Posted on 08/30/2007 4:27:50 PM PDT by blam
Source: University Of South Hampton
Date: August 30, 2007
Next Ice Age Delayed By Rising Carbon Dioxide Levels
Science Daily — Future ice ages may be delayed by up to half a million years by our burning of fossil fuels. That is the implication of recent work by Dr Toby Tyrrell of the University of Southampton's School of Ocean and Earth Science at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton.
Future ice ages may be delayed by up to half a million years by our burning of fossil fuels. (Credit: Canadian Ice Service)
Arguably, this work demonstrates the most far-reaching disruption of long-term planetary processes yet suggested for human activity.
Dr Tyrrell's team used a mathematical model to study what would happen to marine chemistry in a world with ever-increasing supplies of the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide.
The world's oceans are absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere but in doing so they are becoming more acidic. This in turn is dissolving the calcium carbonate in the shells produced by surface-dwelling marine organisms, adding even more carbon to the oceans. The outcome is elevated carbon dioxide for far longer than previously assumed.
Computer modelling in 2004 by a then oceanography undergraduate student at the University, Stephanie Castle, first interested Dr Tyrrell and colleague Professor John Shepherd in the problem. They subsequently developed a theoretical analysis to validate the plausibility of the phenomenon.
The work, which is part-funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, confirms earlier ideas of David Archer of the University of Chicago, who first estimated the impact rising CO2 levels would have on the timing of the next ice age.
Dr Tyrrell said: 'Our research shows why atmospheric CO2 will not return to pre-industrial levels after we stop burning fossil fuels. It shows that it if we use up all known fossil fuels it doesn't matter at what rate we burn them. The result would be the same if we burned them at present rates or at more moderate rates; we would still get the same eventual ice-age-prevention result.'
Ice ages occur around every 100,000 years as the pattern of Earth's orbit alters over time. Changes in the way the sun strikes the Earth allows for the growth of ice caps, plunging the Earth into an ice age. But it is not only variations in received sunlight that determine the descent into an ice age; levels of atmospheric CO2 are also important.
Humanity has to date burnt about 300 Gt C of fossil fuels. This work suggests that even if only 1000 Gt C (gigatonnes of carbon) are eventually burnt (out of total reserves of about 4000 Gt C) then it is likely that the next ice age will be skipped. Burning all recoverable fossil fuels could lead to avoidance of the next five ice ages.
Dr Tyrrell is a Reader in the University of Southampton's School of Ocean and Earth Science. This research was published in Tellus B, vol 59 p664.
Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by University Of South Hampton.
This isn’t the first I’ve read this theory (although the predicted delay is much longer). The GW alarmists won’t even consider the possibility tha GW could be good for us.
If more CO2 dissolves in the oceans, HCO3- and CO3— concentrations will increase.
This will result in more limestone, not less.
Wonderful, if it were true, but it's utter nonsense.
this is terrible, I had my 4 wheel drive priapus all gassed up for the next ice age
Interesting... Except that CO2 isn’t much of a greenhouse gas when compared to water vapor.
Only if you don't like living with year round snow and ice. We keep hearing that it would be terrible if most of the world became a tropical paradise.
I wonder if he thinks that would be a bad thing, considering that his house in Southampton would be under the ice or very near its edge.
(But, I don't for a second believe this.)
Global warming, good up to a point.
Acidified oceans after a point mean the oceans' sea life disappears, except for slime. And then land life, including us, goes bye-bye:
"Increase in carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere and global warming are threatening the oceans? phytoplankton that supports all marine life from zooplankton to whales. Phytoplankton is also the fastest assimilator of carbon, clearing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to prevent it building up as a greenhouse gas that warms the earth.
When phytoplankton is in jeopardy, all life is in jeopardy, on land and at sea..."
http://energybulletin.net/18533.html
Or so they say.
I am planning to be still dead about that time.
The Trilobites and Ammonites (carbonate shell organisms) dominated the seas for millions of years at a time when CO2 levels were 10 to 20 times higher than today.
So the premise that increased CO2 leads to increased acidity which leads to the destruction of carbonate shell-based sea life is not supported by the facts of history.
Of course, with the right assumptions, a computer simulation can rewrite history. Simply do a search under “global warming” at Wikipedia for evidence of this.
Work the math: add “all” those tons of CO2 to the mass of the ocean’s water, and see just how (little) the pH actually changes.
By the way, we are OVERDUE for the next Ice Age (by several thousand years), and several predictions show the next few solar cycles may be enough to trip us into some really nasty times between now and 2020, so how can the next Ice Age be delayed “another” 100,000 years by a mere 3/4 of ONE degree increase - ASSUMING that the AGW extremists are actually correct?
Hmm. Not that there's global warming, but that it's getting cooler more slowly.
And that we'll start to notice it in half a million years.
Aw heck. I think I'll panic. :)
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