Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 08/10/2010 5:30:41 AM PDT by decimon
Geologists reconstruct the Earth's climate belts between 460 and 445 million years ago
An international team of scientists including Mark Williams and Jan Zalasiewicz of the Geology Department of the University of Leicester, and led by Dr. Thijs Vandenbroucke, formerly of Leicester and now at the University of Lille 1 (France), has reconstructed the Earth's climate belts of the late Ordovician Period, between 460 and 445 million years ago.
The findings have been published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA – and show that these ancient climate belts were surprisingly like those of the present.
The researchers state: "The world of the ancient past had been thought by scientists to differ from ours in many respects, including having carbon dioxide levels much higher – over twenty times as high – than those of the present. However, it is very hard to deduce carbon dioxide levels with any accuracy from such ancient rocks, and it was known that there was a paradox, for the late Ordovician was known to include a brief, intense glaciation – something difficult to envisage in a world with high levels of greenhouse gases. "
The team of scientists looked at the global distribution of common, but mysterious fossils called chitinozoans – probably the egg-cases of extinct planktonic animals – before and during this Ordovician glaciation. They found a pattern that revealed the position of ancient climate belts, including such features as the polar front, which separates cold polar waters from more temperate ones at lower latitudes. The position of these climate belts changed as the Earth entered the Ordovician glaciation – but in a pattern very similar to that which happened in oceans much more recently, as they adjusted to the glacial and interglacial phases of our current (and ongoing) Ice Age.
This 'modern-looking' pattern suggests that those ancient carbon dioxide levels could not have been as high as previously thought, but were more modest, at about five times current levels (they would have had to be somewhat higher than today's, because the sun in those far-off times shone less brightly).
"These ancient, but modern-looking oceans emphasise the stability of Earth's atmosphere and climate through deep time – and show the current man-made rise in greenhouse gas levels to be an even more striking phenomenon than was thought," the researchers conclude.
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Reference: Vandenbroucke, T.R.A., Armstrong, H.A., Williams, M., Paris, F., Zalasiewicz, J.A., Sabbe, K., Nolvak, J., Challands, T.J., Verniers, J. & Servais, T. 2010. Polar front shift and atmospheric CO2 during the glacial maximum of the Early Paleozoic Icehouse. PNAS doi/10.1073/pnas.1003220107.
Contacts: Mark Williams and Jan Zalasiewicz at the Department of Geology, University of Leicester: Respectively tel. 0116 252 3642 and 0116 2523928, and e-mails mri@le.ac.uk and jaz1@le.ac.uk.
Comme ci, comme ca ping.
Regarding AGW, I’d think you could make of this what you will.
That Alaskan oil that we are not allowed to drill... how did it get there? File that question under the heading, “Things that make you go, ‘Hmmmm?’”
"These ancient, but modern-looking oceans emphasise the stability of Earth's atmosphere and climate through deep time – and show the current man-made rise in greenhouse gas levels to be an even more striking phenomenon than was thought," the researchers conclude.
Conclude? This is not a conclusion; it is a complete non-sequitur inserted for the purpose of securing funding or ensuring publication. In reality, the findings seem to reassure that large variations in CO2 are innocuous, non-anthropogenic, and not in the least unusual.
Nailed it.
That struck me as silly too. But I have become so used to non-sequiturs and incongruities in press reports that I have come to where I overlook them -— and the entire article.
It sounded like pure speculation to me.
Isn't that what the Wookie-Michelle wears?
I am worried that the skeptics have declared victory too soon. The enemy is just gathering strength and new b.s. ammunition.
Another blatant attempt(totally ignoring established scientific fact)to establish global warming as fact and as a modern phenomenon. Total BS.
...climate belts...
Isn’t that what the Wookie-Michelle wears?
No! Those are Boobate Belts.
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show that these ancient climate belts were surprisingly like those of the present... "The world of the ancient past had been thought by scientists to differ from ours in many respects, including having carbon dioxide levels much higher -- over twenty times as high -- than those of the present. However, it is very hard to deduce carbon dioxide levels with any accuracy from such ancient rocks, and it was known that there was a paradox, for the late Ordovician was known to include a brief, intense glaciation -- something difficult to envisage in a world with high levels of greenhouse gases." ...fossils called chitinozoans -- probably the egg-cases of extinct planktonic animals... revealed the position of ancient climate belts... changed... in a pattern very similar to that which happened in oceans much more recently, as they adjusted to the glacial and interglacial phases of our current (and ongoing) Ice Age. This 'modern-looking' pattern suggests that those ancient carbon dioxide levels could not have been as high as previously thought, but were more modest, at about five times current levels...
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Thanks decimon. |
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Do we really...REALLY know that oil ONLY comes from 'dead' things?
The real key to these findings of much higher earlier carbon dioxide levels is not the climate but the other fear-mongering that the anti-CO2 people are engaged in, since they know they temperature fear-mongering isn’t working, such as claiming that the oceans will acidify and kill all sea life.
... the sun shone less brightly...
Looks like another reason for the brief, but intense period of glaciation during that early epoch. But these scientists are so wary of upsetting the AGW applecart that they will do nothing more than muse about seeming paradoxes!
Part of the reason that you may find oil at northern latitudes is “continental drift”. At one time all the world’s landmass was along an equatorial belt and began moving & breaking apart.
Was watching a program about Loch Ness. Apparently that portion of Scotland was once adjacent to what is now NY State. It drifted toward Europe, slamming into what is now England, thereby creating the conditions from which “Braveheart” arose. (sorry couldn’t resist that last part. Scottish ancestry, y’know!)
I wonder who ponied up the grant for this steaming maggot ranch?
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