That's what the research is about, determining and evaluating atmospheric CO2 concentration as a climate change driver. Clearly the time-scales here are different that the century-scale of the current aberration.
I hope that your wife is doing better.
That's what the research is about, determining and evaluating atmospheric CO2 concentration as a climate change driver.
"The rise of the Appalachian Mountains may have caused a major ice age approximately 450 million years ago [Ordovician Period], an Ohio State University study has found. The weathering of the mountains pulled carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, causing the opposite of a greenhouse effect -- an "icehouse" effect. "
Where atmospheric CO2 levels were 15 times higher than they are today.
Interesting that the Ordovician ice age dropped below 12oC temperatures. Actually below the current global mean temperature at 14oC, and was induced at levels exceeding 5500ppm, where we are worried about the world warming up for CO2 levels of 360PPM. An order of magnitude difference in CO2 levels.
Seems to be a big disconnect and yet another "scientist" riding on global warming junkscience to align his papers with the politically acceptable line to push global warming hype.
As pointed out, it behooves one to look at the total picture where paleoclimate research is concerned.
Global Surface Temperature and Atmospheric CO2 over Geologic Time Late Carboniferous to Early Permian time (315 mya -- 270 mya) is the only time periods in the last 600 million years when both atmospheric CO2 and temperatures were as low as they are today (Quaternary Period ). Temperature after C.R. Scotese
|
Clearly the time-scales here are different that the century-scale of the current aberration.
Indeed, among many other factors affecting our exceptionally warm geophysical period with current climatic temperatures predominantly driven by Solar heating/cooling arising from variation of solar activity modulating cosmic ray interactions with cloud cover:
http://spacecenter.dk/xpdf/influence-of-cosmic-rays-on-the-earth.pdf
inducing the dominant portion of global climate changes we currently experience:
Sun's Output Increasing in Possible Trend Fueling Global Warming
Sunspot Activity at 8,000-Year High
Sun's Activity Increased in Past Century, Study Confirms
New Scientist - Hyperactive sun comes out in spots
An interesting test will be on whether or not ocean and tropospheric temperatures drop as this 8000 year high in solar activity reverses as it is predicted for coming decades.
And may already be showing up in falling ocean temperatures since ~2003
with of course, additional variations in temperature due to changes in solar brightness coincident with solar activity:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/07/18/wsun18.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/07/18/ixnewstop.html
supported in the warming trendsobserved throughout the solar system:
Mars warming:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4266474.stmJupiter warming:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2006-05-04-jupiter-jr-spot_x.htm?POE=TECISVAPluto warming:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/pluto_warming_021009.htmlNeptune's Triton warming:
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/19980526052143data_trunc_sys.shtmlSaturn's Enceladus warming:
http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20060419/Feature1.aspSaturn warming:
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20050131/saturn.html
as well as variations in climate effects due to changess in Earth's orbital alignment with the mean solar system plane and the geophysical events affecting planetary albedo that arise from that factor:
Ice Ages & Astronomical Causes Origin of the 100 kyr Glacial Cycle
|
Spectrum of 100-kyr glacial cycle: Orbital inclination, not eccentricity
|
http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/dn9228-mysterious-glowing-clouds-targeted-by-nasa.html
Mysterious glowing clouds targeted by NASA
26 May, 2006
High-altitude noctilucent clouds have been mysteriously spreading around the world in recent years (Image: NASA/JSC/ES and IA)
http://newton.ex.ac.uk/aip/physnews.252.html#1
INTERPLANETARY DUST PARTICLES (IDPs) are deposited on the Earth at the rate of about 10,000 tons per year. Does this have any effect on climate? Scientists at Caltech have found that ancient samples of helium-3 (coming mostly from IDPs) in oceanic sediments exhibit a 100,000-year periodicity. The researchers assert that their data, taken along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, support a recently enunciated idea that Earth's orbital inclination varies with a 100-kyr period; this notion in turn had been broached as an explanation for a similar periodicity in the succession of ice ages. (K.A. Farley and D.B. Patterson, Nature, 7 December 1995.)
Farley & Patterson 1998, http://www.elsevier.com/gej-ng/10/20/36/33/37/32/abstract.html
Farley http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~farley/
Farley http://www.elsevier.nl/gej-ng/10/18/23/54/21/49/abstract.html
http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/pr96/dec96/noaa96-78.html
ABRUPT CLIMATE CHANGE DURING LAST GLACIAL PERIOD COULD BE TIED TO DUST-INDUCED REGIONAL WARMING
Preliminary new evidence suggests that periodic increases in atmospheric dust concentrations during the glacial periods of the last 100,000 years may have resulted in significant regional warming, and that this warming may have triggered the abrupt climatic changes observed in paleoclimate records, according to a scientist at the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Current scientific thinking is that the dust concentrations contributed to global cooling.
I hope that your wife is doing better.
Quite a bit better now thank you. Home from physical therapy Friday night, getting around with a walker, and improving each day as she heals.