Carbon dioxide did not end the last Ice Age (WELL, DUH!)

www.physorg.com ^ | 09/28/2007 | Lowell Stott, University of Southern California

[Red Badger]

Carbon dioxide did not cause the end of the last ice age, a new study in Science suggests, contrary to past inferences from ice core records.

“There has been this continual reference to the correspondence between CO2 and climate change as reflected in ice core records as justification for the role of CO2 in climate change,” said USC geologist Lowell Stott, lead author of the study, slated for advance online publication Sept. 27 in Science Express.

“You can no longer argue that CO2 alone caused the end of the ice ages.”

Deep-sea temperatures warmed about 1,300 years before the tropical surface ocean and well before the rise in atmospheric CO2, the study found. The finding suggests the rise in greenhouse gas was likely a result of warming and may have accelerated the meltdown – but was not its main cause.

The study does not question the fact that CO2 plays a key role in climate.

“I don’t want anyone to leave thinking that this is evidence that CO2 doesn’t affect climate,” Stott cautioned. “It does, but the important point is that CO2 is not the beginning and end of climate change.”

While an increase in atmospheric CO2 and the end of the ice ages occurred at roughly the same time, scientists have debated whether CO2 caused the warming or was released later by an already warming sea.

The best estimate from other studies of when CO2 began to rise is no earlier than 18,000 years ago. Yet this study shows that the deep sea, which reflects oceanic temperature trends, started warming about 19,000 years ago.

“What this means is that a lot of energy went into the ocean long before the rise in atmospheric CO2,” Stott said.

But where did this energy come from" Evidence pointed southward.

Water’s salinity and temperature are properties that can be used to trace its origin – and the warming deep water appeared to come from the Antarctic Ocean, the scientists wrote.

This water then was transported northward over 1,000 years via well-known deep-sea currents, a conclusion supported by carbon-dating evidence.

In addition, the researchers noted that deep-sea temperature increases coincided with the retreat of Antarctic sea ice, both occurring 19,000 years ago, before the northern hemisphere’s ice retreat began.

Finally, Stott and colleagues found a correlation between melting Antarctic sea ice and increased springtime solar radiation over Antarctica, suggesting this might be the energy source.

As the sun pumped in heat, the warming accelerated because of sea-ice albedo feedbacks, in which retreating ice exposes ocean water that reflects less light and absorbs more heat, much like a dark T-shirt on a hot day.

In addition, the authors’ model showed how changed ocean conditions may have been responsible for the release of CO2 from the ocean into the atmosphere, also accelerating the warming.

The link between the sun and ice age cycles is not new. The theory of Milankovitch cycles states that periodic changes in Earth’s orbit cause increased summertime sun radiation in the northern hemisphere, which controls ice size.

However, this study suggests that the pace-keeper of ice sheet growth and retreat lies in the southern hemisphere’s spring rather than the northern hemisphere’s summer.

The conclusions also underscore the importance of regional climate dynamics, Stott said. “Here is an example of how a regional climate response translated into a global climate change,” he explained.

Stott and colleagues arrived at their results by studying a unique sediment core from the western Pacific composed of fossilized surface-dwelling (planktonic) and bottom-dwelling (benthic) organisms.

These organisms – foraminifera – incorporate different isotopes of oxygen from ocean water into their calcite shells, depending on the temperature. By measuring the change in these isotopes in shells of different ages, it is possible to reconstruct how the deep and surface ocean temperatures changed through time.

If CO2 caused the warming, one would expect surface temperatures to increase before deep-sea temperatures, since the heat slowly would spread from top to bottom. Instead, carbon-dating showed that the water used by the bottom-dwelling organisms began warming about 1,300 years before the water used by surface-dwelling ones, suggesting that the warming spread bottom-up instead.

“The climate dynamic is much more complex than simply saying that CO2 rises and the temperature warms,” Stott said. The complexities “have to be understood in order to appreciate how the climate system has changed in the past and how it will change in the future.”

[agere_contra]

Awesome! A one-to-one scale picture of the Sun!

[sourcery]

Basic References:

• Challenge to Scientific Consensus on Global Warming: Analysis Finds Hundreds of Scientists Have Published Evidence Countering Man-Made Global Warming Fears
• The Year the Global Warming Hoax Died
• Hostages to a hoax
• Water Experts Find Earth’s Warming, Rainfall Linked to Sun
• Global Warming and Solar Radiation
• Milankovitch Cycles and Glaciation
• The Myth of Dangerous Human-Caused Climate Change (PDF)
• Up against the warming zealots
• When Physics Trumps Hysteria in Global Warming
• Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
• Carbon dioxide did not end the last Ice Age
• Global Warming: Forecasts by Scientists versus Scientific Forecasts
• Geophysical, archeological and historical evidence support a solar-output model for climate change (PDF)
• Gamma rays and climate (PDF)
• Temperature vs. Cosmic Ray Flux
• Linkages between solar activity, climate predictability and water resource development (PDF)
• Proof on Ice: Southern Greenland Was Once Green; Earth Warmer
• Global Warming and Nature's Thermostat
• The Past and Future of Climate (PDF)
• Global warming is not a crisis
• The Great Global Warming Swindle
• IceCap

Lawrence Solomon's "The Deniers" (a series of articles on the view of scientists who have been labelled "Global Warming Deniers"):

• Science, not politics
• Statistics needed
• The original denier: into the cold
• End the chill
• They call this a consensus?
• The limits of predictability
• Unsettled science
• Models trump measurements
• The ice-core man
• The hurricane expert who stood up to UN junk science
• Polar scientists on thin ice
• The sun moves climate change
• Bright sun, warm Earth. Coincidence?
• Look to Mars for the truth on global warming
• Read the sunspots
• Forget warming - beware the new ice age
• Little Ice Age is still with us
• Fighting climate 'fluff'

Other References:

• Alarmist global warming claims melt under scientific scrutiny
• Global warming 'is good and is not our fault'
• The Global Warming Myth
• Global Warming: A Chilling Perspective
• Strong Evidence Points to Earth's Proximity to Sun as Ice Age Trigger
• THE NEXT ICE AGE - NOW!
• Father of Climatology Throws Up at the Thought of Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth'
• IPCC Scientists Challenge Al Gore’s View of Global Warming Consensus
• Swedish Scientist Accuses UN's IPCC of Falsifying Data and Destroying Evidence
• CO2 Science
• On the Phenomenon of Atmospheric Backradiation
• Does Man really affect Weather and Climate? Are the Interactions really understood?
• The Thermodynamic Atmosphere Effect - explained stepwise
• Global Warming and Climate Forcing by Recent Albedo Changes on Mars
• Climate Momentum Shifting: Prominent Scientists Reverse Belief in Man-made Global Warming - Now Skeptics
• The Real 'Inconvenient Truth'
• New findings indicate today's greenhouse gas levels not unusual
• Climate Change: Incorrect information on pre-industrial CO2
• Global Warming as a Religion
• I Was On the Global Warming Gravy Train (By David Evans)
• Global Warming: it's not caused by greenhouse gases says academic
• Still Waiting for Greenhouse
• GREENIE WATCH
• Why Global Warming Would be Good for You
• Global Warming Primer (PDF)
• Global Warming: An Official Pseudoscience
• Sun's Output Increasing in Possible Trend Fueling Global Warming
• Fiddler On The Roof
• Debating Global Warming
• Climate Resistance

Antarctic Temperature Trend 1982-2004:

This map (left) shows key areas of Antarctica, including the vast East Antarctic ice sheet. The image on the right shows which areas of the continent's ice are thickening (coloured yellow and red) and thinning (coloured blue). © (Left)British Antarctic Survey, (Right)Science

[Red Badger]

Thanks! Will save for later cognitive digestion............

[Wonder Warthog]

"More directly, I go with undersea volcanism. "

But what causes the vulcanism to increase?? That takes LOTS of energy. If my hunch is right, and (some/all??)of the magnetic field energy is deposited in magma, then you have the "driver" for the increase in vulcanism.

There is no question that vulcanism HAS increased. THAT there is data for. But why??? I find it hard to believe that photons hitting the earth's surface somehow drive undersea volcanoes.

[cogitator]

So the Vostok lines should get closer together.

Lifting an eyebrow Spock-wise: "Fascinating."

[George - the Other]

The GEICO caveman reference is a scream :-)

I’ll be tweaking libs later this afternoon, concerning their subversion of the Freedom of Speech on what is supposed to be an open-minded arts forum that’s been hijacked by a group of left-wing extremists, who banned me for having the courage to post info representing the conservative viewpoint.

I’ll be wearing a self-designed t-shirt at the party celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Maryland State Arts Council.

Besides denouncing the particular forum, there’ll be a photo of me on the front with my mouth covered by a black slash. On the slash are the words, “Thou shalt not speak.” Underneath is a quote by Lenin, “Free speech is a bourgeois prejudice.”

On the back is a Frederick Douglas Quote, “Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants.”

Below that is a photo of Hitler and Mussolini standing together ...

[Robert A Cook PE]

My own thought is that there is an electromagnetic effect related the the sun’s magnetic field. In current time, we have measurements showing that the sun’s magnetic field has DOUBLED in historic time. How does that doubling effect the earth??

Flip that: The earth’s magnetic poles - possibly/probably beginning a switch of north pole - south pole directions - is rapidly decreasing since the early 1800’s, and is rapidly moving across the Ar tic towards Siberia by several hundreds of miles. Well away from its historic position in south Hudson Bay. Previous movements in recorded decades have only been slow circles across a few dozen miles.

Change magnetic field intensity and you see a tremendous increase in cosmic ray reception (regardless of cosmic ray source intensity.) Also, you see the result - as you pointed out - in increased solar reception. Lower mag fields = less shielding = more solar reception.

Regardless of sunspot activity - which is also increasing!

[Wonder Warthog]

"Change magnetic field intensity and you see a tremendous increase in cosmic ray reception (regardless of cosmic ray source intensity.) Also, you see the result - as you pointed out - in increased solar reception. Lower mag fields = less shielding = more solar reception."

I thought it was the other way around?? More cosmic ray influx = more atmospheric ionization = more nucleation sites for water drops = increased cloud cover in the stratosphere = increased albedo = cooling??

At any rate, at least this mechanism is actually being "thought about" as being yet another variable in the "global-warming/global cooling" science. The possible electromagnetic effect I'm curious about isn't even at THAT stage. I can find exactly ZERO information that it has even occurred to anyone as a possibility.

[AaronInCarolina]

Regardless of sunspot activity - which is also increasing!

Increasing?? On what time scale? Solar cycle 23 was less than solar cycle 22. And solar cycle 23 doesn't seem to want to end, and cycle 24 doesn't seem to want to start. The longer cycle 23 drags out, many scientists agree that such a delay portends a lower than normal cycle 24.

Do you have other information?

[gondramB]

At first read, I don’t see this as very happy news - if CO2 accelerates and amplifies warming that starts from other causes we may have to cut CO2 even if the current warming was not largely caused by Co2.

I think the overall news is bad even there is a political advantage.

[Robert A Cook PE]

No, your report on the end of cycle nbr 23, the slow start of 24, and the relative size of 22 (high) and 23 (somewhat lower - but still above “average”) EXACTLY (well, very closely) matches the trend we see in global mid-atmospheric temperatures: Gradually rising from a low in the early 70’s to a peak in the mid-to-late 90’s, stagnant between 1998 & 2007, and portents of dramatic decline after 2007.

That decline seems ever more ominous the later that nbr 24 is delayed, and the lower that the earth’s magnetic field gets, but I’m (yet) ready to declare the next Ice Age is coming. Hansen has already done that anyway - back in 1970.

[Robert A Cook PE]

We “could” cut CO2 to zero - and it would not make any difference.

[gondramB]

>>We “could” cut CO2 to zero - and it would not make any difference.<<

While I don’t believe the simple “global warming is all human caused theory”, you are pretty much out alone among scientists if you believe that cutting CO2 to zero would have no effect.

[steelyourfaith]

PING !

[Robert A Cook PE]

I will grant you that the UN (Kyoto Treaty) only expects a -0.2 degree change in temps if ALL of mankind’s CO2 emissions are capped at their 1990 levels.

But, since the CO2 levels have risen steadily since 1998, and that temps have remained stable since 1998 (actually declining just slightly), you cannot claim that CO2 emissions are responsible for temp changes.

However, removing ALL of mankind’s CO2 emissions would have a negligible effect as the earth warms 2.0 more degrees (as it has in the past every 100,000 years), or cools 5 degrees - as it has in the past every 100,000 years -— all with NO man-caused CO2 release.

[Libloather]

Carbon dioxide did not cause the end of the last ice age...

Uh, oh. Algore kinda looks like an idiot at this point - no?

[SunkenCiv]

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The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes: Flood, Fire, and Famine in the History of Civilization by Richard Firestone, Allen West, and Simon Warwick-Smith

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[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

neglected to ping the list, so here’s an additional link.

The Year the Global Warming Hoax Died
Canada Free Press | 9-03-07 | Alan Caruba
Posted on 09/03/2007 4:30:29 PM EDT by KarinG1
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/1890611/posts

[RightWhale]

• I think the overall news is bad

  Really? Did you notice this from ScienceDaily?

  Positronium molecules created in a lab

  RIVERSIDE, Calif., Sept. 12 (UPI) -- U.S. physicists have, for the first time, created positronium molecules in a laboratory.

  The scientists at the University of California-Riverside said each briefly stable molecule is made up of a pair of electrons and a pair of their anti-particles, called positrons.

  The research paves the way for studying multi-positronium interactions that might one day help develop fusion power generation, as well as directed energy weapons such as gamma-ray lasers, the scientists said, adding the achievement might also help explain how the observable universe ended up with so much more matter than antimatter.

  The research by Professors Allen Mills and David Cassidy and colleagues is to appear in the Sept. 13 issue of the journal Nature.

  ====================================

  What could be bad, unless of course it had been Iammadjohn news from Iran?