Guest “Paradigm shift” by David Middleton
The Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) was a geologically brief spike in temperatures, during the warmest climatic episode of the Cenozoic Era.
We are often told that the warmth of the Early Paleogene was driven by CO2; and that the cool-down from the Late Paleogene, into the Neogene and Quaternary Periods was driven by a draw-down of atmospheric CO2; however there is scant evidence for this hypothesis[1][2]. Despite the paucity of geological evidence, the notion of a CO2-driven climate has apparently become a paradigm.
This paradigm didn’t exist in the 1970’s.
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 methods of estimating past CO2 levels have improved, the Early Paleogene is still poorly understood, with estimates ranging from 300 to 3,500 ppm.
The recent publication by The Cenozoic CO2 Proxy Integration Project (CenCO2PIP) Consortium failed to significantly reduce Paleogene uncertainty despite claims to the contrary.
(The Cenozoic CO2 Proxy Integration Project (CenCO2PIP) Consortium)
Why geologists are supposed to avoid paradigms
When I was studying geology, way back when The Ice Age Cometh in the 1970’s, we were taught to avoid getting hooked on paradigms or “ruling theories”. Geology, as a science, has very few unique solutions. This is why we were were taught to embrace Chamberlin’s Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses. I have to assume that either this is no longer the case or that homage must be paid to the current paradigm in order to get published. The CenCO2PIP Consortium embraced it BIG TIME.
The consortium’s members did not collect new data; rather, they came together to sort through published studies to assess their reliability, based on evolving knowledge. They excluded some that that they found outdated or incomplete in the light of new findings, and recalibrated others to account for the latest analytical techniques. Then they calculated a new 66-million-year curve of CO2 versus temperatures based on all the evidence so far, coming to a consensus on what they call “earth system sensitivity.” By this measure, they say, a doubling of CO2 is predicted to warm the planet a whopping 5 to 8 degrees C.
Columbia Climate School: Climate, Earth and Society
Paradigms and ruling theories drive scientists to looking for specific answers. And they tend to only see what they “shine a light on.” The current paradigm is that CO2 has driven climate change over the Phanerozoic Eon (the past ~540 MY).
- The Paleocene-Eocene was, on average, 4–15 °C warmer than today.
- Atmospheric CO2 was very likely in the 450-600 ppm range.
- Modern climate models would require 4,500 ppm CO2 to simulate the Paleocene-Eocene temperature range.
Therefore the equilibrium climate sensitivity must be 5-8 °C per doubling of atmospheric CO2, rather than the observation-supported 2.3 °C per doubling (a transient climate response of only 1.2-1.6 °C).
It never seems to occur to them that something completely different drove climate change over geologic time.
“And now for something completely different…”
Earth’s Orbit Mysteriously Altered by Chance Encounter Million of Years Ago
SPACE 19 February 2024
A grazing encounter between the Solar System and a passing star could once have changed Earth’s orbit enough to wreak havoc on the climate, new research has found.
Around 56 million years ago, at the boundary between the Paleocene and Eocene, Earth’s temperature warmed by up to 8 °C (14.4 °F).
This has always been a bit of a puzzle – but planetary scientist Nathan Kaib of the Planetary Science Institute and astrophysicist Sean Raymond of the Laboratory of Astrophysics of Bordeaux suggest a chance encounter may have been the culprit.
Their simulations show that a star passing by the Solar System could have introduced enough disruption to planetary orbits to nudge Earth slightly off course.
“One reason this is important is because the geologic record shows that changes in the Earth’s orbital eccentricity accompany fluctuations in the Earth’s climate,” Kaib says.
“If we want to best search for the causes of ancient climate anomalies, it is important to have an idea of what Earth’s orbit looked like during those episodes.”
[…]
Kaib and Raymond wanted to know if a passing star could have a similar effect, even from a significant distance. Their work focused on a single known event. Some 2.8 million years ago, a Sun-like star called HD 7977 passed the Solar System, potentially so closely that it flew inside the Oort Cloud.
[…]
HD 7977 is one star, and the only flyby we can confidently identify. But scientists have estimated that a star passes by within 50,000 astronomical units every million years or so, and within 10,000 astronomical units every 20 million years or so.
This means that it’s entirely possible that a passing star has affected Earth’s climate in the past – and may even have played a role in the thermal maximum.
[…]
Science Alert
The full text of their paper is available and worth reading.
5. HD 7977 and the Paleoclimate
It is clear that the stellar passages expected within the solar neighborhood significantly influence the orbital evolution of the Sun’s planets, and we now assess the effects of a specific encounter known to have occurred. Among past stellar encounters inferred from Gaia Data Release 3, HD 7977 stands out as potentially the closest recent known encounter. This 1.1 M⊙ star passed near the solar system ∼2.8 Myr ago at ∼27 km s−1 (Bailer-Jones 2022; Gaia Collaboration et al. 2023). Although this encounter’s median inferred impact parameter is ∼13,200 au, there is a large amount of uncertainty, with a 5% probability of passage within ∼3900 au. This range of impact parameter corresponds to over 1 order of magnitude variation in impulse gradient (which governs the level of planetary perturbation).
Kaib and Raymond, 2024
What happened ~about 2.8 million years ago (MYA)? The onset of Pleistocene Epoch (~2.58 MYA) and the coldest climate since the Late Paleozoic Ice Age (formerly Karoo Ice Age) 330-280 MYA.
While it’s clear that plate tectonics and the changing configurations of continents and ocean basins have been primary drivers of past climate change… It’s also quite possible that astrophysical phenomena related to our solar system’s peregrinations around the Milky Way galaxy have also been primary drivers of paleoclimate change. Our solar system’s crossings of the galaxy’s spiral arms have been linked to the major Phanerozoic ice ages (Shaviv & Veizer, 2004, Shaviv, Svenmarsk & Veizer, 2022) and the formation of continental cratons (Kirkland, et al., 2022). While we can effectively measure the Milankovitch Cycles and have correlated them to Pleistocene glacial-interglacial stages, phenomena like our solar system’s crossings of the galaxy’s spiral arms and interactions with rogue stars are much more difficult to nail down… It’s just easier to blame ExxonMobil for whatever the weather does.
References
Berner, R.A. and Z. Kothavala, 2001. “GEOCARB III: A Revised Model of Atmospheric CO2 over Phanerozoic Time”, American Journal of Science, v.301, pp.182-204, February 2001.
Dott, Robert H. & Roger L. Batten. Evolution of the Earth. McGraw-Hill, Inc. Second Edition 1976. p. 441.
Kaib, Nathan A. and Sean N. Raymond 2024 ApJL 962 L28DOI 10.3847/2041-8213/ad24fb
Kirkland, C.L., P.J. Sutton, T. Erickson, T.E. Johnson, M.I.H. Hartnady, H. Smithies, M. Prause; Did transit through the galactic spiral arms seed crust production on the early Earth?. Geology 2022;; 50 (11): 1312–1317. doi: https://doi.org/10.1130/G50513.1
[1] Middleton, David H. “A Clean Kill of the Carbon Dioxide-Driven Climate Change Hypothesis?” WUWT. 25 September 2019.
[2] Middleton, David H. “Middle Miocene Volcanism, Carbon Dioxide and Climate Change”. WUWT. 3 June 2019.
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
[Link] Royer, D. L., R. A. Berner, I. P. Montanez, N. J. Tabor and D. J. Beerling. “CO2 as a primary driver of Phanerozoic climate”. GSA Today, Vol. 14, No. 3. (2004), pp. 4-10
Shaviv, N., & Veizer, J. (2004). CO2 as a primary driver of Phanerozoic climate: Comment. GSA Today, 14, 18.
Shaviv, N. J., Svensmark, H., & Veizer, J. (2023). The phanerozoic climate. Annals of the new York Academy of Sciences, 1519, 7–19. https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.14920
[Link] 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
The Cenozoic CO2 Proxy Integration Project (CenCO2PIP) Consortium*† ,Toward a Cenozoic history of atmospheric CO2.Science382,eadi5177(2023).DOI:10.1126/science.adi5177
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).
Gliese 710 is predicted to pass within 0.17 light year of Earth in 1.3 Myr. It is currently ~62 light years away but appears every year to be more on course to graze our solar system, highly possible to transit through the Oort Cloud & disrupting comets into the inner solar system. Probably many similar stars have clipped our outer SS in the past upsetting the apple cart.
Now I’m scared.
Should I start digging my survival shelter?
Only if you expect to live for over a million years.
I remain hopeful.
The worst possible event would be Earth or the sun spun out of the solar system.
A rather quick trip to ice bound planet, no matter how deep your survival shelter is.
compared to a 1.3 Myr event I would suggest that 3 score years and 10 reduces the scare factor to a median value of 0.0
sleep easy my friend .
How old will Joe Biden be then?
Joe Biden’s age is not an issue.
(and – “these aren’t the drones you’re looking for”)
Too old to stand for prosecution, but not too old to sign EOs.
About twice as old as he is now.
Interesting. I just started rereading a SciFi named “Lucifer’s Hammer” (by Niven & Pournelle). It’s about a comet that hits the Earth…the interesting part in connection to your post is it describes a “star” out in the ‘periphery’ (e.g. somewhere so far out that we can’t see/detect it) that causes the comet to be directed in to the solar system.
The important part to consider is that the data used to forecast where stars have been and where they are going is based on just a couple of data points, all sourced in a relatively very, very short time interval.
They are likely forecasting a straight line where reality is a sinusoidal pattern, (eg stars shooting in straight lines instead of orbiting around a central plane in the milky way). The precision required, (compared to the data available), in the orbits, their masses and velocities would provide too much variability to enable a gravity based study that extrapolates out beyond several times the sample period.
I’d be GUESSING that the true orbits of the stars will be completely different to the forecasts presented to date. In a million years, or so, we’ll know who was right. The internet never forgets, so I’m on record…..
Anyone who can tell you precisely where a star will be in several million years, (forward or backward), based on less than 200 years data, (old stellar photos appended to modern imaging), is clearly vying for a climate science role.
If HD 7977 did pass through the Oort Cloud there ought to be some indication of this from the orbits of the members of the Oort Cloud.
Astronomers have been looking at these orbits for some time in an effort to find Planet X. I wonder what they could tell us about a close star encounter?
With what are they looking?
Oort cloud objects do not stand out from the dark.
Not enough light reaches them. Pluto is hard to see.
That’s nothing compared to the Andromeda Galaxy colliding with our Milky Way Galaxy in about 4 billion years. That should cause some major disruption to orbits.
Stars, proto-stars, Jupiter sized planets, black holes, dwarf stars, neutron stars, planets, moons, planetoids, all provide excitement to a rather ordinary solar system.
Very interesting, David.
So no SUVs required then?
There is a cluster of stars on Subarus.
”The sisters were Maia, Electra, Alcyone, Taygete, Asterope, Celaeno and Merope. The Pleiades…”.
I think there are only 4 shown on the cars.
😉
I have an old one of these. The wings fell off long ago!
[When that happens, they are costly to get rid of.]
I’m in that boat, but mine never had wings.
Is that where Walt and Jessie’s mobile meth lab got to?
“I will not be recused in such filth!”
rescued!
But she sure could shoot.
Too late, recused.
Hubble’s Deep Field photograph in the background,
love it!
One reason this is important is because the geologic record shows that changes in the Earth’s orbital eccentricity accompany fluctuations in the Earth’s climate
Caused by CO2 without a shadow of doubt
No one speculates about this but … Most likely the atmospheric CO2 level has been DECLINING for the 4.5 billion years until about 20,000 years ago at 180ppm.
The CO2 that was once in the atmosphere is sequestered as carbon in rocks, shells, oil, gas and coal.
Mainly after 1975, humans have been recycling the sequestered carbon to add CO2 to the atmosphere.
This is the best thing humans have ever done to improve the ecology of this planet.
More CO2 support more plant life, which supports more animal and human life.
The benefit comes when modern pollution controls are used when burning hydrocarbon fuels. Otherwise, the resulting air pollution and coal ash pollution would offset the benefits of more atmospheric CO2.
CO2 has only a weak greenhouse effect above the current 420ppm in lab spectroscopy, so does not seem capable of causing more than modest climate changes, even at 4000ppm.
It’s possible CO2 was 42,000 ppm or higher when our planet was formed. The carbon in rocks, shells, oil, gas and coal had to come from somewhere.
DUE DILIGENCE:
I love global warming and CO2,
but despise leftists, who should all be sedated and given lobotomies, or deported to Cuba.
CO2 is only a weak greenhouse effect above the current 420ppm so does not seem capable of causing more than small climate changes.
You are in line with the important part of all commentators here. 😀
“You are in line with the important part of all commentators here.”
Commentators are like people who report the news on TV.
Perhaps you mean commenters?
The first billion years or so were probably hot too, but water is the life of the party, without which oxygen would have remained sequestered.
Plants allowed humans to evolve so humans would dig up all that buried CO2 and put it back in the atmosphere.
I thought it was Chuck Norris that allowed humans to evolve…
Chuckie is a hirsute being who doesn’t look like he’s that far along the evolutionary chain from our original forebears.
You tell him. I dares ya.
He doesn’t look all that hairier than I am. I am definitely furrier on the body than Chuck.
He’s lost some his threat potential. He’s at least 83 and pimps health supplements that promote “smooth, firm bowel movements”, on Grit TV and other retro venues.
Fits right in here….
Sorry but as any fan of George Carlin knows that’s wrong…it’s plastics…the planet wanted plastic for itself and didn’t know how to make it so it evolved us…
Given we’ve discovered microbes that feast on ‘microplastics’ I’m thinking George got this spot on!
5-8 degrees per doubling?! What a crock of shit! If they believe their own bullshit about “pre-industrial” levels being 280, the rise to today’s 440 is about 57% of a “doubling” of atmospheric CO2.
And since the hypothetical “effect” of CO2 on temperature is logarithmic, we should therefore have seen MORE THAN HALF of their wet dream warming already, since it would be “front loaded,” say 3-6 degrees.
(Mathematicians feel free to chime in on the percentage of warming we should see based on the logarithmic nature of the hypothetical effect).
Instead, we’ve seen a piddling degree, much of which can be traced to other climate influences that have nothing to do with CO2.
Interesting report, David. The data shows two event spikes, mid-Eocene and mid-Miocene. Northern Nevada saw tremendous magmatic/volcanic events at those time markers (42 to 36 mya and 14 to 16 mya). How is this known? Who would study these time events in detail? Gold Geologists! No, not the Black Gold types, the Yellow Gold types. The Eocene event was due to the southward roll-over of flat plate subduction, and the Miocene event was due to the North America Plate traveling over the Yellowstone Hotspot (ouch!). Carlin type gold rules. Starry nights? Maybe
Two observations about the science of geology have stuck in my mind over time –
Carlin presumably refers to Carlin, Nevada and not George Carlin.
I remember reading about the Carlin trend sometime in 1997. Article mentioned that the Carlin trend was one of the three biggest sources of gold at the time.
Thanks David.
All very interesting.
I blame ExxonMobil and colleagues for increases in my retirement account.
Well, there was also the smell. In the narrow valleys of northern Pennsylvania, we often experienced what was called “the smell of money” when visiting friends and relatives. Uncle Andy was (1950s) a wildcatter in the area south of Bradford, PA.
The solar system travels around the Milky Way and encounters areas of increased gamma rays and cosmic rays….which affect cloud cover….which affects temperature, no?
The milky way is also in an orbit in this arm of solar systems that orbit the galactic center.
The entire Solar system passes the Galactic plane in that orbit. The solar system passes through all kinds of stellar ejecta.
Earth’s orbit through space is that of a corkscrew.
It all sounds a bit iffy.
The CO2 climate control knob?
I agree.
I have seen such reconstructions of temperatures. I have also worked in much of the Arctic Islands, and the Eocene does indeed contain remarkable assemblage of temperate terrestrial fossils, some of which are the earmark of subtropical environments, despite existing in 3 months of darkness. The younger Pliocene in the Arctic similarly features anomalously high temperatures (not shown on the attached graph on this blog). Here is my commentary on an award winning MSc thesis (Stachin, 2021) on a particular Pliocene formation in the Arctic. Based on these data, there should be Pliocene spike in average temperatures.
“…While many recent Arctic workers are attracted to the more appealing scenery and climate in northern Ellesmere Island, Sidney Stashin would have nothing to do with that. He decided on tackling one of worst exposure units in the Arctic, in an area that arguably receives some of the nastiest summer weather in all of Canada. Prince Patrick island is mostly a featureless island, with an abandoned weather station (Mold Bay). The station contains a cluster of buildings which served as home base for Stachin’s MSc. Field work.
So why the Beaufort Formation, one may ask. Well, it has been a puzzle for many years. Its age has also not been well-constrained, based on conventional dating methods. The Beaufort Formation, and its equivalents, have a spotty occurrence in many places in the High Arctic, and are unique in that they contain abundant Late Miocene to Pliocene (~6.2 Ma) plants including cedar, larch, and birch and less common mammals, including deerlets, rabbits, beavers, and camels! Previous palaeoclimatological work established a remarkable fact: that the temperatures during this time in the Canadian Arctic Islands were potentially 190C higher than the present day mean annual temperature, thus allowing such plants and animals to flourish, despite suffering up to 3 months of perpetual darkness. Result in his work include the first 26Al/10Be TCN cobble isochron burial age of the BFm from Prince Patrick Island (6.20 ± 0.20 (1s) Ma) and the first successful application of the 26Al/10Be cobble isochron technique in Canada…”
And California is known for the remnants of deep lateritic soils developed from chemical weathering during the Eocene.
190C higher would be well over the boiling point of water. It would kill everything. Check your references again.
And _think_ before you post!
Interesting theory, however, it’s hard to not look the onset of global ocean circulation disruption, Antarctica glaciation and the evolution of grass in the late Cretaceous would themselves be just as effective at causing a significant state change in the climate system.
Grass sealed the fate of the rule of giant herbivores with or without the impact event. It would have changed the albedo of the surface, which in turn would have cooled the oceans and dropped CO2 levels.
Very interesting. I always wondered if there was some change in grasslands at the end of the Pleistocene that eliminated the Mammoth Steppe.
Yes, it’s kind of wild to ponder that sometime before the mid/late cretaceous grass did not exist. And its albedo is slightly higher than most other forms of vegetation. It would have wreaked havoc amongst what was native ground cover.
Hell… There was a time when mud didn’t exist. One theory holds that mud could not have formed without life.
No Life > No Mud
No Mud > No Mudstone
https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/clear-as-mud-how-tiny-plants-changed-the-planet-488-million-years-ago
If the formation of mud required the presence of life… And we know that there are mudstones and/or shales on Mars… 😉
Cool, I never thought about the actual definition of mud as a conglomerate of clay, sand and a binding agent of organic origin.
I’m puzzled.
There are many animals evolved to digest grass, e.g., ruminants and rabbits. Their evolution was started well before several million years ago.
Nor do I easily accept that tall grassland albedo is substantially different from forests.
Bamboo is a type of grass and animals have evolved to eat exclusively bamboo.
Perhaps you are referring to the evolution of C-4 grass that is able to thrive on low levels of atmospheric CO₂?
C-4 plants evolved about 20-30 million years ago, they are more efficient photosynthesisers. The C3 plants have the competitive inefficiency of photorespiration particularly at higher temperature. An earlier evolutionary development was that of broad leaved plants which again improved photosynthetic efficiency.
It is not so much CO2 or GHG concentrations, but atmospheric pressure that is decisive for surface temperature (next to solar intensity). It would equally be naive assuming atmospheric pressure was constant over millions of years. And we have indicators pressure must have been a lot higher, like fossils of huge flying insects and dinosaurs. They would not fly in todays atmosphere.
There have been several studies published that suggest that mass extinctions occur about every 27 million years. I believe the first one I read was back in the ’70s when I was teaching. This is a link to one of the more recent publications: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08912963.2020.1849178
One line of thought is that our solar system rises above and falls below the galactic plane every 26-27 million years and that interactions with dark matter led to increased meteor and comet impacts. This particular article posits a 35 million year cycle…
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2014.14839#:~:text=The%20Solar%20System's%20periodic%20passage,that%20would%20cause%20mass%20extinctions.
Prior to general acceptance of the Milankovitch paradigm, one of the many working hypotheses for the cause of glaciation was that there are sections of the galaxy much richer in dust that are transited during glaciations, and clearer areas transited during interglacials.
Have you seen this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuaPyQFrYk
I first read about this in the 70s when I was a middle schooler. The theory posited was a brown dwarf sibling to the sun (the author named “nemesis”) was on a highly elliptical orbit that would swing close to the sun every 26.5-27M years. This would send a stream of comets into the inner solar system that would cause the major Extinction Level Events at a fairly regular basis.
Of course back then, man was causing an ice age. The Experts were certain of that too 🙂
“Of course back then, man was causing an ice age. The Experts were certain of that too”
Yes, there were. And they did not have any more proof of their claims than CO2-phobes have today about their claims that humans are causing the Earth to overheat.
Both claims, Human-caused Global Cooling and Human-caused Global Warming are made up entirely of speculation, assumptions and unsubstantiated assertions.
The Human-caused Global Cooling folks were proven wrong by the temperature profile, which went up instead of down, like they thought/claimed it would. I have a feeling the Human-caused Global Warming folks will have the same fate. The cyclical nature of the Earth’s climate will throw them a curve ball.
I believe that is why the alarmists have tried to change the narrative to Climate Change rather than Global Warming or Global Cooling. So no matter whatever bad weather occurs, its Climate Change in action.
Keeps the sheep huddled in fear to be saved by the authoritarians.
Very interesting, Dave.
You are the man to ask this of: About 15 years ago some academic gave a distinguished lecture series lecture at UW. He had been studying the budget of a number of volatiles, chlorine, sulfur and CO2 come to mind, and was having difficulty closing their budgets; meaning that these would continue to decline into the future because they are being sequestered by many means and even back into the mantle — couldn’t find the counterbalancing mechanisms. He was curious if there are unrecognized almost imperceptible emanations bringing these back to the surface. Great lecture I thought.
Among other things an imbalance would explain why the Cenozoic shows decline of volatiles, especially CO2, and would suggest that without rescue by ExxonMobil et al the Earth is doomed to die once vital volatiles are gone.
Anyway, I can’t recall the person’s name, of the four dozen people likely to have attended the lecture no one can even recall the lecture and no one knows anything about the subject and no one kept any list of distinguished lectures. Maybe he was not as distiguished as the lecture series suggests; maybe he was cancelled.
Do you know anything about this subject?
It sounds vaguely familiar.
Ask Nick.
If he wasn’t there, I’m sure he’ll know a gaggle of “climate scientists” who were.
Or know others who weren’t there, but whose observations on the subjects can be totally relied upon.
This article is related to your question and has three authors and several references. Maybe there is a name you would remember.
Earth’s Volatile Balancing Act – Eos
Thanks for that reference. I ought to be able to find the original author among the references. I do note, of course, that while the original presentation at UW wasn’t dominated by climate change, the topic is headed that-a-way.
The tectonic engine is slowing down due to the cooling of the planet’s interior. Volcanic activity is a fraction of what it was hundreds of millions of years ago. As a result, CO2 levels are decreasing over time. At its current rate of decrease, the tectonic engine should stop in 150 million years. CO2 levels will decrease so much that the trophic chains will collapse and all complex life will disappear long before the Sun turns into a red giant.
Perhaps we can colonize another solar system with one of these stellar close encounters.
We’ll be gone as a species long before then…climate change. You know. Ten years.
Sarcasm aside, that’s a good point too. Once the mid-ocean rifting system stops, and there are no more smokers on the rift floor, the oceans will become alkaline as the Great Salt Lake.
Atmospheric tests around the ozone hole identified chlorine and bromine as causal elements.
Apparently UV rays can disassociate chlorine and bromine from ocean waters.
Elemental sulfur is emitted at numerous volcanic vents.
As long as plants separate carbon from CO₂ there should be CO₂ due to fire.
Plus, significant amounts of CO₂ are emitted from volcanoes caused by carbonate rocks falling into magma chambers.
Nor should one forget that tectonics forces plate components down 25 or more miles towards the mantle. Carbonate rocks get baked driving off CO₂.
Not quite a star – just a humongous cloud of interstellar dust and gas, maybe some of that gas was CO₂ but no matter.
As best I can see in answer to my question of “How do they know about this temp” rise is via a flowering/blossoming of ‘Life on Earth’
Formafloalorfauna went crazy as did leaf stomata as did ‘organic compounds’ as did calcium/Magnesium ratios
Magnesium is the clue because of its central role inside Chlorophyll and Calcium ‘not so much’
So something stirred up plant life.
Contrary to vast popular opinion and JunkScience, the things that make/help/fertilise plant life are neither temperature or CO₂ and Ammonium Nitrate is toxic beyond belief.
Dirt makes plants grow, finely-divided black-coloured ‘rock flour’ and that is exactly what might exist inside your average interstellar dust cloud.
Probably lots of Calcium and Magnesium I’d venture also.
Even better, any largish chucks would be vaporised into ultra fine dust as they fell down through the atmosphere
The passing of Earth and the solar system through a large dust cloud would have an immense fertilising effect – reversing 100 million years of soil erosion in a (geologic) instant.
Because, again contrary to popular opinion, deserts are cold places and the arrival of the dust would have repaired whatever deserts there were at the time.
= the exact opposite of how the creation of Sahara ended the Holocene warm period
if we wanna fix climate change, and it is changing, we wanna replicate the arrival of that dust cloud. And we can, very easily.
We have the tools, the fuel for them and the resource is already lying around in the form of extinct volcanoes, basalt deposits, ‘trap’ rocks, shale and mud off the continental shelves
That dust/dirt cloud does exist
here it is at wiki (image)
quote from wiki:The Local Interstellar Cloud (LIC), also known as the Local Fluff, is an interstellar cloud roughly 30 light-years (9.2 pc) across, through which the Solar System is moving. This feature overlaps with a region around the Sun referred to as the solar neighbourhood
haha; The “Local Fluff”
100,000 trillion zillion giggasguiigagigga megazilion tonnes of Pure Ambrosia for Plants and some clown calls it ‘fluff’
Well I take Calcium and Magnesium every day, and I’m not growing.
If fact I’m shrinking.
My induction record into the army aa a 20 y-o says “6 ft 1/2 in” (buck naked).
Currently my hospital induction record 46 years later says “5 ft 11 1/2 ins” (barefoot)
What’s Up With That?
Cartilage and Meniscus are compressing. This is most noticeable in your spine but knee replacement patients end up a bit taller because the doctor restores them to their original spacing. My roommate just had knee replacement and it was bone on bone. Some of the bone had been damaged as well giving the surgon plenty of work.
The alternative to extended waits for knee replacement surgery (according to a friend of mine in need) is a mobility scooter.
He’s happy.
Goes for a tour of the neighborhood most days.
His wife doesn’t want to be seen in public with him 🙂
First off, the sun would keep most of that dust from reaching the inner solar system.
Even without the influence of the sun, that dust is so sparse that only a few tons would manage to impact the Earth.
The uplift of the Himalayas, which formed huge glaciers close to the equator, occurred during that time. Then, with the reduced ocean temperature, the oceans absorb the CO2 from the atmosphere, a very slow process. This is why CO2 lags temperature by 800 to 1300 years.