http://www.climateoutcome.kiwi.nz/blog.html

The end of ice ages.

18/3/2017

It is well known that there are natural cycles to the earth’s climate and that we move between ice ages and warm periods, a process that takes 125,000 years and cyclical process that has lasted two and a half million years. This cycle is caused by a combination of movements by our planet that increases its tilt and its distance from the Sun, but what increases the temperature and melts the ice is the increase in amount of greenhouse gasses.
CO2 levels increase from 180 parts per million to 280 parts per million and this is sufficient to raise temperature 7C and melt ice that would have been 4 kilometres thick in Canada and Northern Europe.
The earth now has a CO2 level of 407 part per million and it is still rising fast due to our burning of coal and oil. CO2 will last in the atmosphere for hundreds or thousands of years and is only absorbed by the environment very slowly. This level of CO2 has not been seen for 3.5 million years and we then had temperatures 3C warmer than today and sea levels 12 metres higher than today.
The problem is that we have not stopped increasing our production of CO2 and in fact are still speeding up the rate of production and will probably pass 550 parts per million or more before we get it under control.
Scientists believe that we are heading for a point very soon when we will break the cycle of ice ages and the planet will stay hot for thousands of years with temperatures 4c or 5C warmer than today and sea levels approaching 60 metres higher depending on how much of the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheet melts.
Although the timescale for some of this is long, short term changes will devastate the economies and lifestyles of most people alive today.

9 Comments

Bob Bristow

19/3/2017 08:11:56 pm

Thanks for highlighting the fact we may suppress or we have already suppressed an ice age or two. Many things we take for granted will not be there for our descendants. The human race has already experienced more than one ice age. How will the race adapt to Warmer planet, how many will survive?

Carbon emissions 'postpone ice age'

he next ice age may have been delayed by over 50,000 years because of the greenhouse gases put in the atmosphere by humans, scientists in Germany say.
They analysed the trigger conditions for a glaciation, like the one that gripped Earth over 12,000 years ago.
The shape of the planet's orbit around the Sun would be conducive now, they find, but the amount of carbon dioxide currently in the air is far too high.
Earth is set for a prolonged warm phase, they tell the journal Nature.
"In theory, the next ice age could be even further into the future, but there is no real practical importance in discussing whether it starts in 50,000 or 100,000 years from now," Andrey Ganopolski from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research said.
"The important thing is that it is an illustration that we have a geological power now. We can change the natural sequence of events for tens of thousands of years," he told BBC News.
Earth has been through a cycle of ice ages and warm periods over the past 2.5 million years, referred to as the Quaternary Period.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35307800

Bob Bristow

19/3/2017 08:20:38 pm

I'm truly glad I visited our Fox Glacier and the Franz Josef Glacier at the break of the century. Eventually sadly, there will not be any wondrous ice fields for our future dependents to see.

New Zealand Glaciers

New Zealand contains over 3,000 glaciers, most of which are in the Southern Alps on the South Island. Since 1890, the glaciers have been retreating, with short periods of small advances. The differences between 1990 (Landsat image from January 12) and 2017 (ASTER image from January 29) can be seen in the pair of images, that include the Mueller, Hooker and Tasman Glaciers. Notice the larger terminal lakes, the retreat of the ice free of moraine cover, and the higher moraine walls due to ice thinning. The images cover an area of 39 by 46 km, and are located at 43.7 degrees south, 170 degrees east.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/pia21509/new-zealand-glaciers

Bob Bingham

19/3/2017 10:08:21 pm

Thanks for that Bob. I went to Fox glacier and it's a sorry sight.

Dennis Janicek link

23/3/2017 06:17:49 am

*Batagaika Crater, Thermokarst Lakes and Sinkholes*
#Global_warming #methane #permafrost #methane_clathrate

The Earth's orbit looks like sine waves, but the temperature looks like sawtooth curves. The slow slope represent the earth cooling under a blanket of CO2. The steep slope represent the quick release of CO2, which was maybe from methane from permafrost or frozen methane clathrate on the bottom of the oceans. As Al Gore said in «An Inconvenient Truth», the temperature and CO2 follows each other like tracing paper. Richad Muller said:

*Richard Muller: I Was wrong on Climate Change*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sme8WQ4Wb5w

He developed his own climate model and found out that CO2 was the key driving factor, but statistical models are a combination of causes plus noise and variability. So Richard Muller uses Principle Component Analysis to filter the deterministic component from the variable component. From the variable component, you use confindence analysis to determine a safety margin. The key driving factor is when one contributing cause is dominant; this is CO2.

I wish you could wantch the documentary from Vice on HBO called «When the Earth Melts». With climate change warming the Arctic at an alarming rate, the frozen earth that covers almost a quarter of the Northern Hemisphere's landmass is beginning to thaw. There are more greenhouse gases trapped in these deep layers of permafrost than all human fossil fuel emissions released since 1850 combined. Now that trapped carbon is escaping into the atmosphere. If this thaw continues unchecked, scientists warn we could awaken "a sleeping giant" of climate change. VICE travels across the Arctic to see the devastating impact of thawing permafrost, and the astonishing solution that might keep it frozen. You can see the preview:

*VICE on HBO: SEASON 5 Episode 57: When the Earth Melts & The Displaced*
http://www.hbo.com/vice/episodes/05/57-when-the- earth-melts-and-the-displaced/video/ep-57- preview.html?autoplay=true

This discussed the thermokarst lakes, sinkholes and the Batagaika Crater. See:

Wilipedia: Batagaika Crater
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batagaika_crater

*Batagaika crater near Batagay, Sakha Republic, Russia
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Batagaika+Crater/@6 7.5804711,134.7706859,294m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m5!3m4! 1s0x5bbfe8605f075181:0x5c183f59b6ae6d2!8m2! 3d67.5804711!4d134.7728746?hl=en

Other interesting articles on Batagay Crater are:

*Forbes: Batagaika Crater*
https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2017/02/28/si berias-doorway-underworld-rapidly-growing- size/#4f425be26599
*Siberian Times: Batagaika Crater
http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/n0678 -200000-year-old-soil-found-at-mysterious-crater-a- gate-to-the-subterranean-world/
*Geophysical Research Letters: The deep permafrost carbon pool of the Yedoma region in Siberia and Alaska*
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013GL0580 88/abstract

The NBC documentary discussed the problem in Alaska:

*Permafrost Methane Time Bomb NBC News*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w4UQfJHD-A

A NASA article cover methane emissions from the Artic Ocean.

*Methane Emissions from the Arctic Ocean, 2012*
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php? id=77868>

The article said that methane emissions did not occur over solid ice. So as the Arctic ice melts this show give way to more methane emissions.

One documentsry covers that:

*Arctic Death Spiral and the Methane Time Bomb*
https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=m6pFDu7lLV4

So I believe we should consider methane emissions very seriously as the cause of the quick warming at the end of the ice ages.

Dennis Janicek link

23/3/2017 09:43:16 am

I was not able to repair all the links, so here is the same comment with links repaired:

Batagaika Crater, Thermokarst Lakes and Sinkholes
https://plus.google.com/109826290307918810462/posts/Dtb9VyRB4it

Bob Bingham

25/3/2017 10:09:36 pm

Hello Dennis Your comments regarding the amount of greenhouse gasses currently locked up in the permafrost show a huge threat to our world and there are increasing signs that it is being released.

Dennis Janicek link

27/3/2017 02:10:01 pm

National Geographic: The Blob That Cooked the Pacific #algae
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2016/09/warm-water-pacific-coast-algae-nino/

The warm blob off California began fading in December 2015, its heat sinking deep into the sea with the arrival of a powerful El Niño. Yet dome patches of ocean were hotter than ever recorded. At its peak the warm water covered about 3.5 million square miles from Mexico to Alaska, an area larger than the contiguous United States.

Those who believe that the blob is NOT the new normal should look to Austrailia, once one of main rice producers using irrigation. They recently completed a water management plan that cost $1000 per person including desalination. It seems that the climate will NOT support irrigation again to produce rice. Syria has not refilled its aquifers during the 21th century. The cloud patterns moved poleward.

In April 2015 algae bloomed, but instead of dissipating after a
few weeks, the bloom grew into a monster,
morphing and shifting, stretching over 2,000 miles, from California’s Channel Islands to Kodiak. No one had seen anything like it. Toxin concentrations were 30 times greater than what would normally be considered high. Tests
found «domoic acid» in some fish, such as anchovies, at amounts too dangerous for people to eat, a rarity.

Natural low-oxygen zones in deep waters are also expanding.

Attack of the jellies: the winners of ocean acidification, 2015
https://theconversation.com/attack-of-the-jellies-the-winners-of-ocean-acidification-50576

Testing the Waters [English Version]
https://youtu.be/ADJ9kg-IAxE

Revelation 16:3 The second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it turned into blood like that of a dead person, and every living thing in the sea died.
https://www.bibleserver.com/text/NIV/Revelation16,3

We are taking a nature walk through the Apocalypse and this describes a red tide.

Dennis Janicek link

8/4/2017 03:52:30 pm

I went to Glacier National Park as a teenager. There were three Indian teenagers that ran up the mountain where the biggest Glacier was while I could hardly hike up. I always expected to go back, but I supposed the glacier is well melted by now. We are taking a nature walk through the Apocalypse and this describes a greening warm pole (of course, it greens on the model, I do no if it is done in real life). Below are some images.

The Arctic is turning green as sea ice melts to record low levels
https://plus.google.com/109826290307918810462/posts/THsbuRAZ7zt

*The Arctic is turning green as sea ice melts to record low levels*
#Global_warming #algae

*James Screen‏ @polar_james, 4:35 AM · Mar 30, 2017*
https://mobile.twitter.com/undefined/status/847381763919708160

The Independent [journal] +independent
*Arctic turns green as sea ice melts to record low levels*
'All of a sudden, our entire idea about how this ecosystem works is different'
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/arctic-sea-ice-melts-climate-change-global-warming-area-green-a7656876.html

*The frequency and extent of sub-ice phytoplankton blooms in the Arctic Ocean'
Christopher Horva et al
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/3/e1601191

Bob Bingham

15/4/2017 05:27:01 pm

Dennis I went to Franz Joseph glacier a couple of years ago and there is not much left. http://www.climateoutcome.kiwi.nz/latest-posts--news/disappearing-glaciers

Bob Bingham Blog page.

The end of ice ages.

Leave a Reply.

Bob Bingham

Archives

Categories