Documente Academic
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Sanpisa Sritrairat
January 26, 2007
Topics to be covered
Important climatic states of the earth
Evidences
Why did climate change?
Paleo-Climate
Climate is the mean state of the
environment, long-term average of daily
variations
Climate change depends on the
resolution of the proxies and the length of
the mean state in consideration
Time line
600-750 Ma: Snowball Earth (Neoproterozoic)
300 Ma-5Ma: Hot house world (Mesozoic/Cenozoic )
3 Myr-present: Orbital-scale variability: series of
glaciation and retreat
20 Kyr: Last glacial maximum (LGM)
~13 Kyr:Bolling/Allerod warming
~12 Kyr: Younger Dryas (YD)
Heinrich events and D-O cycles;
1000-1300 BP: Medieval Warm Period
1400-1800 BP: Little Ice Age
Proxies:Stable Isotopes
If relative ratios of the selected pair changes
systematically according to climatic
parameters (T, precip, pH, etc)
Mg/Ca: T
13C: ocean circulation, productivity, C cycle
18O:Temperature/Salinity/Sea level
More ice on land: ocean 18O becomes heavier
Chronology
Radiometric
C-14, U/Th, Ar/Ar, etc.
Paleomagnetic
Wiggle match (cross dated): matching the
same features
http://www-eps.harvard.edu/people/faculty/hoffman/Snowball-fig5.pdf
The Sun's luminosity has increased through geologic time due to a nuclear
reaction in the Sun's interior that fuses nuclei of hydrogen together to form
helium. This nuclear reaction has caused the Sun to expand and become brighter.
Consequently, the early Sun shone 25-30% less brightly than it does today.
This raises a paradox. At such a low solar luminosity, we would expect all water in
Earth to have been frozen. Yet, sedimentary rocks provide evidence of running
water at least 4 billion years ago. Some mechanism must have kept Earth warm.
Yet, wouldn't the same mechanism cause the Earth to be intolerably hot today?
It has been hypothesized that the solution to the faint young sun
problem is that outgassing from volcanoes was high due to vigorous
seafloor spreading. At the same time, weathering was very low due to a
dearth of continents. Thus, atmospheric CO2 was much higher than
today, providing a healthy greenhouse effect to keep the early Earth
warm.
No glaciomarine deposit
BLAG hypothesis
Rateofplatemovementinfluencesglobalclimateby
controllingatmosphericCO2concentrations
Support:fasterseafloorspreadingrate100Mathannow
Weathering:
CaSiO3 + CO2 --> CaCO3 + SiO2
Antarctic Record v.
Greenland
Younger Dryas
Younger Dryas
The Younger Dryas was first detected from layers in
north European bog peat, and named for the
alpine/tundra plant Dryas octopetala.
It was a brief (approximately 1300 +/- 70year [1]) cold
climate period following the Blling/Allerd interstadial
at the end of the Pleistocene, and preceding the
Preboreal of the early Holocene.
It is dated approximately 12,900-11,500 BP calibrated,
or 11,000-10,000 BP uncalibrated, but dating is
difficult because it occurs during a radiocarbon plateau
Younger Dryas
The prevailing theory holds that the Younger Dryas was
caused by a significant reduction or shutdown of the North
Atlantic thermohaline circulation in response to a sudden
influx of fresh water from Lake Agassiz and deglaciation in
North America. The global climate would then have become
locked into the new state until freezing removed the fresh
water "lid" from the north Atlantic Ocean. This theory does not
explain why South America cooled first.
Younger Dryas
Aproblemwiththishypothesisisthetimingofmeltwaterpulsesthatare
supposedtohavetriggeredtheTHCshutdown:itwasfoundthatasecond
meltwaterpulse,albeitslightlysmallerthanthefirstone,occurredatthe
endoftheYD(Fairbanks,1989):whydidn'titalsotriggerasimilarchain
ofconsequencesintheclimatesystem?
Analternateexplanation(Clementetal.,2001)invokestheabrupt
cessationintheElNinoSouthernOscillationinresponsetochangesin
theorbitalparametersoftheEarth,althoughhowsuchachangewould
impactregionsawayfromtheTropicsremainstobeexplained.
Forfurtherdiscussion,see:Broecker,WS.,Doesthetriggerforabrupt
climatechangeresideintheoceansorintheatmosphere?Science300
(5625):15191522JUN62003.
Medieval Warming
10th century-14th century in Europe;
May recent finding in North America
Coincided with a peak in solar
activity
The infamous Mike MannsHockey Stick graph The temperature is rising rapidly
Keeling Curve