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.
###
Related, the 2014 AGU presentation suggests it’s thermohaline circulation changes:
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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.