Conventional thinking treats ice primarily as a consequence of climate change: when the planet cools, ice grows; when the planet warms, ice melts. Alex Pope has convinced me that this view is mostly wrong. Furthermore, Alex’s somewhat radical hypothesis fits neatly into my New Theory of Climate Resilience, including through our shared focus on the Earth’s oceans.
Join Alex and me on 24th May to discuss all of this and more. You will need to register for this Zoom webinar. There are three sessions across three time zones:
The first session will be at 12noon Brisbane time, CLICK HERE
The second session will be at 1pm London time, CLICK HERE
The third session will be at 4pm Houston time, CLICK HERE
After you click to register for one or all of the sessions, you will receive an email with a link that you will need to keep to be able to join that session on Saturday 24th May.
While Milankovitch cycles set the stage for glacial-interglacial transitions, they don’t fully account for the speed, magnitude, or mechanisms of events like the 120 metres of sea level rise beginning some 16,000 years ago.
Milankovitch-driven insolation changes are relatively small (~10–20 W/m² at high latitudes). While sufficient to perhaps initiate ice sheet retreat, they struggle to explain the massive ice volume loss required for a 120-meter sea level rise.
The more usual claim is that ice sheet melting was likely amplified by feedback mechanisms. There are appeals to albedo feedback, the idea being that melting ice exposes darker land/ocean, absorbing more heat even CO₂ feedback that rising temperatures released CO₂ from oceans and permafrost, enhancing greenhouse warming.
The hypothesis that I will be discussing with Alex is quite different, and more complex and a better fit with the measurements.
Meanwhile, I received an email just yesterday, further lamenting my recent focus on C02 and more generally my latest obsession that is developing a new theory of climate change. A learned scholar, an expert in metrology (the study of measurement), wrote from Germany:
Why let yourself be dragged into unimportant questions? CO2 has negligible influence on the climate. Climate is controlled by solar activity (and finally probably by the planets). Period!
So sure of what he knows, but unable to articulate a coherent theory of climate change that fits with the measurements. Because there is so little we truly understand about the weather and climate change, even over the millennia including about glaciation.
There is no unifying theory and too often an appeal to just one variable, for example, gravity (orbits of the planets) even as an external driver affecting solar variability, or carbon dioxide as an internal driver because that suits the current consensus IPCC politics.
What we can surmise as likely to be correct is that around 16,000 years ago, Earth was emerging from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, 26,500–19,000 years ago), when vast ice sheets covered North America, Europe, and Asia.
As the climate warmed, these ice sheets melted rapidly, causing global sea levels to rise by approximately 120 meters between ~18,000 and ~6,000 years ago. This equates to an average rate of ~1 meter per century, with pulses like Meltwater Pulse 1A (14,700–14,300 years ago) contributing 20–25 meters in just a few centuries.
In the first webinar in this series (CLICK HERE FOR A SUMMARY), Bill Kininmonth presented a model of the Earth’s climate system emphasising the role of convection by air rising within hot towers, also known as Anvil clouds. I am of, and from the tropics, and I know that these clouds can thunder. They are a feature of the tropical convergence zone straddling the equator moving energy from the bottom to the top of the troposphere. Bill explained that in the tropics, atmospheric temperatures lag ocean temperatures and that the ocean is regulating the temperature of the atmosphere in the tropics.
Alex will emphases that component of the solar energy absorbed by the oceans in the tropics, which begins to move poleward via ocean currents. He will explain that this thermal inertia delays the full impact of solar variations, by which he means varying solar input because of the Milankovitch cycles.
When warm ocean currents reach the poles, if polar oceans are thawed, evaporation accelerates leading to heavy snowfall on land. And so, land ice builds up, cooling the continents and reflecting more sunlight. Ice sheets advance. Thawing ice, in turn, chills polar ocean currents, sending delayed cooling back toward the tropics. According to Alex’s theory, ice cycles regulate Earth's heat distribution beyond the tropical convergence zone. Indeed, his theory dovetails neatly with Bill’s model.
The background image within the banner at the top of this post has been extracted from the short video by my sometimes scuba buddy and ace underwater photographer Stuart Ireland. The video was filmed as part of the Ocean Geographic Elysium Visual Expedition in 2010. The chart within the banner is from the late Bob Carter.
Further excerpts from 'Tomorrow's Weather' (Alex S. Gaddes, 1990)
Quote No. 2: “…..other processes are at work, including the 2,500 year oscillation [other workers have set the value, variously, at from 2,500 to 2,700] that correlates with the 14C production in the atmosphere, and hence with solar events, rather than the Milankovitch effect.
“Nevertheless, the variations in summer sunshine, available for melting snow in the Northern Hemisphere, plainly determine the first-order pattern of past glaciations.”
Note: The elaboration in parenthesis [ ] is my own (see below).
In this paper Dr. J. R. Bray (Ref. No. 7) offers much evidence in support of the existence of a solar cycle of 2,400 – 2,700 years. This agrees well with my 2,770 year glacial cycle (see Ratio Cycles, pages 22 - 26.)
It is significant that Dr. Bray has taken pains to point out that the solar cycle is made up of multiples of other cycles. I quote from my paper written, entitled Nature’s Dozen and the Drought Cycles (Appendix 5.) “…..The above version is somewhat over-simplified; in reality the basic unit of the cyclic system is the single cycle.
Basic causal factors behind the Ice Ages then, are:
1. The Sun, the basic heat energy;
2. Warm, dry air rising (potential);
3. Rotation of Earth (velocity) with gradual cooling to give momentum;
4. Centrifugal force (differentiation);
5. Terrestrial gravitation (centre of spin) finally brings about cataract of super-cooled air delivered to Earth’s surface, at or about the Poles, plus all the kinetic energy derived from the forgoing potentials, which, I believe, is quite considerable.
Points taken from the Model;
The fact that, as the air becomes more dense, so its degree of inertia must rise in direct proportion, must have a significant effect. According to Newton, the higher the degree of inertia, the greater the tendency to move in a straight line at constant speed.
It seems to me that a high degree of inertia would (in conjunction with a progressively shorter distance of revolution) tend to have a compensating effect for gravitation.
This bearing in mind the tendency to maintain the initial peripheral speed, plus the fact that the whole spinning mass would have a tendency to move toward the point of least resistance, owing to reduction of pressure at periphery, plus the added tendency to freeze up, according to the principle of the spinning cone.
Subsequent Notes;
On completion of my ‘model’ I forwarded to Dr H. J. Harrington of the University of New England. He referred me to Arthur N. Strahler’s ‘The Earth Sciences’, (Harper.)
On thoroughly sifting the relevant data I decided to leave my ‘model’ in its original form because of the limits of my technical qualifications.
My initial intention was to air my theory about basic causal relationships, in this case the analogy of the spinning cone, causing reduction of pressure and a tendency to freeze up.
The fact that there has been (evidently) more than one Ice Age seems to argue that the Ice Ages (present anyhow) show evidence of a rhythmic or pulsating movement in time, suggests the specific presence of those very same basic factors, even at this specific point in time.
It would simplify matters to know what, in fact, constitutes normal global climatic conditions, in the absence of an Ice Age.
As far as I can ascertain, man has never known any other existence, nor may he ever live outside an ice Age environment.
The distribution of the major deserts of the Earth in the Northern Hemisphere, seems to me not at all coincidental in the scheme of the present Ice Age and its progenitors.
Geologists might do well to study the documents of the rocks, with an eye for the hemispherical distribution of ancient desert landscapes with relation to Ice Ages, in time.
On being advised by Dr Harrington of the correlation by scientists of the Chandler Wobble etc. with the occurrence of major earth-quakes, I was moved to seek a cause for the phenomena (see pages 166-7 of Ref. No.17,)
Considering this information in conjunction with the Law on Conservation of Angular Momentum, it seems that, if the intensity of the Jet Stream is greater in the Northern Hemisphere than the Southern, it should follow that there ought to be a greater transfer of angular momentum in the Northern Hemisphere than the Southern.
Assuming the above to be the case, it should follow that the rotation of the Northern Hemisphere would tend to slow down to a greater degree than that of the Southern, with a consequent resultant stress (torsion) which must ultimately find release, after elastic limit is reached, by dislocating the Earth’s crust.
This ‘brake’ being applied, unevenly, to the one Hemisphere, would tend to instigate the Chandler Wobble as well as other local irregularities of rotation, plus the enigmatic pear shape of the Earth.
From the above considerations it is tempting to conclude that major Earth dislocations and volcanicity be likely attendants with glaciation.
Geologists might do well to study the rate of incidence of major earthquakes. Should their occurrence coincide with the progressive intensity of the Jet Stream, it might give food for thought.
This idea might also be extended to explain the origin of the Tethys’ Shear, along with certain types of mountain building and rift valleys.
It might well turn out that the energy for driving at least some of the mechanism of the mobile crust of our Earth, is derived ultimately from the Sun, via the deserts, via the Jet Stream, via the conservation of angular momentum.
Once again in this lengthy investigation, which had its origin rooted in an attempt to explain the riddle of the Copeton diamonds, the wheel has gone the complete circle.
We once again arrive at my former conclusion, that of a convection ‘still’ being the mechanism of glaciations, with all the above inferred phenomena (and other unknown factors) incorporated as part of a stupendous cycle of nature.
To speculate further, it is interesting to go back to the evidence of the ancient corals, which argues for a much longer year – over 400 days in some cases.
When bracketed with the foregone observations, it does seem to add allure to the whole idea.
How many times have we slowed down in the past (in the long term,) as the Jet Stream asserted its growing intensity, only to speed up again as it waned? If 400 days be a maximum, then what is the number for the minimum?
Whatever the number for the minimum was in the past, I suspect very strongly that it would be directly proportionate to the area and geographical distribution of the deserts of the day.
jennifer says: "As I understand it, the Maunder Minimum caused minor cooling, but its impact was far less than Milankovitch-driven shifts."
It is my understanding that the Maunder Minimum occurred at the end of a cooling cycle which lasted several hundred years. People interpret the Maunder Minimum as a cooling event but it was actually just coincidental timing that it happened right at the end of what was already a cooling period.
jennifer says: "Solar activity records, based on isotopes like 10Be, show no major spike 15,000 years ago, and solar output changes are too small to explain the melt."
Who was there 15,000 years ago to record the solar output?... and where did they publish it?
Dear Anthony,
Your idea about solar activity driving the ice melt 15,000 years ago is interesting, but as far as I can tell the evidence points to Milankovitch cycles as the primary trigger. For sure there were feedbacks, as Alex Pope will outline in the next Zoom webinar.
What is the evidence you have for the Sun being significant 15,000 years ago?
These Milankovitch cycles, involving Earth’s orbit and tilt, increased summer sunlight in the Northern Hemisphere, and some postulated as a result melted vast ice sheets and raised sea levels by 120 meters over several thousand years.
Solar activity records, based on isotopes like 10Be, show no major spike 15,000 years ago, and solar output changes are too small to explain the melt.
As I understand it, the Maunder Minimum caused minor cooling, but its impact was far less than Milankovitch-driven shifts.
Milankovitch cycles, albedo feedbacks and a few more that Alex Pope will offer-up, are perhaps a more robust explanation for the end of the last ice age.
Cheers, Jenn
My query with Tina concerned the idea (Svensmark?) that 'cloud' production is governed by the influence of Cosmic Rays.
Cloud production depends on evaporation and convection of resultant water vapour from the Earth's surface to the upper atmosphere, during which it is 'seeded' by Albedo Particles, such as volcanic aerosols, or wind-blown dust, thus producing clouds.
It is the specific periodic bombardment of the water vapour in Earth's atmosphere by the Solar expulsion of Particles, that converts the Earth's atmospheric water vapour into Hydrogen and Oxygen, resulting in cloud reduction. (see Metal/Steam Reaction.)
The key point here, is that these Solar-induced Orbital Dry Cycles and their terrestrial footprints on Earth, are exactly predictable in duration and frequency.
Karen this graph proves beyond reasonable doubt that CO2 has nothing to do with global warming.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NASA_CO2_Chart.jpg
I feel that the sun suddenly became more active around 15000 years ago and came out of a long period of relative dormancy and that explains how all that ice melted in a relatively short period of time. That the sun operates on a much longer cycle that causes ice ages which involves long periods of dormancy. Perhaps the Maunder Minimum provides a clue to this. Perhaps we are on the cusp of another long term period of dormancy on the sun and coming out of the Maunder Minimum was a last gasp. That the sun wakes up for 10 to 15 thousand years and then goes back to sleep due to cyclical internal processes that are not understood at this time. Our only clue to this is periods of lesser activity on the sun and its effects especially during the Maunder Minimum and the resulting increase in Cosmic Rays that resulted from that. The Maunder Minimum lasted for 70 years. Glaciers rapidly advanced during this period in Europe and other areas leading to panic. If the sun remained inactive, this could have led to a plunge into full ice age conditions.
Thank you Don Gaddes. Thank you for indulging me.
When it is written, "that variation in the Sun’s output is a fact of life ..." many of us perhaps think differently in terms of what that variation might be.
I particularly like your detailed explanation of the relationship between the C14 isotope and variations in the strength of the solar wind. You have written:
"It has been discovered that 14C is constantly being formed in Nature. This process is believed to come about as a result of the bombardment of the Earth’s atmospheric carbon, by galactic cosmic rays that are able to penetrate the solar system to the Earth.
"Deflects Cosmic Rays into Space
"However, high solar activity reduces the galactic cosmic ray flux on Earth, by virtue of the fact that high solar activity means a strong solar magnetic field, which is known to act as a shield against the cosmic rays and so deflects them away from Earth, into outer space.
"Thus, during periods of high solar activity, reducing the amount of 14C in Earth’s atmosphere (there is a 1,000-2000 year and 2,000-2,700 year oscillation noted in the 14C flux in Earth’s atmosphere (see Ref. No. 6.)
"From the above information it is but a short step to make the correlation between the ratio of the 12C/14C in the ring-wood of the trees under study, with the climate/weather records.
***
So Tina, you and me are in agreement. :-). And you have added much more information.
In particular, you have extended my suggestion that the effect may extend for a season to perhaps 1,000 years, or even 2,700. :-).