Digit, I am wondering about your thermocline idea.
The two links I posted above deal with contemporary glaciers in the Southern and Northern hemispheres. You seems to be saying that glaciers can only exist where the temperature is below 32F. And you also state that
water (fresh water) cannot exist in temperatures below 32F.
But both the examples show that ice and water can coexist.
Maybe there are some ovelooked details, other factors besides hotspots that can cause this mysterious ice dam phenomenon.
Hi Bea! Read, understood and accepted. So here we go again. BUT! that scenario could not result in the collapse of an extensive ice sheet and end an ice age surely?
Must have missed them Stan, so explain how liquid water could exist where temperatures may drop for prolonged periods down to those which are prevalent in arctic regions, none exists there now.
Certainly the surface of an ice field could melt in seasonal warm winds and for short periods during the summer months, but as I understand it the end of the last ice age occurred in less than a life time, that is an awful lot of heat energy from some where. Melting at the leading edge of ice fields cannot explain the tremendous walls of water that have been known to flow unless some mechanism can be supplied to hold back such vast lakes.
Steen-McIntyre, the individual who turned me onto the supernova theory, made the following statement:
According to Firestone's supernova theory, the last debris blast wiped out the Clovis people 13,000 years ago and an earlier one caused rapid meltdown of the northern ice sheets and consequent massive flooding 16,000 years ago. Evidence for the 13,000 year blast would lie directly above the latest Clovis points. Could the underlying gravel cap exposed at Brushy Creek mark the 16,000 year event?
Read: Firestone, R., A. West, and S. Warwick-Smith, 2006, THE CYCLE OF COSMIC CATASTROPHES: FLOOD, FIRE, AND FAMINE IN THE HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION, Bear Company, Rochester, Vermont, 392 pp, ISBN 10:1-59143-061-5.
What you suggest Charlie certainly appears to provide the necessary energy for melting the ice sheets, but is there any evidence for the rest of the northern hemisphere? Such an event would have affected the whole of one hemisphere if not indeed, both.
If such an event did terminate the last ice age I wonder what started it, and like I asked earlier, I wonder if that infers that the normal state of the northern hemisphere is ice bound.
The possibilty makes a bit of a mockery of Tony Blair's intention to tax everything that moves or breathes in the UK to reduce our CO2 emissions, we may yet turn out to profoundly grateful for CO2.
The possibilty makes a bit of a mockery of Tony Blair's intention to tax everything that moves or breathes in the UK to reduce our CO2 emissions, we may yet turn out to profoundly grateful for CO2.
Enjoy the warm weather ... if the Greenland ice cap keeps dumping greater and greater amounts of fresh water into the ocean as Min has pointed out, you're in for snow and ice in June after the North Atlantic conveyor belt begins to fail. It did so in 6200bce for two hundred years and really threw a wrench into Northern Europe's climactic fan.
A major factor involved in the abrupt
climate changes of the past appears to have
been changes in the ocean circulation, which
distributes heat from the equator toward the
poles. This circulation is controlled in part by
differences in seawater density, which is
determined by the temperature and salt
content of the water. The colder and saltier
the water, the more dense it is, and the more
readily it sinks. Flows within the oceans
related to variations in temperature and salt
are called the ‘thermohaline circulation’
(‘thermo’ for heat and ‘haline’ for salt) or the
‘Conveyor’ (Broecker 1995) (Figure 1).
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
I've heard all that before Cog and once again it leads me to ask another question. What happens after all the ice has melted and there is no further influx of fresh water to do what the experts say? Also, why did the conveyor stop as they say?
They may be correct, but I've never seen any explanation for what follows afterwards.
Sometime ago the University of North Anglia, the premier climatological base in the UK fed, their computers with the ideas from 19 'experts' and predictably got 19 different answers back.
Back in the 50s, 60s and 70s these same experts, using the same information, were predicting another ice age and serious discussion was given to diverting the Pacific warm current though the Bering straight to melt the polar ice cap. Anyone else remember that?
I've heard all that before Cog and once again it leads me to ask another question. What happens after all the ice has melted and there is no further influx of fresh water to do what the experts say? Also, why did the conveyor stop as they say?
They may be correct, but I've never seen any explanation for what follows afterwards. Sometime ago the University of North Anglia, the premier climatological base in the UK fed, their computers with the ideas from 19 'experts' and predictably got 19 different answers back.
Digit, nobody has a clue how much fresh water and the rate of discharge it would take to mimic the 6200bce event. Nobody can agree on what caused that event either, Lake Agassiz or otherwise, but the Greeenland ice core data shows that it did indeed occur.
I would imagine that, after the discharge of freshwater, the climate moves back to equilibrium and a warmer climate again, although the event in 6200bce took up to 200 years to do so.
Seems reasonable. Next question. Here in Europe we have much more data on climate as it affected people than you have in the States. For example our 'experts' insist on measuring climate change using as a standard the period 1961 - 1970. At my age I can confirm that in the UK the climate has warmed, that winters have started later and finished earlier, that is
a) in the UK
b) when considering something like climate change 10 years is a little short to use as a base I believe.
c) during the late 17th century we entered a 'little ice age' as reflected by our traditional Xmas cards. Sentries at the Tower of London froze to death on duty. The river Thames froze over for years to the extent that braziers were used on the ice to cook food. This cold spell began to ease in the mid 19th century long before CO2 became a problem with a steady warming ever since.
d) if our 'experts' were to use an earler period as a base their figures would show even greater warming.
e) before the 'litte ice age' Europe was warmer than it is at present.
f) we are only now beginning to grow grapes as far north as the Romans did in this country and we need special hy-brids to do it.
g) the Norse named their new land Greenland, either they were the world's first estate agents or the land was greener.
h) it is reported here that the Norse settlers in Greenland knew that it was an island. We know it to be so by seismic means, they must have walked to the edge or sailed around it.
i) the 9th century here was recorded as being so cold that harvests failed for many years and large numbers of people died. The same is recorded for the 14th century.
So what do I make of all that?
Last edited by Digit on Sun Nov 26, 2006 2:58 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Here in the UK Charlie we have a government that has been caught out in so many lies that even its supporters are beginning to complain that they can't believe a word that they are told. Unfortunately the same complaint can be registered against many experts who have an axe to grind.
A few months ago the UN published two graphs showing the rise in world temperature and another showing the rise in CO2. The interesting point is that they showed two separate graphs, not one superimposed on each other but two separate ones.
When superimposed they show atmospheric CO2 trailing temperature rise, not leading it.
Strange that isn't it?
Like I pointed out in an earlier post, not even Einstein was averse to fiddling figures to 'prove' his case.
Oh, and your graph looks interesting as well.
Whoops! Sorry about the error. should have read CO2 rises coming after the temperature rises, not as we are lead to believe.
At my age I can confirm that in the UK the climate has warmed, that winters have started later and finished earlier, that is
When I was a kid...1950's-60's in New York, there was a lake nearby where we would be out playing hockey in December - February. When my kids were growing up (1980's) that lake rarely froze enough for ice skating. 30 years hardly seems to explain it but there is another factor. When I was a kid the weather systems almost always seemed to come from the West; whatever they had in Chicago we were getting the next day. Now it seems that the winds bring the storms up the coast from the Carolinas. A lot more rain but a lot warmer.
Strange.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
Morning Min. I don't think it's strange. All my life I've been interested in the natural sciences and I have watched the UK's climate change, not by listening to the gloom and doom merchants but by using my eyes. Wales's flower is the Daffodil and I planted over a 1000 of them when I moved here and I've seen them bloom earlier year on year. I live on the western sea board of Europe and our climate is dominated by the sea. Many birds of passage that pass through here or over winter here turn up later than they use to. Marine animals that were unknown are now seen by the local fisherman and those that were rare visitors are now much more common. We even have Great White sharks. Butterflies that were only known on continental Europe now breed here. Garden plants that were considered 'tender' now bloom till much later in the year.
Global warming is a fact.
But is it a long term trend? Is it due to CO2? Is it down to man? Can we do anything to halt it? Do we want to?
For every 'expert' doom merchant there are just as many making money out of us tax payers arguing that they are wrong, and with the 'experts' past record for honesty I have developed well founded distrust of 'em.
Here in the UK Charlie we have a government that has been caught out in so many lies that even its supporters are beginning to complain that they can't believe a word that they are told. Unfortunately the same complaint can be registered against many experts who have an axe to grind.
A few months ago the UN published two graphs showing the rise in world temperature and another showing the rise in CO2. The interesting point is that they showed two separate graphs, not one superimposed on each other but two separate ones.
When superimposed they show atmospheric CO2 trailing temperature rise, not leading it.
Strange that isn't it?
Like I pointed out in an earlier post, not even Einstein was averse to fiddling figures to 'prove' his case.
Oh, and your graph looks interesting as well.
Whoops! Sorry about the error. should have read CO2 rises coming after the temperature rises, not as we are lead to believe.
Yeah, the graph I posted above, show's a constant decrease of CO2, while temperatures soar, starting at the beginning of the Cretaceous, and into the Cenozoic. Quite the opposite of what we've been told. Appears to me temperature is independent of CO2...hey, but I'm no expert...
It did so in 6200bce for two hundred years and really threw a wrench into Northern Europe's climactic fan. 
