Guest “I couldn’t make this sort of schist up if I was trying” by David Middleton
H/T to Robert Bissett…
Drop in Greenhouse Gas Caused Global Cooling 34 Million Years Ago, Study Finds
August 6th, 2021, 6:00AM / BY Abigail Eisenstadt[…]
A paper published in the journal Nature Geoscience confirms that a drop in carbon dioxide around 34 million years ago caused Earth to enter a period of global cooling, called an icehouse state.
[…]
In the past, scientists were unsure why the Eocene Oligocene transition happened. For a while, they thought it was because of a change in the Antarctic ocean’s currents. But that theory gradually grew out of favor.
“The question has always been what was driving this change,” said Naafs.
Through climate modeling, the researchers found that only a decrease in carbon dioxide could have led to such a big temperature drop in the geologically short span of 300,000 years.
[…]
Smithsonian Magazine
This is from the paper:
Two main mechanisms have been proposed as drivers for this greenhouse-to-icehouse transition: (1) changes in Southern Ocean gateways, leading to the thermal isolation of Antarctica and onset of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current7,8; and (2) a decline in atmospheric pCO2 driving the cooling and build-up of continental ice sheets9–11. Different mechanisms have been invoked to explain this drawdown in pCO2, including a shift from shelf to basin carbonate fractionation12, driving the deepening of the calcite compensation depth13, possibly associated with increased weathering and/ or a perturbation in organic carbon fluxes14. A different hypothesis identifies the intensification of silicate weathering, linked to the tectonic deepening of the Drake Passage and the strengthening of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, as the primary mechanism15.
Laurentano et al, 2021
Where do I start?
- Models can’t confirm anything.
- We pretty well know that the “thermal isolation of Antarctica and onset of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current” occurred approximately 34 million years ago.
- We pretty well know that the abrupt cooling at Eocene-Oligocene boundary was coincident with the “thermal isolation of Antarctica and onset of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current”
- Estimates of Paleocene-Eocene atmospheric CO2 vary widely depending on the method of investigation.
This is from my college meteorology text book:
FORECASTING THE FUTURE. We can now try to decide if we are now in an interglacial stage, with other glacials to follow, or if the world has finally emerged from the Cenozoic Ice Age. According to the Milankovitch theory, fluctuations of radiation of the type shown in Fig. 16-18 must continue and therefore future glacial stages will continue. According to the theory just described, as long as the North and South Poles retain their present thermally isolated locations, the polar latitudes will be frigid; and as the Arctic Ocean keeps oscillating between ice-free and ice-covered states, glacial-interglacial climates will continue.
Finally, regardless of which theory one subscribes to, as long as we see no fundamental change in the late Cenozoic climate trend, and the presence of ice on Greenland and Antarctica indicates that no change has occurred, we can expect that the fluctuations of the past million years will continue.
Donn, William L. Meteorology. 4th Edition. McGraw-Hill 1975. pp 463-464
The Antarctic ice sheet likely began to form prior to the sudden drop in temperature, allegedly caused by a drawdown in atmospheric CO2… Indicating that the onset of cooling probably preceded the onset of CO2 drawdown.
This is from my historical geology text book:
Suggestion that changing carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere could be a major factor in climate change dates from 1861, when it was proposed by British physicist John Tyndall.
[…]
Unfortunately we cannot estimate accurately changes of past CO2 content of either atmosphere or oceans, nor is there any firm quantitative basis for estimating the the magnitude of drop in carbon dioxide content necessary to trigger glaciation. Moreover the entire concept of an atmospheric greenhouse effect is controversial, for the rate of ocean-atmosphere equalization is uncertain.
Dott, Robert H. & Roger L. Batten. Evolution of the Earth. McGraw-Hill, Inc. Second Edition 1976. p. 441.
While a great deal of progress has been made since 1976 in estimating changes of past CO2 content, it is still not accurate enough to draw the conclusion that CO2 has been a major climate driver over the Phanerozoic Eon.
Paleocene-Eocene CO2 estimates range from 400-800 ppm to 2,000-3000 ppm. The drawdown that allegedly caused the geologically sudden cooling at the onset of the Oligocene can’t even be properly quantified.
Changes in atmospheric CO2 can’t be clearly tied to the PETM, EECO, MECO or MMCO [1], [2]; however a model now suddenly ties it to the one major Cenozoic climate shift that was well-explained by plate tectonics and oceanic circulation changes. Surely they can’t be serious.
Yet climate models, which can’t get anything else right, particularly the Late Pleistocene to Early Holocene, suddenly nail down the Cenozoic ice age…
The models were also out of step with records of past climate. For example, scientists used the new model from NCAR to simulate the coldest point of the most recent ice age, 20,000 years ago. Extensive paleoclimate records suggest Earth cooled nearly 6°C compared with preindustrial times, but the model, fed with low ice age CO2 levels, had temperatures plummeting by nearly twice that much, suggesting it was far too sensitive to the ups and downs of CO2. “That is clearly outside the range of what the geological data indicate,” says Jessica Tierney, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Arizona and a co-author of the work, which appeared in Geophysical Research Letters. “It’s totally out there.”
Science! (as in, “she blinded me with”)
They “solved” the “Holocene temperature conundrum” by simply applying a downwards adjustment to Early Holocene temperatures. Unfortunately for them, it didn’t stay solved.
For their solution to the “Holocene temperature conundrum” to be valid, much of the melting of the Laurentide ice sheet and the subsequent Neoglaciation would have had to have occurred with very little temperature change. Thankfully, Kaufman et al., 2020 didn’t delete the CPS version of their reconstruction.
References
Bohleber, P., Schwikowski, M., Stocker-Waldhuber, M. et al. New glacier evidence for ice-free summits during the life of the Tyrolean Iceman. Sci Rep 10, 20513 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-77518-9
Donn, William L. Meteorology. 4th Edition. McGraw-Hill 1975. pp 463-464
Dott, Robert H. & Roger L. Batten. Evolution of the Earth. McGraw-Hill, Inc. Second Edition 1976. p. 441.
Dyke, A.S., Moore, A. and L. Robertson. [computer file]. Deglaciation of North America. Geological Survey of Canada Open File 1547. Ottawa: Natural Resources Canada, 2003.
Grosjean, Martin, Suter, Peter, Trachsel, Mathias & Wanner, Heinz. (2007). “Ice‐borne prehistoric finds in the Swiss Alps reflect Holocene glacier fluctuations”. Journal of Quaternary Science. 22. 203 – 207. 10.1002/jqs.1111.
Kaufman, D., McKay, N., Routson, C. et al. Holocene global mean surface temperature, a multi-method reconstruction approach. Sci Data 7, 201 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-020-0530-7
Lauretano, V., Kennedy-Asser, A.T., Korasidis, V.A. et al. Eocene to Oligocene terrestrial Southern Hemisphere cooling caused by declining pCO2pCO2. Nat. Geosci. (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-021-00788-z
Pagani, Mark, Michael Arthur & Katherine Freeman. (1999). “Miocene evolution of atmospheric carbon dioxide”. Paleoceanography. 14. 273-292. 10.1029/1999PA900006.
Pearson, P. N. and Palmer, M. R.: Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations over the past 60 million years, Nature, 406, 695–699,https://doi.org/10.1038/35021000, 2000.
Royer, et al., 2001. Paleobotanical Evidence for Near Present-Day Levels of Atmospheric CO2 During Part of the Tertiary. Science 22 June 2001: 2310-2313. DOI:10.112
Steinthorsdottir, M., Vajda, V., Pole, M., and Holdgate, G., 2019, “Moderate levels of Eocene pCO2 indicated by Southern Hemisphere fossil plant stomata”: Geology, v. 47, p. 914–918, https://doi.org/10.1130/G46274.1
Tripati, A.K., C.D. Roberts, and R.A. Eagle. 2009. “Coupling of CO2 and Ice Sheet Stability Over Major Climate Transitions of the Last 20 Million Years”. Science, Vol. 326, pp. 1394 1397, 4 December 2009. DOI: 10.1126/science.1178296
Zachos, J. C., Pagani, M., Sloan, L. C., Thomas, E. & Billups, K. “Trends, rhythms, and aberrations in global climate 65 Ma to present”. Science 292, 686–-693 (2001).
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Antarctic isolation was not the only change causing cooling in the Cenozoic.
There was Himalayan uplift creating a large high altitude region generating cold surface air.
In addition there was the connection of North and South America cutting off the Pacific from the Atlantic and forming in the latter a meridionally bounded ocean.
True… However, those events mostly contributed to the cooling from the Pliocene into the Pleistocene, particularly the closure of the Panama Seaway.
The Isthmus of Panama formed 31 million years after the Eocene-Oligocene boundary. It caused ice sheets to grow in the Northern Hemisphere, but the Cenozoic Icehouse started with the formation of the Southern Ocean.
No, the isthmus of Panama formed between 5 to 3 million years ago with a final cut off of the seaway by 3 Ma. The age of 31 Ma is based on a publication that used U-Pb dating on detrital zircons while ignoring a great deal of geological data.
Of course there was a gradual shoaling process, but Pliocene oceanic circulation lasted until the Pleistocene. Even during that epoch, the Inter-American Waterway briefly reopened.
The faunal exchange from about 3 Ma shows that oceanic currents still ran between the continents before then. As too of course do the Panamanian Megalodon nurseries from ten to five million years ago.
The Gulf Stream did intensify from c. 4.6 Ma, thanks to the seaway’s shoaling, but ice sheets didn’t form nor animals migrate between the continents until after 3.0 Ma, especially post-Pleistocene.
Am I being totally stupid or does an explanation of the onset of terrestrial ice ages and interglacials also have to explain Martian ice ages and interglacials? Given that they are both similar planet’s in the same solar system with a few differences.
Earth’s ice ages depend upon plate tectonics as well as extraterrestrial factors.
If lowering CO2 causes ice ages, wouldn’t that be an argument to NOT lower it?
I made this years ago and never posted it. But with the video in the post.
Arctic sea ice looks like it is going to surge well above the past yearly trend line. Temps in the Arctic were well below the average point for the entire summer as seen on DMI’s arctic page. Both poles are registering colder than average temps at the same time regardless of the season.Keep an eye on this trend.
“But that theory gradually grew out of favor.”
That’s the scary bit. Its the simplest explanation, and according to Occam’s razor, the best guess until you find it doesn’t fit the data – rather than agenda. And then they swap it for an explanation that simply doesn’t fit the data.