Global warming, ice age's and clathrate

[Andre]

When researching the climate during the ice ages (Pleistocene) large isotope jumps were discovered in the ice cores , and obviously they were tied to the supposed large temperature changes. This was quite logical since those spikes seem to be co-dated with ice age transitions to moderate climates. But the large oceanic clathrate events were totally unknown at that time of the first discovery, let alone their physical impact on the precipitation and the isotopes in the ice sheets.

I think, I got most of it figured out in detail. Bottom line is that the clathrate events alone, could have been responsible for the isotope spikes, without temperature changes. This would be adamant revolution, since it unties it from the CO2 spikes thus refuting the very roots of global warming, the synchronous "warming" and increasing CO2.

But how about that warming after the end of those cold glacial period anyway? In reality they were much earlier when looking at the detailed geologic evidence and it happened without any helping hand of the imaginary strong CO2 greenhouse gas effect. A severe glitch in the carbon dating is responsible for that creating that illusion, which was also more or less unknown at the time of the drafting of the global warming theory.

However, those earlier warming events are indeed not visible in the isotopes of the ice cores, showing how much more complicated the material is. Nevertheless, this is against the mainstream of an army of specialists who don't seem to care about Mammoths and palynology.

Hopeless or not, in the battle against the global warming, I need to explain that effect of clathrate in my Younger Dryas paper and it's not easy. So feedback is very welcome. Would the subject be discussable here? Anybody, who is familiar with or willing to mastering the literature below prepared to be playing devils advocate?

Literature:

http://wwwrcamnl.wr.usgs.gov/isoig/isopubs/itchch2.html
http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/~mmaslin/publications/Maslin1.pdf
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V9Y-4FMK0M1-1&_user=10&_handle=V-WA-A-W-WD-MsSWYVW-UUW-U-AABWBYUBCV-AAWEEZAACV-VAZYVWUWV-WD-U&_fmt=full&_coverDate=01%2F01%2F2005&_rdoc=2&_orig=browse&_srch=%23toc%235911%232005%23999779998%23578986!&_cdi=5911&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=ee05f23b81a1436c9efb64b6b3d8a74a
Ocean warming and gas hydrate stability on the mid-Norwegian margin
at the Storegga Slide[/url]


This is how the world really works.

and not like this:

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/cycles.htm

 

[blimkie]

so andre, i just read "Linking contintal slope failures and climate chage"
so basically this is document is stating that from studying the isotopes we cna see debris flow from when the glaciers melted from the last ice age?

 

[Andre]

Not exactly. it's about the role of the escaping methane gas from the sea bottom and it's physical effects on the environment. the debris flows are probably a secundary effect.

We're trying to untie a complicated knot of multiple events, causes and effects.

The classic idea is that ice ages were about cycles in the Earth orbit that triggered all kind of chain reactions involving feedback factors and greenhouse gasses that lead eventually to an unstable climate, either cold (glacial ice age) or warm, interglacials. But there was no oceanic clathrate in the equation.

Now there is:

http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/reprints/archer.2005.clathrates.pdf

but everybody has the scholar view still in their mental toolbox, climate unstable, greenhouse effect, feedback factors, global warming. So the methane from the clathrate seems the missing link in the climatal dance macabre. But what is cause and what is effect? How does an ice end?

The ocean warms? clathrate becomes unstable -> methane in the atmosphere -> greenhouse effect -> global warming -> ocean getting warmer -> more clathrate unstable etc etc,

Seems a pretty elegant solution but there are several problems.

What caused the initial warming?
Why did the chain reaction stop before all the clathrate (in the danger zone) was gone

But the biggest problem is system respons. If greenhouse effect is that strong, we see now that 150 years of increased CO2 -if true- could only raise the temperature 0,6 degrees but the ice age reaction was instantenous. About ten degrees within a decade, allegedly.

So if this can't be true, why not empty our mental toolbox and do only observations and take it from there. Forget about textbooks. There was nothing unless we see it.

What we see is isotopes and gasses in ice cores and isotopes in sediment cores etc etc and geologic studies, pollen mammoths etc.

The question now is, do we need more? Can't the clathrate destabilisation have caused everything what we see directly? Without global warming that is, but including the extinction of the mammoth et al, actually instantaneous climate changes due to unusual ocean currents. The moving water preventing winter ice to form. The open arctic sea remaining a water vapor source, causing much more winter precipitation, thus dimishing the rayleigh effect on the isotopes in the ice cores etc etc,

All but greenhouse effect, that would have been moderated anyway by a strong increase in cloud cover.
Still there?

But that needs to have reasonable explanations for what we see in the ice cores. We have to model that. But I lack that funding and that labratory and that brain power staff.

 

[blimkie]

this is very interesting to me and i will have to dig deeper into it, I am working on an essay basically arguing not against global warming but how we cnat just pint the finger to automobiles and facroties green house gases in the air. IM using arguemnts like the solar output is increasing and Mars is warming as well, and comapring the present to about 1000 years ago to the midevel warm period when vikings could colonize greenland before the arctic ocean froze over again http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period i also read that greenlands ice cap is actually thicnking in the higher elevated regions of it. The deadline is aproaching tho if u have any idea let me know

 

[Andre]

Well I think that the material is too complex to have it all in one essay. Just look around in these threads here what appeals to you the most and that sounds obvious.

Have you seen this for instance?

 

[Andre]

This thread is one of the examples how I tried to get a dialogue going here about the paleo climate during the ice ages. I'm only an amateur and it would have been nice if pro's could have answered questions but also ask critical queations, point to weaknesses or debunk sources or lines of thought.

Now the thread that I had in mind when starting this, actually develloped here:

http://www.ukweatherworld.co.uk/forum/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=25682&start=1

scoring 1341 hits in a week's time.

albeit that the last piece of the puzzle was not resoled at the time that I started this thread.

Very short recap: Arctic ice cores do not tell about temperature but about precipitation. Oceanic clathrate can generate excess precipitation explaining the 100 ky cycles as well as the CO2 spikes that followed.

Multiple supporting evidence is available in geologic proxies, which also proves that both major temperature changes are not recorded in ice cores and that during major changes in ice cores there was actually little temperature variation.

Bottom line: temperature changes and CO2 changes during the ice ages do not correlate as previously thought. Instead other processes dominated the paleo climate. A conclusion that is toe curling counter intuitive with everything the think to know about the ice ages and the theory about greenhouse gasses. However, no serious debunk attempts up till now even with several people around who have some basic to very advanced knowlegde about paleo climate

The climate change business was triggered by the discoveries in the ice cores which also provided values for model parametrisation, like the most essential temperature increase for doubling CO2. Now it's all different.

Needless to say that this would have major paradigm shift potential.

So what do we do? Take a look over there? And that's it. or shall I rerun the thread here?