The ice core record is well-established. The short-term record is also clear – see
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/04/25/inconvenient-study-co2-fertilization-greening-the-earth/comment-page-1/#comment-2199617
[excerpt]
To my knowledge, I initiated in early January 2008 the still-heretical notion that dCO2/dt changed ~contemporaneously with temperature and therefore atmospheric CO2 concentration lagged atmospheric temperature by about 9 months in the modern data record.
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/carbon_dioxide_in_not_the_primary_cause_of_global_warming_the_future_can_no/
or:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979/mean:12/derivative/plot/uah/from:1959/scale:0.22/offset:0.14
Others including Salby and Humlum et al have since published similar findings.
There are several observations about this striking dCO2/dt vs. temperature relationship:
1. The dCO2/dt vs. temperature correlation is remarkably strong for a natural global phenomenon.
2. The integral (of dCO2/dt) is atmospheric CO2, and it LAGS temperature by about 9 months in the modern data record. CO2 also LAGS temperature by about 800 years in the ice core record. Thus CO2 LAGS temperature at all measured time scales. Thus the global warming hypothesis assumes that the future is causing the past. Thus the CAGW hypothesis fails.
3. This close dCO2/dt vs temperature relationship indicates that temperature drives CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature.
4. The dCO2/dt vs. temperature correlation is the only detailed signal I have found in the data – there is NO evidence that CO2 LEADS temperature or that increasing atmospheric CO2 significantly increases global temperature.
5. Furthermore, global temperature declined from ~1940-1975, increased from ~1975-2000, and has stayed flat (or cooled slightly) since ~2000, all while atmospheric CO2 increased; so the correlation of temperature to increasing atmospheric CO2 has been NEGATIVE, Positive, and Near-Zero. I suggest Near-Zero is the correct estimate of the sensitivity (ECS) of global temperature to increasing atmospheric CO2. There is and never had been a manmade global warming crisis – there is no credible evidence to support this failed hypothesis.
6. With few exceptions including some on this website, nobody (especially the global warming alarmists) wants to acknowledge the LAG of CO2 after temperature – apparently this LAG of CO2 after temperature contradicts deeply-held religious beliefs about global warming.
7. While basic physics may suggest that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the overwhelming observational evidence indicates that the impact of increasing CO2 on global temperature is so small as to be insignificant.
8. In summary, observational evidence strongly indicates that the manmade global warming crisis does not exist.
9. Finally, atmospheric CO2 is not alarmingly high; in fact, it is dangerously low for the survival of terrestrial carbon-based life on Earth. Plants evolved with about 2000ppm CO2 in the atmosphere, or about 5 times current CO2 concentrations.
10. In one of the next global Ice Ages, atmospheric CO2 will approach about 150ppm, a concentration at which terrestrial photosynthesis will slow and cease – and that will be the extinction event for terrestrial carbon-based life on this planet.
11. More atmospheric CO2 is highly beneficial to all carbon-based life on Earth. Therefore, CO2 abatement and sequestration schemes are nonsense.
12. As a devoted fan of carbon-based life on this planet, I feel the duty to advocate on our behalf. I should point out that I am not prejudiced against other life forms. They might be very nice, but I do not know any of them well enough to form an opinion. 🙂
Regards, Allan
i certainly agree AllAn, just one sidenote: Maybe there is an anthropogenic signal in the current surface warming and why it diverges with the satellite warming: Land use changes.
a fact: decidous forests are generally cooler then agricultural land. How much of these forests have been replaced by warmer agricultural land? How does that correlate to temperature? (just like UHI effects)
For the rest i also am sure that the CO2 we add is the only “good” thing we are doing for nature… it’s basicly harmless
also agree with Allan
bearing in mind that there are giga tons of carbonates dissolved in the ocean water
it follows that
CO2g + H2Ol(l) +cold => CO3 (-2) + 2H (+1)
[when it is cold the CO2 dissolves into the oceans]
H2O + CO3(-2) + heat => CO2 (g) + 2OH (-1)
[everyone knows that the warming of water leads to the escape of CO2?]
so, [CO2] follows warming and cooling, it does not cause any warming or cooling
[as also proven by me with a number of experiments]
Maybe the point is because dust storms arise from previously arable land, then the area of UHI also affects the length of icing. Would that even be measurable?
I also agree with Allen. I’ve looked at the record from 1960 till present, it’s the same, co2 follows temperature each and every year. It’s not a random variation or occasionally, each and every year.
How do these get published? Great, thanks for highlighting that when the earth is cooler, the oceans retain more Co2. When it is warmer, it release it. BECAUSE THAT WASN’T ALREADY KNOWN. They make it sound like the oceans are some living entity and everyone 100k years they just soak in lots of Co2 and put us in an ice age.
Yes, our planet is alive and oceans are the lungs. Algae, however, do not like to very cold oceans.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/chem/surface/level/overlay=co2sc/equirectangular
On the radio this morning the silly little girl involved with this said, when asked how it works, well it’s jolly complicated.
No, it’s more patent CO2 nonsense.
Well, you knew this answer would be coming. Here is my reply to Prof Carrie, based upon my 2016 ice age paper, and the subsequent article in WUWT.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/06/28/new-paper-modulation-of-ice-ages-via-precession-and-dust-albedo-feedbacks
.
.
Dear Prof Carrie,
Thank you for your paper on ice ages, which was quite interesting. But your theory contains several lacuna:
Your paper fails to explain why: When CO2 reaches minimum concentrations during an ice age, the world warms. And when CO2 reaches maximum concentrations during an interglacial, the world cools. This counter-intuitive response to CO2 concentrations demonstrates that CO2 is not a particularly powerful greenhouse warming agent, that can promote and maintain either a warming or a cooling trend. Would you not agree?
Your paper cites the influence of orbital insolation cycles on the ice age cycle (obliquity and presumably precession), but fails to explain why some orbital cycles fail to generate interglacial warming. Any theory that fails to explain the climate’s selective response to these much shorter orbital insolation-forcing cycles, has fallen at the first hurdle.
You appear to assume that CO2 is a powerful feedback agent, without giving any evidence or references. Prof Lindzen and others have demonstrated that the signature of CO2 greenhouse warming would be a warming of the tropical tropospheric atmosphere, resulting in increased downwelling LW radiation (DLR). This atmospheric warming is the very essence of the ‘insulating’ (sic) greenhouse effect. But that signature has never been found, as far as I am aware. So on what basis, do you assume that CO2 is a greenhouse warming agent that can modulate ice ages? Do you have any evidence for increasing tropical DLR in recent decades?
Q. So what mechanism actually modulates the 100,000 year ice age cycle?
A. Dust and albedo – the Achilles heel of an ice-age world is albedo, not CO2.
What actually happens is that ice-sheets naturally extend in our cooler post-MPT climate, until something intervenes to stop and reverse them. That reversal process involves CO2 getting so low that upland C3 plants die, causing vast CO2 deserts in Mongolia and China. (Yes, CO2 deserts, not aridity deserts.) Dust from these newly formed deserts is lifted up and deposited on the northern ice sheets, lowering their albedo and allowing them to absorb more insolation, which precipitates rapid ice-sheet melting (when combined with precessional insolation increases in the northern hemisphere). The evidence for these dust eras is in the ice core record, and they only occur just before each interglacial warming era.
The evidence in my paper suggests that CO2 concentrations take no part in the ice age modulation process, apart from getting so low that nearly all upland plant-life is asphyxiated. The true answer lies in dust and albedo.
Modulation of ice ages via precession and dust-albedo feedbacks’.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1674987116300305
Sincerely,
Ralph Ellis
Ralph your thoughts just do not stand the test of time with exception after exception and do not explain the abrupt climatic changes within a general trend towards cooling or warming.
Everyone trying to use Milankovitch Cycles as SOLE CAUSE for the climate to change from Ice Age to Inter- glacial periods is wrong because the climate has done it many times independent of Milankovitch Cycles, and in periods of time that can not reconcile with Milankovitch Cycles..
>>your thoughts … do not explain the abrupt climatic changes
>>within a general trend towards cooling or warming.
Actually, they do. Nearly all Milankovitch insolation increases in the NH cause a small amount of warming, but not all produce full interglacials. The only once that produce interglacials are the ones preceded by dust deposition.
http://s14.postimg.org/dp6tw9uxd/temps_insolation_lr.jpg
.
>>Everyone trying to use Milankovitch Cycles as
>>SOLE CAUSE for the climate to change from
>>Ice Age to Inter- glacial periods.
Which is precisely what I am not doing. The full answer is Milankovitch Great Summers….
Plus low CO2 concentrations,
Plus plant extinction,
Plus CO2 desert formation,
Plus dust deposition,
Plus albedo reduction.
And here is the correlation between glacial maxima and dust production, just before each interglacial warming period. And the correlation is causal, because dust has a huge effect on ice-sheet albedo.
http://s18.postimg.org/7r72hyell/dust_temps.jpg
And here is the correlation between dust and CO2, with dust inverted and logarithmic. Note the very good correlation, strongly suggestive of causation. All diagrams courtesy of Prof Michael Palmer.
http://s11.postimg.org/m8cinmcqr/dust_and_co2_notated.jpg
to answer the question that everyone is asking themselves:
to stop an advancing ice sheet/age
just sprinkle it with carbon dust
to stop too much light being deflected off from earth and prevent earth falling into an ice age
\:;:::
carbon is the solution to the problem, not the source of the problem….
ralf
Very persuasive data on dust.
Interesting how the “scientific” community is silent on this dust link.
It risks showing CO2 in a positive light (i.e. keeping plants alive).
Underlining still further – if that was necessary – the profound dishonesty of current mainstream climate science.
Hard to believe that if you’d read the paper you’d get the author’s name wrong!
Here’s a link to the paper for anyone who’d like to read it.
http://orca.cf.ac.uk/95508/1/Geology-2016-Lear-G38636.1.pdf
A perennial problem in international academia, I’m afraid, especially when dealing with Chinese names (and not being Chinese). The prof’s name on the Cardiff University site is Prof Carrie Lear, and usually the surname comes first. ie: Prof Carrie, L. If she had nominated Caroline as a first name, I might have guessed.
But this is a small error. In our paper Prof Mahhowald, N became Prof Natalie, M. While the CLIMAP Project reference magically became Professor Project, C. You would have thought they would have sorted out a better system by now.
Ah, well……
Phil
In fairness the paper itself is much better than the brief press reporting of it.
It has good oceanography on deep water sources during glaciation and interglacials and isotope data on carbon exchange.
But the CO2 only conclusion as to temperatures, while politically mandated, is blinkered; it excludes important factors such as photosynthesis, plants and dust (see Ralf Ellis’ paper), also the ice albedo feedback.
But the biggest gap is the bigger picture – failing to mention the secular trend of deepening glaciation over the Quaternary and addressing the obvious question – why did the MPT happen?
The MPT is probably a consequence of the secular deepening of glaciation with weakening of Milankovich forcing, or loss of sensitivity to orbital forcing due to slow cooling toward permanent glaciation. Interglacials will likely continue to get less frequent and eventually end.
Hello Ralph, Salvatore, Don and others,
I scanned Ralph’s paper with interest – it seems to have some merit.
However, you have several different theories about the cause of ice ages.
.
Based on your work, I have these questions:
1. When will the next Continental Ice Age commence, and what will it that commencement look like?
2. Can we prevent it by controlling the albedo of the growing ice sheet?
3. Are there any other means of controlling the next Ice Age that you can suggest?
You see, some of us in Canada are really concerned about plummeting real estate values as the Ice Sheet approaches. 🙂
Regards, Allan
>>Based on your work, I have these questions:
>>1. When will the next Continental Ice Age commence,
>>and what will it that commencement look like?
This is the subject of the next paper, if we ever get around to completing it.
But quite soon is the short answer.
>>2. Can we prevent it by controlling the albedo
>>of the growing ice sheet?
This is the subject of the next paper, if we ever get around to completing it.
But yes is the short answer.
http://www.vosizneias.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/7471-725×466.jpg
Thank you Ralph,
The householders and real estate agents of Canada will be forever in your debt.
Best, Allan
Some irony here:
Much-maligned “carbon” in the form of carbon black (powder) sprinkled on the ice sheet, could save all of us from the next Continental Ice Age.
This would be the final rebuttal of the scoundrels and imbeciles who have tried to incite widespread fear of manmade global warming.
This is sh1te. Here is serious article on this subject by Javier over at Judith Curry’s site:
https://judithcurry.com/2016/10/24/nature-unbound-i-the-glacial-cycle/
Don Easterbrook
October 26, 2016 at 8:57 pm
There were Pleistocene glaciations ~130,000 yrs BP, 70-90 yrs BP, 30-40,000 yrs BP, 21-24,000 yrs BP, and 17-19,000 yrs BP. Plus the Younger Dryas for about 1000 yrs. These do not fit the M-cycles.
My Reply and Question to Javier
Exactly Don.
Javier how do you reconcile this fact which Don presents not to mention all of the abrupt climatic changes superimposed upon the Pleistocene glaciations themselves which were several degrees change in temperature both up and down over periods of a 100 years or less due to Milankovitch Cycles?
I say it can not be reconciled, which means Milankovitch Cycles at best can only act to drive the climate of the earth into a cooler trend or warmer trend over 1000’s of years and are superimposed by other factors which override this slow moving cycle causing the climate to change much more quickly and in opposition to Milankovitch Cycles more often then not.
Again more attention has to be paid to the geo magnetic field along with primary and secondary solar effects not to forget lunar effects.
The geo magnetic field and lunar effects at times magnifying given solar effects.
All this then drives the terrestrial items that control the climate toward a warmer or colder mode and sometimes to thresholds which then cause the climate to change abruptly, independent of where the earth is in relation to Milankovitch Cycles.
Javier those are the facts which means your take on things is not quite correct.
You and Don are not talking about facts but about definitions. What is a glacial period? According to the most common definition a glacial period is when the world is not in an interglacial, and therefore the world entered the last glacial period at the transition (MIS 5e/5d) from the Last Interglacial (Eemian, Mikulino) to the Early Last Glacial (Early Weichselian, Early Valdai) that took place between 121 and 117 kyr BP. Since then until the start of the Holocene at Termination I, between 18 and 11.7 kyr BP, it is considered by almost everybody that the world was in a glacial period. Therefore I don’t understand why you say that it is a fact that the world was into several glacial periods at 70-90 yrs BP, 30-40,000 yrs BP, 21-24,000 yrs BP, and 17-19,000 yrs BP. Clearly Don and you are not using the standard definition of a glacial period, but your own.
Javier,
I’m not concerned with definitions–I just pointed out that there were advances of continental glaciers at times that don’t match M-cycles.
Don, there are glacial advances all the time, the last one during the Little Ice Age. Orbital changes explain every major feature of the last glacial period. I have marked with grey boxes the cooling periods that you might refer to in the figure below. They correspond to the cooling periods that gave place to the cold stadials MIS 5d, 5b, 4, and 2. They show good agreement with changes in obliquity and insolation with a lagged response of about 6-8 kyr (thermal inertia).
http://i1039.photobucket.com/albums/a475/Knownuthing/Last%20glacial_zpsmrp2w6vr.png
The only one that cannot be explained in terms of orbital changes is YD. But YD was not of the same magnitude. It was a hiccup in the deglaciation that took place in the North Atlantic region and affected the Antarctic region through their teleconnection. LR04 is a stack of benthic cores from all over the world, and shows that the global response was so small that we wouldn’t notice it if we didn’t know it was there.
So yes, orbital changes rule the climate of the Earth at the scale of tens of thousands of years. The evidence is very clear about that.
The unstated assumption is, of course, that CO2 is the most important climate driver. It isn’t, not at current concentrations. If all CO2 were to dissappear the Earth would be about 5 degrees colder, assuming that everything else, in particular feedbacks on watervapour, remains the same. Because the temperature response at low CO2 levels is highly non-linear this means that in order to drop by, say 3 degrees or more the CO2 concentration must decrease below 50-100 ppm. At that concentration all plantlife would die out because photosynthesis requires a concentration of at least 250ppm. I observe that plantlife must have been doing fine throughout the iceages, hence CO2 contrations must have been at or above the minimum, hence the drop in temperature cannot have been mote than 1 or 2 degrees or so. Which is not what we call an iceage. The proposed mechanism doesn’t work.
This silly whacko notion of the oceans periodically “breathing in” and “breathing out” CO2 and thus “controling” our climate seems to be borne of the Gaian philosophy. These so-called “experts” drag science back to the pre-science days of gods controling what happens to weather, and being “angry” with us as the explanation for bad weather. I await with bated breath their “explanation” for cold and warm periods within our interglacial like the MWP and LIA. It should be amusing if nothing else.
“breathing in and breathing out”
This is the most muddle-headed failed attempt at scientific reasoning I have seen for a long time.
CO2 concentrations increase and decrease in the oceans as a direct result of changing temperature as a trivial consequence of Henry’s Law of dissolution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry%27s_law#Temperature_dependence
How can CO2 concentration be the result of changeing temperature, and at the same time cause the same temperature change? Does CO2 travel in a Bruce Willis style time-loop?
The author of this illogical monstrosity would be better off concentrating on that activity which especially requires controlled breathing in and out.
My hypothesis for ice age / interglacial oscillation:
Mid-Interglacial period (this is where we are now):
High atmospheric CO2, high temperatures and warm oceans lead to green mid-latitude deserts. Lots of tropical evaporation and convection mean water vapor is pumped northward by ocean currents and atmospheric winds. Sea levels are near maximum.
Interglacial period ends:
The growing biosphere on land and in the oceans eventually sucks down atmospheric CO2 to the point where mid-latitude desert plants are starved of CO2, and begin to die. Dust storms increase, causing vastly more cloud nucleation over Northern hemisphere land areas.
Glaciation begins:
Still warm tropics with lots of heat and convection combine with dust to cause lots of Northern hemisphere clouds and deposition. The dust and warm tropics creates a long term regime of clouds increased albedo, reducing temperatures. Northern winters lengthen, summer melt season shortens. Northern deserts still put lots of dust into the atmosphere. Ice sheets build over Northern hemisphere land. Oceans absorb relatively more CO2. Ice reflects even more light energy. Sea levels eventually fall to a minimum.
Glaciation peaks:
Eventually, ice bergs begin to break off and fresh melt water starts to cool ocean. Salt water’s higher density keeps the fresh melt water on top, slowing convective currents. As evaporation and water vapor convection is reduced, a new regime of less clouds begins, even with plenty of dust nuclei. Sunny days increase. Summer melt season lengthens, and winter deposition decreases. Ice sheets begin to shrink.
Interglacial period begins:
The ice that can be melted is mostly gone. Oceans are warmer and eventually the fresh water mixes with salt water. Oceans begin out-gassing CO2. Northern deserts green, reducing atmospheric dust. Convection and water vapor begin to speed up, but now there is less dust for cloud nuclei, so the regime of less clouds continues.
Note that IF my hypothesis is correct, the Southern pole and ocean doesn’t play much of a role in glacial / interglacial changeovers. CO2 is important, but because it is plant food. It is not important as a greenhouse gas. Ice albedo is minor compared to cloud albedo. Deposition and tropical evaporation and convection of water vapor only matter when lots of Northern hemisphere dust is present. Milankovic cycles are minor contributors. Human emissions will lengthen the interglacial by keeping Northern, mid-latitude deserts greener, longer.
Comments, flames, improvements welcomed.
What you are saying is it is changes in terrestrial conditions that change the climate which is what I am saying.
Sounds about right. What about the fact that India moved North at a clip supposedly 50 my y ago and if I may use the word–Atlantis–Greenland has an ice coat ONLY 3 million years old. Where was it before it got to where it is now? The Mediterranean was dry–bone dry–for 1/2 a million years 5 million years ago refilling just about the time we showed up.
These planetary events occurred without us so where did the energy come from? Is it still in evidence only weaker?
The cycle is due to variable solar radiation (sun spot activity) wobble on the Earth’s axis; not IR absorption by CO2 which pales into insignificance anyway when compared with water vapour.
…compared with that of water vapour. There are many varied reactions between atmospheric gases and photons from the sun. High energy photons in the high frequency range remove bound electrons from diatomic molecules producing ions and high energy free electrons in the ionosphere. UV photons interact with O3 in the upper layers. That which gets through and is absorbed on the surface, heating the ground; heat transfer then proceeds by conduction, convection and IR radiation emitting photons in the lower frequency range. The interaction between the sun’s radiation and our planet is varied and complex and without it we would be a frozen ball, a comet like object devoid of life; but to say that future of mankind is severely threatened by cagw caused by 380 ppm of CO2 is ludicrous in the extreme.
>>Everyone trying to use Milankovitch Cycles as
>>SOLE CAUSE for the climate to change from
>>Ice Age to Inter- glacial periods.
Which is precisely what I am not doing. The full answer is Milankovitch Great Summers….
Plus low CO2 concentrations,
Plus plant extinction,
Plus CO2 desert formation,
Plus dust deposition,
Plus albedo reduction.
Ralph you do not need nor do Milankovitch Great Summers explain why the climate changes from glacial to inter- glacial or vice versa, because the climate has accomplished this feat in time spans which are far shorter then what would be the case if it were tied to Milankovitch Cycles and the other points you have made which Don Easterbrook pointed out so correctly in his post done Oct 27 at 8:57 pm.
Your explanation does nothing to explain the abrupt climatic change issue.
Mine does which is super imposed upon the very slow gradual Milankovitch Cycles and Continental Drift which do change the climate but very gradual are primary solar variations and the secondary effects associated with these solar variations moderated by the strength of the geo magnetic field as well as it’s make up and lunar to some degree which bring the terrestrial items that determine the climate to either a colder or warmer mode. Sometimes these terrestrial items being pushed so far in a given direction that they reach climatic thresholds which then bring about a reorganization the climate which then results in an abrupt climatic change. These abrupt climatic changes being far to short and severe to be connected to the VERY slow moving Milankovitch Cycles.
The YD being a great example which came about I think due to the explanation I have just presented.
In addition not only is the YD not unique when it comes to the climate changes but abrupt climatic changes took place within the YD itself which have nothing to do with Milankovitch Cycles or the Milankovich Great Summers which take forever to accomplish a climate change such as was the magnitude of the YD and many others.
Ralph what you propose is way to slow. Ice Core Evidence suggest this to be the case which show in many instances climate changes you say take 1000’s of year to happen take place in decades.
Something else is at work here.
http://www.pnas.org/content/97/4/1331.full
Ralph my case.
The Ice Core Records show beyond a doubt that something else is at work here for the climatic changes are far to short and severe in degree of magnitude change to be associated with what you have come up with which are processes that take hundreds of years if not thousands of years.
The new school of thought is climatic changes take place much more quicker then what was previously thought.
You can’t reconcile what you are saying with what the Ice Core Evidence is.
Glacial and interglacial are obviously two attractors in the current climate’s probabilistic landscape. As earth passes slowly into a profound glaciation several tens of millions of years long, as it does from time to time, there will always be this transitional phase at both the start and end of glaciation when the system flickers between these two states.
Has anyone wondered if the other deep glaciations in the past, such as Huronian, Cryogenian, Andean-Saharan etc, also began – and ended – with similar transitional periods of glacial-interglacial flip-flopping? I for one predict that when data at the boundary of one of the past great glaciations is found with high enough resolution (millenial scale data hundreds of millions of years ago) then such transitional biphasic wobble will be found.
Everyone propounding a theory of glacial-interglacial cycles needs to explain how their theory deals with the mid Pleistocene revolution (MPR). The Quaternary glaciation began 3 million years ago. For the first 2 million years glacial cycle length followed approximately the 41000 year obliquity cycle. Then came the MPR after which the cycles elongated to 80-110 thousand years. Why? Did the sun’s internal oscillations suddenly halve their frequency? Did planetary orbits slow down abruptly?
What happened in fact was that in the context of gradually deepening glaciation, the influence of the Milankovich orbital cycles weakened such that the glacial cycled transitioned from a strongly forced (obliquity) to a complex weakly periodically forced (mix of obliquity, precession and eccentricity) nonlinear oscillator.
Sole, Turiel and Llebot writing in Physics Letters A (366 [2007] 184–189) identified three classes of D-O oscillations in the Greenland ice cores; A (brief), B (medium) and C (long), reflecting the speed at which the warming relaxes back to the cold glacial state:
“In this work ice-core CO2 time evolution in the period going from 20 to 60 kyr BP [15] has been qualitatively compared to our temperature cycles, according to the class they belong to. It can be observed in Fig. 6 that class A cycles are completely unrelated to changes in CO2 concentration. We have observed some correlation between B and C cycles and CO2 concentration, but of the opposite sign to the one expected: maxima in atmospheric CO2 concentration tend to correspond to the middle part or the end the cooling period. The role of CO2 in the oscillation phenomena seems to be more related to extend the duration of the cooling phase than to trigger warming. This could explain why cycles not coincident in time with maxima of CO2 (A cycles) rapidly decay back to the cold state. ”
William
Thanks – interesting and important. These D-O microinterglacials provide a unique opportunity to test the temporal relationship between temperature and CO2 due to being short well defined spikes. The result that you cite leads to two conclusions:
(1) CO2 without doubt follows, not leads, temperature.
(2) CO2 will not stop cooling from interglacial to glacial temperatures
It may be that earth’s vegetation generally damps the climate’s response to forcing of any kind, through Gaia-like feedbacks involving plant transpiration, the hydrological cycle, coverage of arid regions, albedo and dust (more plants less atmospheric dust). Thus increasing CO2 boosts plant growth and thus damps the planet’s response to all kinds of climate forcing, including that of CO2 itself (if it exists).
find that chopping of trees does cause a drop in minima [Tandil, ARG]
find that turning a desert into a green paradise does trap some heat, i.e. increase in minima [Las Vegas, USA]
Nice to see the quasi-unanimity of Bravo Sierra here. We are in the same Ice Age we have been in for 2.5 million years. The last interglacial was 120,000 years ago (warmer than now, with sea level 6 meters higher). When the world cools, the ocean inhales (dissolves) more CO2. When it warms, the ocean exhales. Who accepts this nonsense? Experts from Cardiff University? I expected better. Shame on them.
Again this is written with the perspective that CO2 is a temperature knob and it’s not. 400ppm of C02 is equivalent to having 10.000 pennies ($100) and 4 pennies is the amount of CO2. Even if you had 10 pennies, 1000ppm, that is too insignificant to have any impact on temperature.
henry said
it follows that
CO2g + H2O(l) +cold => CO3 (-2) + 2H (+1)
[when it is cold the CO2 dissolves into the oceans]
H2O + CO3(-2) + heat => CO2 (g) + 2OH (-1)
[everyone knows that the warming of water leads to the escape of CO2?]
so, [CO2] follows warming and cooling, it does not cause any warming or cooling
[as also proven by me with a number of experiments]
henry says
ehhh….should have given you different equations, with more probability, but net outcome is the same:
it follows that
CO2g + H2O(l) +cold => HCO3 (-1) + H (+1)
[when it is cold the CO2 dissolves into the oceans]
H2O(l) + HCO3(-1) + heat => CO2 (g) + OH (-1)
[everyone knows that the warming of water leads to the escape of CO2?]
so, [CO2] follows warming and cooling, it does not cause any warming or cooling
[as also proven by me with a number of experiments]
tsoe
trying to keep it as simple as possible, I said
H2O(l) + HCO3(-1) + heat => CO2 (g) + OH (-1)
ehhh…
that does not balance…
must be
2HCO3(-1) + heat => 2CO2 (g) + 2OH (-1)
That is the way it goes……
If you’re interested in possible solar effects on global climate, take a look at “Cause of global climate changes: Correlation of global temperature, sunspots, solar irradiance, cosmic rays, and radiocarbon and beryllium production rates” in the new edition of “Evidence-based Climate Science’ by Elsevier.
Amen the truth.
There is new, easy to follow Arctic ice animation from NASA
https://youtu.be/Vj1G9gqhkYA
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/13/presentation-of-evidence-suggesting-temperature-drives-atmospheric-co2-more-than-co2-drives-temperature/#comment-1963448
Hi Shane – suggest you show your students this beautiful animation (below) and see what they think of it.
Oceans are a factor, but Northern Hemisphere terrestrial life dominates the water cycle and the CO2 cycle.
Best, Allan
[Excerpt from my 2015 paper]
The natural seasonal amplitude in atmospheric CO2 ranges up to ~16ppm in the far North (at Barrow Alaska) to ~1ppm at the South Pole, whereas the annual increase in atmospheric CO2 is only ~2ppm. This seasonal “CO2 sawtooth” is primarily driven by the Northern Hemisphere landmass, which has a much greater land area than the Southern Hemisphere. CO2 falls during the Northern Hemisphere summer, due primarily to land-based photosynthesis, and rises in the late fall, winter and early spring as biomass decomposes.
Significant temperature-driven CO2 solution and exsolution from the oceans also occurs.
See the beautiful animation at
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003500/a003562/carbonDioxideSequence2002_2008_at15fps.mp4
In this enormous CO2 equation, the only signal that is apparent is that dCO2/dt varies approximately contemporaneously with temperature, and CO2 clearly lags temperature.
CO2 also lags temperature by about 800 years in the ice core record, on a longer time scale.
I suggest with confidence that the future cannot cause the past.
I suggest that temperature drives CO2 much more than CO2 drives temperature. This does not preclude other drivers of CO2 such as fossil fuel combustion, deforestation, etc.
**************************
@sam
you say
If the air temperature is colder than the water …… then the water will outgas CO2.
henry says\
that does not fit my chemical equations which I have just tried to explain?
Try to understand that at the top layers of the [70%] water, when it reaches boiling – which it does on the top due to UV –
it warms,
so when air T gets warmer – due to solar increase- the oceans will outgas the bicarbonate [ HCO3-] to CO2(g)
I am sure Henry’s law does not apply here as the T is not constant and neither is the volume [of air above earth]
– which is why CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere follow warming and cooling –
HCO3(1-) giga tons dissolved in ocean water + heat => CO2 (g) + OH(1-)
When it is getting cooler the oceans act like a sinc for CO2
H2O + CO2 (g) + cold => CO3 (2-) + 2H(1+)
perhaps to understand I should ask you the question: how it is possible that we have clouds and rain when it is clear that none of our ocean water ever get to boiling point, wherever and whenever we measure it? [max 35 degrees C in the tropics?]
Could the change in periodicity have been caused by the formation of the land bridge of Central America?
Wow, what ever happened to Occam’s razor? This article reeks of data mining and arm waving to prove a point. It also uncritically accepts the notion of greenhouse warming, which has no positive support from hard data whatsoever.
Milankovitch rhythms have historically been used to infer differences in insolation to explain major changes in temperature on Earth, but these have proven inadequate, and researchers have had to resort to additional forcings, such as deep ocean circulations and greenhouse warmings, to make them work. Interestingly, the gravitational effects of Milankovitch cycles have been totally ignored. In this connection, I’m reminded of reports of volcanic activity in various locations being influenced by lunar cycles. Earth’s delicately balanced plate tectonic system is notoriously vagile, and is thus subject to gravitational influences. These, of course, are free of such seasonal insolation effects as that of obliquity in the 41,000 year cycle. There is, to my mind, good reason to suspect some kind of plate tectonic movement response from both the 41,000 year axial obliquity and the 100,000 year orbital eccentricity cycles, such as we see in the glacial record. Furthermore, Milankovitch rhythms are also present in non-glacial rhythmites throughout the Phanerozoic and possibly earlier.
How would plate movements produce glaciation and rhythmitic sedimentation? Probably through volcanic activity, assuming that, as is well known, explosive, andesitic volcanoes, typical of subducting plate edges, produce global cooling through aerosol production, and that subaerial non-explosive, basaltic volcanoes, typical of hot spots and elevated spreading plate edges, mainly in continental rifting areas, produce global warming through halogen emissions depleting the ozone layer. A rash of either one type of eruption or the other would serve to initiate either cooling or warming, respectively, and would not involve carbon dioxide or ocean circulation, or other ancillary forcings at all. Given that at present, with the continents well-spread-apart, there is a deficiency of elevated basaltic volcanism associated with continental rifting (Iceland is a notable exception here, being elevated, and basaltic Icelandic volcanism may in fact have been instrumental in ending ice ages), explosive volcanism would be expected to dominate during plate movement, thus initiating glacial cycles.
Difficult to read not enough paragraphs to break it up.
the presence of vast amounts of ice is like a giant gobstopper.
What an amazingly information free, yet evocative way to put it! Heck, I’m convinced!
Has anyone explained Henry’s Law to Dr. Phil or is that above his pay grade?
What a stupid thing to say UV radiation cannot possibly heat the ocean’s upper layer to boiling point. A simple heat balance would tell you that!
@chemengrls
try always to stay polite. You are in a classroom where we are all students and teachers to each other.
Evaporation is an essential part of the water cycle. The sun (solar energy) drives evaporation of water from oceans, lakes, moisture in the soil, and other sources of water. Evaporation of water occurs when the surface of the liquid is exposed, allowing molecules to escape and form water vapor; this vapor can then rise up and form clouds.
now looking at the weather everyday have you noticed that most weather systems originate from the oceans? Furthermore, you can sit as long as you like with a light torch on top of a few ml of water: it won’t evaporate. It is the UV and IR that causes this process.
Seems to me likely it is mostly the UV that does it, as it carries the most energy. Hence, any variation in climate change is most likely caused by the variation in UV.
Only the molecules lying on top of the water get the energy same as if it reached boiling point. It is the UV and wind that causes most evaporation. Agreed?
I understand the concept of evaporation without even applying raoult’s Law; but you inferred that boiling point is reached which is 100 C or greater for seawater which has an elevated BP due to dissolved solutes.
PS sorry if I offended you. If you want to know anything at all about mass transfer, heat transfer, fluid mechanics, reaction kinetics, solution thermodynamics, 1st, 2nd or zeroth laws of thermodynamics just ask. All this stuff is useful when combatting cagw.
you are on the right track!…
find the variation in UV and the cause for the variation in UV and you will find the reason for [natural] climate change
…..you can sit as long as you like with a light torch on top of a few ml of water: it won’t evaporate. It is the UV and IR that causes this process.
What you are describing here Henry is the photoelectric effect (Einstein Nobel prize (physics) 1905; only high energy photons at the high frequency end of Planck’s distribution spectrum have the momentum to cause substances notably metals to emit electrons. However the intensity of black body radiation falls off at high frequencies as the chances of an oscillator at source having the necessary energy to produce the larger quanta or photons is considerably reduced from what is expected from classical 19th C case.
Shouldn’t think so, I was replying to HenryP.