Continental Layout And Ice Ages

[Zygote]

Dont know much about the deeper science of climate change but found this article interesting. Any thoughts?

Article copied from:
http://graemebird.wordpress.com/2007...-and-ice-ages/

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I’m actually a bit of a technophobe and do not know how to do proper links and post pictures and stuff.

So I’ll put the link up straight and maybe you copy it to a browser page lined up next to this screed.

You need to put two browser pages up side by side and cut and paste the links to the pictures of the historical continental layouts of the planet.

Make the left-hand browser as skinny as you can and use that to read my commentary. Then make the right-hand browser medium-skinny because the maps are pretty wide.



Here is map of how the continents were layed out 195 million years ago. Would we expect ice?

Well see how the South Pole is totally free of land. Here is the potential for the uninhibited movement of warm water from the equater to the South Pole.

But it appears that the North Pole is covered. Whereas the whole globe would be unlikely to ever get as cold as it is now still it would be surprising if there weren’t ice breakouts near the North Pole some winters and sometimes a bit of climatic instability.

Still one does not expect a full-blown ice age to get started like we have today.

Although the North-South aspect of Pangea cuts off the left-side-ocean from the right-side-ocean…. and that will make for the planet not being as warm as it would be if there were a large deep seperation in the middle….

…..Nonetheless the cirulation around the bottom of the land mass is so unihibited that we would expect the planet to be warmer then it is today.



Here is the late Jurassic of 152 million years ago.

The planet will have warmed up in the interim 40 million years. Since we have a seperation in the middle allowing cirulation between the oceans. See how the main body of land (now Gondwana) has moved further towards the South Pole.

But it has not gotten all that close to the South Pole still. Not close enough to expect oscillating ice formation because the circulation to the South Pole will be so damned good there would be no chance for Gondwanaland to ever get cold.


This is the late crustaceous of 94 million years ago. Here we expect great lushness and warmth. The North Pole looks to be no longer covered. If the land has now reached the South Pole still it has not surrounded it. The currents are less inhibited then we’ve seen so far. But a hint of doom pervades the situation. Although there has been no chance for ice to have ever formed on the Southern lands yet there they are already looking like they will one day cover, surround and cut off the South Pole.

But lo…. the North Pole she remains free and the continents everywhere are spread out. So the grave proximity or even the reaching of the Pole by the Southern land is not yet the big problem it will one day become.



Here’s 66 million years ago when the dinosaurs were wiped out. I think the place went from a lush, tropical pardise…. even near the poles… into some sort of “atomic winter” almost overnight. Surely a great shock to the system.

Still it ought to be pretty clear that the open nature of the continents… The fact that while the South Pole is covered by the land its not likely to be totally surrounded by it…. Well it should be clear that the ocean currents are about as uninhibited as can be imagined.

Ten million years after that time there was some sort of massive release of methane that converts to CO2. This was the global heat maximum of 55 million years ago.

If you look at how things are we would expect a world nearly totally covered with water vapour and warm virtually all the year round at each and every part of the planet.

Under those circumstances it is more then plausible that a massive release of methane could heat the air up by ten degrees.

The reason being that the starting point is one where both the oceans AND THE DEEP OCEANS are already warm.

There is just nowhere for this extra energy to go.

And the total water vapour coverage combined with the methane combined with the great ocean circulation combined with the fact that the deep oceans were already warm is something that quite easily could lead to the heating that it did lead to.

THIS SCENARIO IS TOTALLY IMPLAUSIBLE TODAY OF COURSE!!!!!




Now we are into the Eocene. There is still no ice anywhere on earth. The planet has come off the artificial boil from 5 million years before.

This is very recognizeable as being like the continental layout of today.

But note freedom around the North Pole, the large gaps between North and South America the gaps between Africa, Europe and Asia.

Yes now the South Pole is covered and I think somewhat surrounded. But with all the other advantages in the Continental arrangements still we have a healthy and warm planet.



Fourteen Million years ago. And our doom is foretold. Or more correctly our evolution via pumping holocaust.

See how Europe has fused with Asia. And Africa is squeezing off the ability for really good circulation between her and Eurasia. The North Pole is getting crowded out and already during the bad times in winter we are getting ice… not actually at the North Pole yet but on the Northern tips of the land masses. And of course Antarctica is covered with ice. And therefore arid and therefore a great sinkhole for any excessive heating.

The surface currents now go round and round Antarctica instead of out and back from the equator. So at ground level Antarctica is cut off and grows colder. Still when there is warming excess heat will tend to pour in higher up. Perhaps at mid-Troposhere. So there is no chance of Antarctica ever being free of ice yet she will funnel heat out into space (THE SLLLLLUTTT).

The entire planet has been steadily cooling for 30 million years at this point. Sure oscillating in its temperature but ultimately the trend is down and down and down.

Now look how North and South America are almost fused together. This is immensely serious because of the North/South aspect of these continents almost going from pole to pole.

Immensely serious and a grave threat that should leave you in high suspense as to what happens in the next picture.



And this is what its led to. The absolute disaster of the last glaciation and the world of today.

A world so totally biased towards catastrophic cooling that our fears about too much warming are far more idiotic then anything that has ever come out of the world of science.

We must be on the lookout for cooling or anything that produces it. We don’t need to worry about warming-THATS JUST CRAZY-TALK.

See how North and South America has now fused? What an absolute [censored] disaster that was!!!!!!!

See how the ice coverage is so extensive that it IN AND OF ITSELF further exacerbates the circulation of the currents?

The leftists, marxists, bully-boys and ecologists can thank their useless tendentious lives that sea-ice is a great insulator because if it wasn’t we’d be done for right there.

Now typically once we get ourselves into this frightful position we have to wait for every conceivable oscillation of solar and orbital cycles to turn good for us to get bailed out of it.

And that can take from 60 000 to 100 000 years.

Are you guys getting it yet?

Are you seeing just how stupid the current panic is?

I’m not doing a very [censored] good job if you aren’t.

Anything that warms the planet is a good thing.

Anything that cools the planet is bad and we have to see about these aerosols.

All this follows directly from the Stefan-Boltzmann law.

[PairTheBoard]

[ QUOTE ]
Anything that cools the planet is bad

[/ QUOTE ]

I haven't been hearing much lately about how global warming will result in Venus type conditions like I recall used to be the talk. The talk lately is more about how what's happening is likely to disrupt the Gulf Stream and actually drive us back toward an ice age. Something about Warm Planetary States being less stable than Cold states. If this is the case then concern about global warming is compatible and consistent with the prime concern you state above.

PairTheBoard

[GMB]

That reminds me of that time I was running around in the hot sun.

And because I was sweating I got into a panic that I would freeze......

Get serious PairTheBoard.

If thats your excuse for being an anti-science alarmist-denialist you need to look for a new one.

[BluffTHIS!]

When will wacki and John Feeney weigh in to rebut Zygote's glacialist alarmist viewpoint?

[Duke]

[ QUOTE ]
That reminds me of that time I was running around in the hot sun.

And because I was sweating I got into a panic that I would freeze......

Get serious PairTheBoard.

If thats your excuse for being an anti-science alarmist-denialist you need to look for a new one.

[/ QUOTE ]

So I take it you don't think that increasing the variance of the climate could induce another ice age.

[GMB]

How are you proposing to increase the variance?

You are either going to add to the oceanic heat content... Or you are not.

There is massive amounts of energy involved here.

And though on the surface of thinks it might seem that the planet has changed suddenly...... its far more likely that the oceanic energy content has either cycled up or down as it normally does.

And its more likely that dramatic outer shifts don't accord with anything different but the oceanic heat content cycling up or down as normal.

If thats not the case where is this energy coming from or going to?

There is a substantial amount of energy that is the difference between a gram of water and a gram of ice.

And there also are a stack of negative feedbacks getting between the one state and the other when we are talking billions of tons of water.

So we don't expect to have a low-energy content ocean one second and a super-duper-hot world the next.

Nor do we really expect things to suddenly swing the other way.

But the outer appearance of things may well change quite quickly.

[GMB]

"When will wacki and John Feeney weigh in to rebut Zygote's glacialist alarmist viewpoint?
"

Steady on fool.

There is only one group of ALARMIST-denialists on this topic and thats the warmers.

Stay close to the science and you won't get this Wrong-Way-Corrigan Jive locked in.

If you are getting into these ridiculous fantasies then lets see your evidence for the likelihood of catastrophic warming, or for the idea that a little bit of human-induced warming is a bad thing IN AN ICE AGE.

[BluffTHIS!]

Dude,

Your sarcasm detector's batteries are in need of replacement.

[GMB]

The actual alarmists seem to have run a mile don't they?