Posted on 09/07/2004 8:35:06 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
PARIS (AFP) - The North Pole once had a balmy, sub-tropical sea because of extreme global warming, according to European scientists who have carried out the world's deepest drilling into ancient sediment on the far northern seabed.
Cores retrieved from up to 430 metres (1,397 feet) below the seafloor in waters 1,300 metres (4,550 feet) deep show that, for a brief period which occurred around 55 million years ago, the Arctic Ocean was around 20 C (68 F), compared with today's typical average temperature of minus 1.5 C (29.3 F), they said on Tuesday.
"It occurred during a period called the Palaeocene-Eocene thermal maximum, which was already known as a warm period," Andy Kingdon of the British Geological Survey (BGS) told AFP.
"What no-one expected was how much warmer it really was. That is a huge surprise."
The BGS joined other scientific agencies in a 12.5-million-dollar (10.40-million-euro) initiative called the European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling (ECORD).
Under it, a Swedish-flagged, Norwegian-operated drillship ventured to within 238 kilometers (148 miles) close to the North Pole, protected by a Russian and a Swedish icebreaker, which broke up sea ice around the vessel as it drilled into the sediment.
The evidence of big climate change comes in the form of fossilised marine plants and animals which died out en masse within a relatively short time because they could not cope with the surge in temperatures.
The cores also revealed a band of fossilised extinct algae that only lived in sub-tropical conditions.
"The early history of the Arctic basin will be re-evaluated based on the scientific results collected on this expedition," one of the mission's chief scientists, Jan Backman, a professor at Stockholm University, said.
The expedition returns to Tromso, Norway on September 14 and its members will meet in Bremen, Germany, in November to assess the results.
Although the data is only preliminary, the scientists "are absolutely confident" in their conclusion about the massive temperature swing, said Kingdon.
"This is convincing proof that global warming has a planetary-wide effect, having a major impact on locations even as distant as the North Pole."
As for what have caused the big warming during this period, two theories are being aired, both based on the greenhouse principle in which gases were released into the atmosphere, trapping the Sun's heat.
One is that gigantic volanic eruptions disgorged billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the air; the other is that frozen methane, held under layers of seabed sediment, was released and melted, also causing a runaway greenhouse effect.
If you can link that to Bush, it would be in play. ;-)
Yes, I agree, but a change in ocean currents could also bring about such a change, and if located at some distance from the pole, it wouldn't have to be quite as dramatic.
By deductive logic and inference, we must inevitably conclude that there were precursor-rodents running around whining about dinosaur farts - and their direct causation of global warming.
How long until they dig up a Palaeocene-Eocene SUV ?
These are the cause of global warming.
Well, it turns out that 55 million years ago the Arctic ocean and the underlying crust was just about where it is now. 55 million years isn't so long in the geologic scheme of things.
So, I'm going over to the wobble school and the solar variation hypothesis.
Otherwise, I have to go with the dinosaur SUV hypothesis, and I don't want to be forced to go there!
Darnit, that was going to be MY line! Great minds...
Yes, there are fluctuating temperature gradients associated with solar energy absorbed during this process. Thank you for citing the source.
Quite true. And, he received three Purple Trilobites.
Well, the DINOsaurs had SUVs before they didn't have them.
Also I found this...
50 million years ago.
Well, if it hadn't been for those danged SUVs, oh wait, nevermind.
We've known for decades that there are petrified hardwood forests buried under the ice of Antartica. The earth's weather was drastically different even in comparatively recent times.
Consider that less than 40,000 years ago, northern Africa was a verdant grass and forest land with many large rivers besides the Nile, supporting herds of large animals to a similar extent to what the plains of central and southern Africa do now.
Estimate the amount by which the water will rise, and start buying future beach front property. //humor
That is absolutely true, the sun varies its output much like a boiling pot of oatmeal varies in is energy output. However, the pot of oatmeal’s variations are over very short time periods. The Sun on the other hand has variations in its output over (what seems to us) long periods.
In addition to this the Sun has electro-magnetic ‘weather’, over both a short (sun spots and flares) and long (hydrogen gets used up and not enough heat/pressure for helium fusion, luminosity and surface temperature decrease).
This is based on models and is of course dogma, but from our observations of the sun it is the main determinant of earths temperature.
People (ahem, environmentalists) seem to forget that photosynthetic organisms fix CO2, so it is unlikely that life will not compensate for the extra gas. In addition, we are liberating CO2 that has already been fixed by plants long ago! These are FOSSIL fuels, they only left the ecosystem by some fluke.
In addition, humans are only responsible for like 3 or 4% of CO2 production each year and if I remember correctly algae and not rainforests are the largest fixers of CO2(another lie from environmentalists).
Fitness of Model:
Ockham’s razor failed
Model does not reproduce data
No correlation
Correlation with other variable
Next!
PS. There is also the wobble/tilt effect, but that would effect seasons not long term stuff.
Likewise, today there exists a snow and ice covered piece of real estate that was named Greenland not too many centuries ago.
Sheesh dude
I stand corrected.
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