The new paper has zero mentions of the word. But other scientists have published plenty of papers describing how the West Antarctic zone is being warmed from below by 1200 degrees of magma. According to scientist Dustin Schroeder and co, it is as if the Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctic is sitting on a “stovetop burner”.[1]His words. Thwaites Glacier,, smack in the middle of the warming is being melted from below by geothermal heat. Then there is the large blob of superheated rock 60 miles below West Antarctica. The researchers use the phrase “like a blow-torch”…. Capping it off, only last year 91 new volcanoes were discovered 2km underneath the West Antarctic Rift. That’s new, as in, we didn’t know they were there.
Follow the reasoning, either a trace gas 10 kilometers up is causing some spots of Antarctica to warm and other parts to cool, or hot magma at 1,200C is. What’s more likely?
Water, H2O, determines the ‘General Background Temperature’ for the Earth, resulting in Hothouse and Ice House Climate States. During geological periods the movement of continents changes the position of
continents, oceans and seas. Because of the different configurations, a dominant warm or a dominant cold deep-water production configuration ‘sets’ average temperatures for the deep oceans. Changing vertical oceanic circulation changes surface temperatures, especially in the higher latitudes. During a Hot House State, higher temperatures in the high latitudes result in a high water-vapor concentration that prevents a rapid loss of thermal energy by the Earth.
These three processes, plate tectonics (continental drift), vertical oceanic circulation variability and variations in atmospheric water vapor concentration and distribution, caused previous Hot House and Warm House Climate States. A change in the working of those mechanisms resulted in a transition from the previous Hot House Climate State to the very cold ‘Ice House State’ that we live in now. That change was set in motion by the changing configuration of continents, oceans and seas.
Global climate change, fueled by skyrocketing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, is siphoning oxygen from today’s oceans at an alarming pace — so fast that scientists aren’t entirely sure how the planet will respond.
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Millions of years ago, scientists discovered, powerful volcanoes pumped Earth’s atmosphere full of carbon dioxide, draining the oceans of oxygen and driving a mass extinction of marine organisms.
Inspired by Richard Keen’s interesting WUWT post on using eclipses to determine the clarity of the atmosphere, I went to the website of the Hawaiian Mauna Loa Observatory. They have some very fascinating datasets. One of them is a measurement of direct solar radiation, minute by minute, since about 1980.
I thought that I could use that dataset to determine the clarity of the atmosphere by looking at the maximum downwelling solar energy on a month by month basis. I’ve described my method of extracting the maximum solar energy from the minute by minute data in the appendix for those interested.
When marine algae die, they usually float in slow motion to the ocean’s depths. However, during an expedition with the research icebreaker Polarstern to the Arctic in the spring of 2015, scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) discovered a phenomenon that significantly accelerate this transport: tiny gypsum crystals, which form during the freezing of salt in the porous spaces of Arctic sea ice, weigh down the phytoplankton like heavy ballast, pulling them to the bottom within a matter of hours. The effect is like an express elevator for the carbon they contain. “This mechanism was previously completely unknown,” says marine bio-geologist Dr Jutta Wollenburg … (…)
Scientists drilling deep into ancient rocks in the Arizona desert say they have documented a gradual shift in Earth’s orbit that repeats regularly every 405,000 years, playing a role in natural climate swings. Astrophysicists have long hypothesized that the cycle exists based on calculations of celestial mechanics, but the authors of the new research have found the first verifiable physical evidence. They showed that the cycle has been stable for hundreds of millions of years, from before the rise of dinosaurs, and is still active today. The research may have implications not only for climate studies, but our understanding of the evolution of life on Earth, and the evolution of the Solar System. It appears this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The research, published in Science Advances, suggests that early animals diversified within a climate similar to that in which the dinosaurs lived.
This interval in time is known for the ‘Cambrian explosion’, the time during which representatives of most of the major animal groups first appear in the fossil record. These include the first animals to produce shells, and it is these shelly fossils that the scientists used.
Data from the tiny fossil shells, and data from new climate model runs, show that high latitude (~65 °S) sea temperatures were in excess of 20 °C. This seems very hot, but it is similar to more recent, better understood, greenhouse climates like that of the Late Cretaceous Period.
by J.E. Kamis, May 7, 2018 in ClimateChangeDispatch
The inclusion of the here-termed West Antarctic Volcano and Fault Belt into the Pacific Ring of Fire will raise scientific awareness concerning the idea, as per the Plate Climatology Theory, that geologically induced heat flow is the root cause of many anomalous changes in Antarctica’s ecosystems, oceans, climate, and ice masses.
When Earth’s tectonic style transitioned from stagnant lid (single plate) to the modern episode of plate tectonics is important but unresolved, and all lines of evidence should be considered, including the climate record. The transition should have disturbed the oceans and atmosphere by redistributing continents, increasing explosive arc volcanism, stimulating mantle plumes and disrupting climate equilibrium established by the previous balance of silicate‐weathering greenhouse gas feedbacks. Formation of subduction zones would redistribute mass sufficiently to cause true polar wander if the subducted slabs were added in the upper mantle at intermediate to high latitudes. The Neoproterozoic Snowball Earth climate crisis may reflect this transition. The transition to plate tectonics is compatible with nearly all proposed geodynamic and oceanographic triggers for Neoproterozoic Snowball Earth events, and could also have contributed to biological triggers. Only extraterrestrial triggers cannot be reconciled with the hypothesis that the Neoproterozoic climate crisis was caused by a prolonged (200–250 m.y.) transition to plate tectonics.
IBRA, Oman — In the arid vastness of this corner of the Arabian Peninsula, out where goats and the occasional camel roam, rocks form the backdrop practically every way you look.
But the stark outcrops and craggy ridges are more than just scenery. Some of these rocks are hard at work, naturally reacting with carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and turning it into stone.
Veins of white carbonate minerals run through slabs of dark rock like fat marbling a steak. Carbonate surrounds pebbles and cobbles, turning ordinary gravel into natural mosaics.
Even pooled spring water that has bubbled up through the rocks reacts with CO2 to produce an ice-like crust of carbonate that, if broken, re-forms within days.
Scientists say that if this natural process, called carbon mineralization, could be harnessed, accelerated and applied inexpensively on a huge scale — admittedly some very big “ifs” — it could help fight climate change. Rocks could remove some of the billions of tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide that humans have pumped into the air since the beginning of the Industrial Age.
Sky News, one of Australia’s most popular news services, just gave climate skeptic and geologist Ian Plimer an honest opportunity to explain what is wrong with Australia’s climate obsessed energy policies.
Geologist Ian Plimer told The Outsiders that Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg had caught himself ‘between a rock and a hard place’ when it comes to the government’s energy policies. Mr Plimer said it wasn’t possible for the energy market to provide cheap and reliable energy, but also reduce emissions.
by James E. Kamis, April 16, 2018 in ClimateChangeDispatch
Recent changes to Lake Hazen, the world’s largest high-Arctic lake, are from increased heat flow from the area’s known geological features, and not from global warming as per the many alarmist media reports.
Evidence supporting this is abundant and reliable.
Scientists have long known that steep mountain ranges can draw carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the atmosphere — as erosion exposes new rock, it also starts a chemical reaction between minerals on hill slopes and CO2 in the air, ‘weathering’ the rock and using CO2 to produce carbonate minerals like calcite.
Just to demonstrate that the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) maintains an open mind about things, I thought I would share an recent AAPG Explorerarticle on the notion of establishing a formal geological epoch in honor of human beings…
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I genuinely believe that these folks simply can’t grasp the concept of resolution. This is a pervasive problem in the climate “science” community and will continued to feed claims of “unprecedented” changes in [fill in the blank] until we have about 1,000 years of high resolution instrumental data.
How Does the Recent Melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet Compare to the Early Holocene?
Short answer: Same as it ever was. Vinther et al., 2009 reconstructed the elevations of four ice core sites over the Holocene. There has been very little change in elevation of the two interior ice core sites (NGRIP and GRIP), while the two outboard sites (Camp Century and DYE3) have lost 546 and 342 m of ice respectively.
by Tony Heller, March 10, 2018 in TheDeplorableClimateScience
Global warming is no longer about imaginary global warming. It is now about an imaginary increase in extreme weather.
March of 2012 was very mild in the Eastern US, and NOAA’s Climate Extremes Index counted that as “extreme weather” – declaring 2012 to be the most extreme year on record.
by R.F. Cronin, March 5, 2018 in ClimateChangeDispatch
Actually, the glaciers of Antarctica form in a very different way than Arctic or mountain glaciers. Steam and meltwater feed the glaciers from below. It is the steam from multiple subglacial volcanoes, rifts, and trenches. Antarctica is very seismically active.
As the Earth’s surface and atmosphere warm, the amount of moisture – water vapour – in the atmosphere will increase. Understanding the size of this increase is important for predicting future climates as water vapour is a significant greenhouse gas. Atmospheric moisture content also influences the patterns and intensity of rainfall events.
The relationship between temperature and moisture content can be explored by the study of intervals in Earth’s history when climates where significantly warmer than those seen in modern times, which necessitates a method for estimating ancient atmospheric moisture content.
GEOMAR researchers find links between sedimentation and methane seeps on the seafloor off the coast of Norway
Large amounts of the greenhouse gas methane are locked up as solid gas hydrates in the continental slopes of ocean margins. Their stability depends on low temperatures and high pressure. However, other factors that influence gas hydrate stability are not as well understood. A German-Norwegian research team has found evidence off the coast of Norway that the amount of sediment deposited on the seafloor can play a crucial role. The study has been published today in the international journal Nature Communications.
by U. of Kansas, February 2, 2018 in WUWT, A. Watts
On a ho-hum day some 12,800 years ago, the Earth had emerged from another ice age. Things were warming up, and the glaciers had retreated.
Out of nowhere, the sky was lit with fireballs. This was followed by shock waves.
Fires rushed across the landscape, and dust clogged the sky, cutting off the sunlight. As the climate rapidly cooled, plants died, food sources were snuffed out, and the glaciers advanced again. Ocean currents shifted, setting the climate into a colder, almost “ice age” state that lasted an additional thousand years.
Finally, the climate began to warm again, and people again emerged into a world with fewer large animals and a human culture in North America that left behind completely different kinds of spear points.
A few years ago, 10 glaciologists publishing in the journal Nature Geoscience asserted that “large parts of the north-central Greenland ice sheet are melting from below” due to high geothermal heat flux forcing (Rogozhina et al., 2016).
In a new paper published in Scientific Reports, 4 more glaciologists (Rysgaardet al., 2018) report that “hot vents” (or hot springs) of geothermally-heated water underneath the Greenland ice sheet can explain localized rising temperatures and glacial melting.
The researchers published their findings this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Scientists frequently look to the Eocene to understand how the Earth responds to higher levels of carbon dioxide. During the Eocene, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was more than 560 parts per million, at least twice preindustrial levels, and the epoch kicked off with a global average temperature more than 8 degrees Celsius – about 14 degrees Fahrenheit – warmer than today, gradually cooling over the next 22 million years. These characteristics make the Eocene a good period on which to test our understanding of the climate system, said Laura Cotton, study co-author and curator of micropaleontology at the Florida Museum of Natural History.
Scientists have found strong evidence that 2018 will see a big uptick in the number of large earthquakes globally. Earth’s rotation, as with many things, is cyclical, slowing down by a few milliseconds per day then speeding up again.
You and I will never notice this very slight variation in the rotational speed of Earth. However, we will certainly notice the result, an increase in the number of severe earthquakes.
Geophysicists are able to measure the rotational speed of Earth extremely precisely, calculating slight variations on the order of milliseconds. Now, scientists believe a slowdown of the Earth’s rotation is the link to an observed cyclical increase in earthquakes.
La géologie, une science plus que passionnante … et diverse
