Seabed Scratches Show Icebergs Reached The Tropics

New Scientist ^

[blam]

Seabed scratches show icebergs reached the tropics

09 June 2008
NewScientist.com news service

ICEBERGS often etch out messages on the shallow ocean floor. Now a newly discovered set of scratches suggests bergs from the icy north drifted further south than we thought after the last ice age.

The meltdown of North American ice sheets about 15,000 years ago released a flotilla of icebergs into the Atlantic. Gouges left by bergs on the ocean bed have previously been found off New Jersey, close to the southernmost edge of the ice sheet, but it had been thought that looping currents would have stopped them drifting much farther south.

Now Jenna Hill of Coastal Carolina University in Conway, South Carolina, has found similar gouges off the coast of South Carolina, suggesting icebergs drifted as much as 1000 kilometres beyond the edge of the ice. The gouges are several metres deep, 10 to 100 metres wide and more than 10 kilometres long (Geology, vol 36, p 447).

Today, the Gulf Stream keeps the region warm, moist and subtropical; frosts are rare and palm trees grow. Whether the climate was already like this 15,000 years ago is uncertain, Hill says. At that time the warm current may have left North America's east coast further south before beginning its path across the Atlantic, because a lower sea level would have exposed land that steered it away. This would have allowed bergs to float down from the north on cold coastal currents.

[Crazieman]

Gee, I wonder what caused them to retreat.

[Always Right]

The meltdown of North American ice sheets about 15,000 years ago

Which seemingly illustrates we are at least 15,000 years too late on our efforts to prevent global warming.

[TommyDale]

We are all doomed to die in another 15,000 years!!!!

[Repeal The 17th]

Since when was South Carolina considered to be in the tropics?
I must have missed school that day.

[null and void]

Ever been to Beaufort?

[ETL]

If glaciers from the last ice age had come down as far as South Carolina, there really ought to be lots of other evidence besides “scratches on the seafloor”. Other evidence might include ‘glacial erratics’, large boulders originally located in the north but carried south by the advancing ice and then left behind when the glaciers melted and retreated.

[ETL]

Gee, I wonder what caused them to retreat.

It certainly wasn't CO2 as Al Gore would have us believe...

THE ACQUITTAL OF CARBON DIOXIDE
by Jeffrey A. Glassman, PhD

ABSTRACT:

"Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the product of oceanic respiration due to the well-known but under-appreciated solubility pump. Carbon dioxide rises out of warm ocean waters where it is added to the atmosphere. There it is mixed with residual and accidental CO2, and circulated, to be absorbed into the sink of the cold ocean waters. Next the thermohaline circulation carries the CO2-rich sea water deep into the ocean. A millennium later it appears at the surface in warm waters, saturated by lower pressure and higher temperature, to be exhausted back into the atmosphere. Throughout the past 420 millennia, comprising four interglacial periods, the Vostok record of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is imprinted with, and fully characterized by, the physics of the solubility of CO2 in water, along with the lag in the deep ocean circulation.

Notwithstanding that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, atmospheric carbon dioxide has neither caused nor amplified global temperature increases. Increased carbon dioxide has been an effect of global warming, not a cause. Technically, carbon dioxide is a lagging proxy for ocean temperatures. When global temperature, and along with it, ocean temperature rises, the physics of solubility causes atmospheric CO2 to increase.

If increases in carbon dioxide, or any other greenhouse gas, could have in turn raised global temperatures, the positive feedback would have been catastrophic. While the conditions for such a catastrophe were present in the Vostok record from natural causes, the runaway event did not occur. Carbon dioxide does not accumulate in the atmosphere."

http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2006/10/co2_acquittal.html

_______________________________________________________________

The graph above represents temperature and CO2 levels over the past 400,000 years. It is the same exact data Al Gore and the rest of the man-made global warmers refer to. The blue line is temps, the red CO2 levels. The deep valleys represent 4 separate glaciation periods. Now look very carefully at this relationship between temps and CO2 levels and keep in mind that Gore claims this data is the 'proof' that CO2 has warmed the earth in the past. But does the graph indeed show this? Nope. In fact, rising CO2 levels all throughout this 400,000 year period actually lagged behind temperature increases ...by an average of 800 years! So it couldn't have been CO2 that got Earth out of these 4 past glaciations. Yet Gore dishonestly and continually claims otherwise.-ETL

_______________________________________________________________

"The above chart shows the range of global temperature through the last 500 million years. There is no statistical correlation between the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through the last 500 million years and the temperature record in this interval. In fact, one of the highest levels of carbon dioxide concentration occurred during a major ice age that occurred about 450 million years ago. Carbon dioxide concentrations at that time were about 15 times higher than at present.":
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=010405M

_______________________________________________________________

FWD:

So, greenhouse [effect] is all about carbon dioxide, right?

Wrong. The most important players on the greenhouse stage are water vapor and clouds. Carbon dioxide has been increased to about 0.038% of the atmosphere (possibly from about 0.028% pre-Industrial Revolution) while water in its various forms ranges from 0% to 4% of the atmosphere and its properties vary by what form it is in and even at what altitude it is found in the atmosphere.

In simple terms the bulk of Earth's greenhouse effect is due to water vapor by virtue of its abundance. Water accounts for about 90% of the Earth's greenhouse effect -- perhaps 70% is due to water vapor and about 20% due to clouds (mostly water droplets), some estimates put water as high as 95% of Earth's total tropospheric greenhouse effect (e.g., Freidenreich and Ramaswamy, 'Solar Radiation Absorption by Carbon Dioxide, Overlap with Water, and a Parameterization for General Circulation Models,' Journal of Geophysical Research 98 (1993):7255-7264).

The remaining portion comes from carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, ozone and miscellaneous other 'minor greenhouse gases.' As an example of the relative importance of water it should be noted that changes in the relative humidity on the order of 1.3-4% are equivalent to the effect of doubling CO2.

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/

_______________________________________________________________

FWD:

Water Vapor Rules the Greenhouse System

Water vapor constitutes Earth's most significant greenhouse gas, accounting for about 95% of Earth's greenhouse effect (4). Interestingly, many 'facts and figures' regarding global warming completely ignore the powerful effects of water vapor in the greenhouse system, carelessly (perhaps, deliberately) overstating human impacts as much as 20-fold.

Water vapor is 99.999% of natural origin. Other atmospheric greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and miscellaneous other gases (CFC's, etc.), are also mostly of natural origin (except for the latter, which is mostly anthropogenic).

Human activites contribute slightly to greenhouse gas concentrations through farming, manufacturing, power generation, and transportation. However, these emissions are so dwarfed in comparison to emissions from natural sources we can do nothing about, that even the most costly efforts to limit human emissions would have a very small-- perhaps undetectable-- effect on global climate.

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

[ETL]

If you look at the chart below, you will see that sunspot activity (during solar maxes--the individual peaks) has been relatively high since about 1900 and almost non-existent for the period between about 1625 and 1725. This period is known as the Maunder (sunspot) Minimum or "Little Ice Age".

From BBC News [yr: 2004]:
"A new [2004] analysis shows that the Sun is more active now than it has been at anytime in the previous 1,000 years. Scientists based at the Institute for Astronomy in Zurich used ice cores from Greenland to construct a picture of our star's activity in the past. They say that over the last century the number of sunspots rose at the same time that the Earth's climate became steadily warmer."..."In particular, it has been noted that between about 1645 and 1715, few sunspots were seen on the Sun's surface. This period is called the Maunder Minimum after the English astronomer who studied it. It coincided with a spell of prolonged cold weather often referred to as the "Little Ice Age". Solar scientists strongly suspect there is a link between the two events - but the exact mechanism remains elusive."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3869753.stm

It's really hard to imagine how this little ball of fire could have any impact on our climate at all.

But the main arguments being made for a solar-climate connection is not so much to do with the heat of the Sun but rather with its magnetic cycles. When the Sun is more magnetically active (typically around the peak of the 11 year sunspot cycle --we are a few yrs away at the moment), the Sun's magnetic field is better able to deflect away incoming galactic cosmic rays (highly energetic charged particles coming from outside the solar system). The GCRs are thought to help in the formation of low-level cumulus clouds -the type of clouds that BLOCK sunlight and help cool the Earth. So when the Sun's MF is acting up (not like now), less GCRs reach the Earth's atmosphere, less low level sunlight-blocking clouds form, and more sunlight gets through to warm the Earth's surface...naturally. Clouds are basically made up of tiny water droplets. When minute particles in the atmosphere become ionized by incoming GCRs they become very 'attractive' to water molecules, in a purely chemical sense of the word. The process by which the Sun's increased magnetic field would deflect incoming cosmic rays is very similar to the way magnetic fields steer electrons in a cathode ray tube or electrons and other charged particles around the ring of a subatomic particle accelerator.-ETL

____________________________________________________

There's a relatively new book out on the subject titled The Chilling Stars. It's written by one of the top scientists advancing the theory (Henrik Svensmark).

http://www.sciencedaily.com/books/t/1840468157-the_chilling_stars_the_new_theory_of_climate_change.htm

And here is the website for the place where he does his research:
2008: "The Center for Sun-Climate Research at the DNSC investigates the connection between variations in the intensity of cosmic rays and climatic changes on Earth. This field of research has been given the name 'cosmoclimatology'"..."Cosmic ray intensities – and therefore cloudiness – keep changing because the Sun's magnetic field varies in its ability to repel cosmic rays coming from the Galaxy, before they can reach the Earth." :
http://www.spacecenter.dk/research/sun-climate

100,000-Year Climate Pattern Linked To Sun's Magnetic Cycles:
ScienceDaily (Jun. 7, 2002) HANOVER, N.H.
Thanks to new calculations by a Dartmouth geochemist, scientists are now looking at the earth's climate history in a new light. Mukul Sharma, Assistant Professor of Earth Sciences at Dartmouth, examined existing sets of geophysical data and noticed something remarkable: the sun's magnetic activity is varying in 100,000-year cycles, a much longer time span than previously thought, and this solar activity, in turn, may likely cause the 100,000-year climate cycles on earth. This research helps scientists understand past climate trends and prepare for future ones.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/06/020607073439.htm

[ETL]

I stand corrected: They’re obviously talking about ice bergs, not glaciers. It’s a lot more conceivable that detached ice bergs could have drifted further south. This would have little if anything to do with how far south the glaciers may have extended (on land).

[Cletus.D.Yokel]

“Ice age”, you say?

You mean the global climate used to be much colder and then WARMED UP to where we are today? Interesting...

[RightWhale]

At the same time a city was thriving on Point Hope Alaska. Apparently fairly advanced, as are many Lost Cities in the Americas. Advanced and twice as old as those in the Old World.

[ETL]

How’s the weather in chilly Alaska? It’s close to 100 here in New York City today. Actually heat index puts it at 105!

[RightWhale]

60 and raining a little.

[Repeal The 17th]

Well, yes, I have been to Beaufort, and its hot there,
and it is hot here in Georgia, too,
but it still ain't "the tropics".

You would think that some on-line mag that called themselves
"New Scientist" would try to do better.

Although, looking at this map does make one realize "why" so many of the
archaeological sites of ancient civilizations are found where they are.

"The tropics are a geographic region of the Earth that is
centered on the equator and limited in latitude by the
Tropic of Cancer in the northern hemisphere at 23°26' N latitude,
and the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere at 23°26' S latitude.

[steelyourfaith]

 

Calculate your one-day Carbon Belch !

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from June 9, 2008. Thanks blam.

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[SunkenCiv]

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	Gods Graves Glyphs	Note: this topic is from June 9, 2008. Thanks blam. Blast from the Past. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
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[Cuttnhorse]

Hi Nully, Have you read, (studied) Ian Plimer's great book, HEAVEN AND EARTH, global warming the missing science

Excellent science textbook on the great hoax...not actually a textbook, but reads like one. I can tell how good it is by how much the warming advocates hate it.

Cheers from near Jellystone...whole lot of shaken going on.

[Fred Nerks]

From a previous discussion: Ice-berg scouring, Gulf. Must have moved incredible fast to leave such a straight line-depression?

ICE BERG SCROURING IMAGE LINK

Satellite photo of iceberg gouges off western Canada. Each gouge is a canyon several kilometers long photo courtesy USGS