![The Aletsch Glacier in Switzerland [image credit: ESA]](https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/aletsch.jpg)
The Aletsch Glacier in Switzerland [image credit: ESA]
Warwick Hughes points to a very interesting and detailed article: ‘Albedo regulation of Ice Ages, with no CO2 feedbacks’ featuring a ‘secret ingredient’ – you’ll have to read it to find out more.
Guest article by Ralph Ellis who welcomes constructive feedback – some familiar ice ages charts put together in a way I have not seen.
Source: Albedo regulation of Ice Ages, with no CO2 feedbacks | Errors in IPCC climate science
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
Better read it soon before judges outlaw climate change ‘denial’ 😉
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11924776/Judges-plan-to-outlaw-climate-change-denial.html
cites muller & w.e., so hmmm…. (not a good sign….)
Rial buried muller and it’s curious that people keep pretending otherwise.
…and as for the notion that w.e. was the originator of the “thermostat hypothesis”: obsequiously laughable! Good God. I remember reading the exact same ideas in a 1990s paper way before I ever heard of wuwt… (spits foul taste out of mouth and moves on…)
The part people seem to miss:
I still haven’t found time to animate that.
I think it will surprise people when they see how that looks animated.
Insolation is a baseball bat.
Climate is glass.
btw the misnamed multidecadal “stadium wave” in spatiotemporal insolation gradient pulses can be animated by direct analogy.
Insolation’s the driver of climate at all timescales.
Yes, it’s all very well talking about albedo regulation, but albedo itself is regulated.
exactly …but albedo dances with ENSO at higher-frequency …and that’s why the lukewarmists won the political battle (via distraction by shiny thing) ….which produced the unwelcome side-effect of drowning out the truth about the “60 year” wave of insolation gradient pulses.
We live in a corrupt world, so what can we do?
We can entertain ourselves by exploring nature …until that freedom is also taken away.
>>Paul Vaughan.
>>The part people seem to miss:
Thanks for the insolation graph. But this graph fails to explain the Interglacial 430 k years ago, or the present Interglacial – when variation of insolation remained at a minimum. Why did the ice-sheets melt, when there was no insolation increase?
This oddity was the whole reason I started looking into the problem in the first place.
R
Some notes on the ~60 year cycle.
‘If the climate models cannot reproduce the 60-year cycle that is evident in many climate phenomena, there is clearly a fundamental problem with the models.’
http://appinsys.com/globalwarming/SixtyYearCycle.htm
>>Paul Vaughan.
>>The part people seem to miss.
P.S. I forgot to add. Your graph is basically the Precession Index, which highlights the orbital eccentricity of the Earth combined with the precession of the equinox. This gives the standard 100 k year Ice Age interval that everyone seems to claim.
However, the whole point of this paper, is that the 100 k year Ice Age cycle is FALSE. It is either a 110 k cycle or a 90 k cycle. The reason for the variance is that orbital eccentricity is not the fundamental reason for Interglacials — they are actually governed by the 21.7 k precessional cycle (the Great Year and its Great Seasons). Its just that some cycles are missed out. So all we need to do is find the reason why some of the 21.7 k year Great Summer seasons are missed out. And this is what this paper does.
Ralph
He was smarting off again on a recent solar thread, whereupon I told him Evans was leaning towards albedo, his recent pet theory too, so we’ll see now if he plays ball or continues to be an ass.
I also think its a cosmic joke that he pretends he originated the thermostat idea & if I had a link or two to throw out there whenever he or someone else puts that out there, a regular occurrence….
I asked him if he had determined albedo variability wrt solar max vs minimums. Lets see if he’ll even looks.
It’s not over. Don’t give up.
[reply] ‘he’ being who?
10. Externally-Driven Albedo (EDA) – Dr David Evans, 7 October 2015
‘David compares the data on variation of albedo to the observed variation in total solar radiation, and finds that the former has at least twice the impact on surface warming. Obviously, any alternative climate model has to include “EDA” – external driven albedo — and since it is externally-driven, it is, by definition, a forcing.
We haven’t seen this comparison done elsewhere, though it may have been.’ – Jo Nova
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/10/new-science-10-whatever-controls-clouds-controls-the-climate/
Commenter K.Richard at Jo Nova says:
‘Here is some further data supporting the albedo influence.’
[various links, each summarised by K.R.]
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/10/new-science-10-whatever-controls-clouds-controls-the-climate/#comment-1751766
Willis Eschenbach, of course.
From looking at the El Ninos in the graphic above during times of low solar activity, such as the 1960-70’s and almost every solar minimum, I think that albedo does change during low solar activity, that can lead to heat build-up even under low TSI.
I think the mechanisms are simple but three-fold, and they are layered and time dependent.
1.) When the sun is more active, it drives more evaporation, more cloud cover, and more cloud top reflection, clouds that lower the ocean insolation, cooling the ocean, whereupon less cloud cover lets in more insolation, warming the ocean. It’s a see-saw. Back and forth. Up and down.
That in a nutshell is what I think many lukewarmers think (the thermostat idea) is the only important factor, except they haven’t made a connection between the sun’s activity and albedo, so far….
2.) Heat builds under high-pressure domes under either low or high solar activity, driving temps up. Frontal movement appears to slow down under low solar activity, and under high-pressure conditions, it can get very hot, as it did in the early 1900’s in the US when solar activity was low.
3.) Then there’s the solar induced ocean wind burst aspect too, making it a bit more complicated.
It seems thanks to ENSO the ocean spits out it’s extra heat – it just won’t build it up indefinitely, and that’s why there’s no record of runaway heat. It’s also due to the sun’s inability to produce sustained higher TSI, another finding of my research, that I have quantified, informing us that we will never cook too much for too long under high solar activity, and all that will ever happen is modern maximum style slow increases in mean temperatures until extended lower solar activity (the absence of additional heat) drives mean temps downward. It’s a see-saw, back & forth, up & down.
Climate change is primarily due to SSN-TSI variation and the resulting OHC-SST reaction.
As the TSI energy input is where the heat really comes from, that factor overwhelms albedo, IMO.
mod, can you please change “graphic below during” to “graphic above during”. thanx.
[done – mod]
Pressed for time right now, but this might potentially tie in with the “Caterpillar theory” – so I’ve put the comment online:
http://scottishsceptic.co.uk/2015/10/11/ice-age-caterpillars-albedo-feedbacks/
Bob Weber says: ‘As the TSI energy input is where the heat really comes from, that factor overwhelms albedo, IMO.’
Albedo itself will change as a result of solar variation, e.g. cloud cover, ice – as you suggested. Bit of a chicken and egg thing?
@Bob Webber.
Sorry, Bob, but why are text-bombing a thread about Ice Ages, with graphs and explanations about Sunspots going back to 1960. Did you read the article? Did you not understand it? Are you deliberately deflecting the argument?
Ralph
>>Oldbrew.
>>Albedo itself will change as a result of solar variation,
Sorry Oldbrew, but the article is not about solar variation. It is about insolation variation caused by the precessional Great Year, and more specifically the increased insolation in higher northern latitudes during the northern Great Summer.
Ralph
Not really OB. Because in this case the egg can’t make a chicken – ie clouds and ice can’t control the sun.
I will also say that the lukewarmers haven’t made the TSI connection either, so they are lost.
They need help.
Albedo changes are symptom of solar changes which then proceeds to impact the climate.
Solar changes will result in cloud cover,snow cover ,and sea ice changes which guess what change the albedo of the earth.
Bob W: ‘clouds and ice can’t control the sun’
True, but they don’t have to if they can affect the solar input to the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans.
‘Changes of Rs [solar radiation] are primarily determined by changes of clouds and aerosols.’
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3773731/
[in ‘DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS’]
I agree with Bob.
@ ralfellis
There may be some misunderstanding &/or misinterpretation…
Note the word “equatorial” (not the locale of polar ice sheets) on the graphs.
More likely there’s more than 1 misunderstanding / misinterpretation in play …as climate’s multivariate.
There’s one animation that will force people to realize what they didn’t realize before about the shifting structure of the year.
There won’t be time to sort this out anytime soon… (no free time)
– – – – –
Bob Weber, instantaneous amplitude alone can’t tell the aggregate story as the waves travel poleward at multidecadal timescale. Equator-pole insolation-gradient-cycling shifts frequency:
That defines the flow geometry.
It’s analogous to what Rial has shown at lower frequency.
Folks: It’s time to get real about this.
Any narrative ignoring this is denying geometric axioms and the laws of large numbers & conservation of angular momentum.
ENSO’s the shiny bouncy high-frequency mixer distracting unstable over-reactive fish-tailing minds from the long-run stability of the insolation attractor.
Bob Weber (October 11, 2015 at 6:10 pm) stated:
“I will also say that the lukewarmers haven’t made the TSI connection either, so they are lost.
They need help.”
Take a sober deep breath Bob and face this reality:
Naivety’s of no help.
The idealism of their agenda means they’re beyond reach. We already have multiple lines of recorded proof (in the mathematical sense) of this.
It’s pure fantasy to think they’ll ever change. Their commitment to their ideology is absolute and by definition they cannot admit 1+1=2 under any circumstances.
By promoting the idea that they’re going to clue in some day or accept 1+1=2 after it’s framed differently, you’re (perhaps accidentally) contributing to the problem. They cannot be realistic. They have a higher goal that doesn’t and cannot afford realism.
A higher level of maturity is needed to deal with such an adversary. Wishful thinking is a vulnerability. The brave option is to face reality: They’re corrupt and neither you nor I nor anyone else can do anything about it.
It’s about living with a neighbor who will always disagree fundamentally despite all mediation. They’re willing to go nuclear over this, so it should hardly be surprising that they’re willing to suppress facts.
Oldbrew, “…they can affect the solar input to the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans.” That’s right!
You need to stop talking to me Paul if that’s gonna be the only attitude I get from you.
Thanks Salvatore. I like how you keep a good presence and focus on solar activity.
guest post at c.e. by Marcia Wyatt confirms that she still understands neither the solar terrestrial weave nor it’s implications:
Pleistocene equatorial Pacific dynamics inferred from the zonal asymmetry in sedimentary nitrogen isotopes…
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1029/2012PA002367/asset/supinfo/palo1813-sup-0003-fs02.png?v=1&s=ce28994ed1b96cefa7cfcb9a41000f538035a50e
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1029/2012PA002367/asset/image_n/palo1813-fig-0005.png?v=1&s=31fec133c37cdfbb179959579da734d1e7cdef8a
Changes in North Atlantic nitrogen fixation controlled by ocean circulation…
–
Southern Oceans & Precession…
Ralph Ellis says: GY = Great Year (a precessional ‘year’)
On Wikipedia the page on ‘the Great Year’ says it has ‘multiple issues.’
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Year
But it does say that NASA defines it as ‘The period of one complete cycle of the equinoxes around the ecliptic, about 25,800 years.’
But on another site we have 25,600 years for ‘precession’ and 21,700 years for ‘the precession of the equinoxes’.
http://www.landforms.eu/orkney/Geology/Devonian%20Environments/milankovitch%20cycles%20orkney.htm
This site also states: ‘The eccentricity of the orbit of the Earth around the Sun varies from circular to elliptical giving a change in seasonal incoming solar radiation of about 30%. This cycle takes 95,800 years.’
To overcome possible confusion, another Wikipedia entry may help.
‘In addition, the orbital ellipse itself precesses in space, primarily as a result of interactions with Jupiter and Saturn. Smaller contributions are also made by the sun’s oblateness and by the effects of General Relativity that are well known for Mercury. The total orbital precession is in the same sense to the gyroscopic motion of the axis of rotation, shortening the period of the precession of the equinoxes with respect to the perihelion from 25,771.5 to ~21,636 years. Apsidal precession occurs in the plane of the Ecliptic and alters the orientation of the Earth’s orbit relative to the Ecliptic. In combination with changes to the eccentricity it alters the length of the seasons.’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles#Apsidal_precession
[this link has a useful graphic: ‘Effects of precession on the seasons (using the Northern Hemisphere terms)’]
Ralph Ellis calls this the Seasonal Great Year:
‘The Great Seasons are shorter, because of apsidal precession. So the Seasonal Great Year is only 21,700 years long, instead of 25,700 years.’
He considers this the key period: ‘The Seasonal Great Year of 21,700 years in length is the reason for the variability in Interglacial spacings.’
PV: precession in your graphs = ~21700y?
Salvatore del prete says:
October 11, 2015 at 7:15 pm
Albedo changes are symptom of solar changes which then proceeds to impact the climate.
_______________________________
Sorry, no. Read the article again. Albedo changes are controlled by dust levels on the ice. And then controlled by the Milankovitch Great Summer. So there are no changes in solar output at all (which is what I presume you mean). The solar forcing occurs because the NH is inclined to the Sun at perihelion, during the NH Great Year summer.
Ralph
Ralph Ellis calls this the Seasonal Great Year:
‘The Great Seasons are shorter, because of apsidal precession. So the Seasonal Great Year is only 21,700 years long, instead of 25,700 years.)’
_________________________________
You have summed it up very nicely there, OB.
The Great Year is a key component of Egyptian and Greek astrology, going back into the Neolithic age (almost). It is 25,700 years long, and it creates warm and cool ‘seasons’, just like a normal year. But the seasons are also effected by apsidalmprecession, and so are shorter. I could not find a standard name for this, but since it only effects the seasons I called it the Seasonal Great Year.
This SGY is the basis for Milankovitch cycles. And it so happens that ALL Interglacials are aligned with the NH SGY summer season. So scientists are WRONG, with a capital ‘W’. Interglacials are not regulated by orbital eccentricity, as they claim, it is regulated by the NH SGY summer.
And now all you need to do is find out why some NH SGY summers have a greater effect than others. And this is what this article does.
Cheers,
Ralph
Here’s the Wikipedia graphic. Their 5000 years is really ~21700y/4 = ~5425 years.
See also: The 100,000 year problem
‘The 100,000 year problem is a discrepancy between past temperatures and the amount of incoming solar radiation, or insolation.’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100,000-year_problem
Thanks Oldbrew.
Unfortunately that Wiki graphic is as confusing as it possibly could be. In reality the apsidal precession would mean that each of those Earth-Sun diagrams should be inclined at a different angle to the next. The following gif gives a much better idea of the motion – although this one is the wrong way around, because this one makes the Seasonal Great Year longer, not shorter.
.
I like that Wiki page on the 100,000 year problem. Not seen that before. But even the title is incorrect – it is a 88k to 110k year problem, because not all the Interglacials have the same spacing. What every scientific paper I have looked at has failed to understand is:
The Ice Age cycle is not 100k years, it is multiples of 22k years.
The controlling cycle is therefore the Seasonal Great Year’s summer season.
You then need to explain why some cycles are missed.
This happens because:
Not enough CO2
Plants are starved of CO2 and die.
Barren lands are exposed.
Dust storms cover the ice sheets.
Ice albedo is greatly reduced.
And now a Seasonal Great Year’s summer season can warm the NH.
So of course many of the Seasonal Great Year summer seasons are missed in the climate record, because they can only have an amplified effect: after the low CO2, after the plant dieback, after the dust storms, and after the reduced albedo.
Thus CO2 IS a primary controller of Interglacial warmings, but only through getting so low that all the plants die. And this is not exactly the message that the Warmists are trying to broadcast to the world. It means that the primary danger is not enough CO2, rather than too much of it.
‘Precession cycles’
‘A similar suggestion holds the 21,636-year precession cycles solely responsible. Ice ages are characterized by the slow buildup of ice volume, followed by relatively swift melting phases. It is possible that ice built up over several precession cycles, only melting after four or five such cycles.’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100,000-year_problem#Precession_cycles
Ralph Ellis explains ‘why some cycles are missed’.
This looks interesting.
Modeling the Climatic Response to Orbital Variations (1980)
John Imbrie and John Z. Imbrie
Click to access 943.full.pdf
Salvatore, my comments were actually OT as they pertained to shorter term effects not ice ages.
Here’s an accurate estimate for the earth’s axial precession:
Hilton J.L. et al., 2006. Report of the International Astronomical Union Division I Working
Group on Precession and the Ecliptic. Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy
94, 351 – 367.
I believe Hilton estimates precession to be approximately 25772 years.
Fourteen ‘perihelion precessions’ (PPs) would be about 303,000 years, or 3 Milankovitch cycles.
So the pseudo-100,000 year cycle could consist of two sets of five and one of four PPs, i.e. two ‘over’ the 100 kyr average and one under, every 300 kyr.
Whether there’s any evidence to support that is another matter.
>>Modeling the Climatic Response to Orbital Variations (1980)
>>John Imbrie and John Z. Imbrie
Thanks for mentioning that paper, it is good to know what has been written previously. However, it bears little relationship to the Wiki introduction. It appears to be several models trying to ‘wiggle match’ orbital cycles with Ice Ages. It give no idea of the possible causation or feedbacks involved in Ice Ages.
Ralph
>>Fourteen ‘perihelion precessions’ (PPs) would be
>>about 303,000 years, or 3 Milankovitch cycles.
That would be 14 Milankovitch cycles.
The Great Years (Milankovitch cycles) are the red line in fig 9 in my article. The greater the amplitude, the greater the insolation difference between the Great Summer and the Great Winter. And this is a 21.7 k year cycle (fairly steady, but +/- 1,000 years).
http://www.warwickhughes.com/agri15/ralph_ellis_oct15.html
The black line is the Great Year (Milankovitch) insolation at 65ºN, and it again has a 21.7 k year cycle, because it is based upon the Great Year red line above it.
The last two Ice Ages weer 110 k years (5 Great Years), and previous two before that were 88 k years (4 Great Years). So the average over 400,000 years is 4 Ice Ages and 18 Great Years.
Cheers,
Ralph
>>I believe Hilton estimates precession to be approximately 25772 years.
Yes. I understand it to be 25,700 years – the Great Year.
But that is the Celestial Great Year. However, because of apsidal precession the Great Seasons run ahead of the underlying Great Year cycle. And the result is:
Celestial Great Year = 25,700 years.
Seasonal Great Year = 21,700 years.
The animation in my October 12 11:39 am post shows why.
Ralph
I don’t think we can combine obliquity, apsidal and axial precessions to recreate the ice-age
cycle. These cycles are important but could they sustain 90,000 years of ice?
The ice-age cycle has an incredibly beautiful saw-tooth graph. It appears as though the graph begins at its lowest point just prior to the inter-glacials. When we look at it this way the ice-age
cycle looks more like a series of time concentration curves than a sinusoid.
It is very likely that the earth’s dynamo needs a kick-start once every 100,000+ years.
90,000 years of ice appears to be the norm and the earth can’t produce its own inter-glacials
without some outside help.
>>The ice-age cycle has an incredibly beautiful saw-tooth graph.
But it is not a beautiful saw-tooth, it is a mix of 88 k year cycles and 110 k year cycles (and 41 k year cycles before that.
Did you read my article? It is all explained there. What, exactly, did you not understand in that article?
.
>>It is very likely that the earth’s dynamo needs
>>a kick-start once every 100,000+ years.
Which is exactly what the article explains.
Low CO2
Barren ground
Dust storms
Low albedo
Great Year Summer season
Melting and Interglacial
Did you read my article? It is all explained there. What, exactly, did you not understand in that article?
‘The last two Ice Ages were 110 k years (5 Great Years), and previous two before that were 88 k years (4 Great Years)’
So the last 3 sum to just over 300 kyr. That’s what I was talking about re 100,000 year periods (5+5+4 GY = 14 GY).
‘Milankovitch believed that decreased summer insolation in northern high latitudes was the dominant factor leading to glaciation, which led him to (incorrectly) deduce an approximate 41 ka period for ice ages.[17] Subsequent research[18][19][20] has shown that ice age cycles of the Quaternary glaciation over the last million years have been at a 100,000-year period, leading to identification of the 100 ka eccentricity cycle as more important, although the exact mechanism remains obscure.’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles#Identifying_dominant_factor
Ralph,
I agree with you more than you know, I’m just approaching this from another position.
The earths magnetic field strength may be involved indirectly in the retention of thermal energy.
A weaker field would create the conditions in which the cooling process is sped up.
The earths dynamo, obliquity and precession cycles are all regulated by the long-time-scale
cyclical motion of the sun. This is not that much of a contradiction of your excellent work.
I’m just rearranging priorities: The sun first, Milankovic cycles second.
Climate changes have been known to take place in very short times in some instances less than a year. Now known historically to have lead to civilisation collapse world-wide. So solar cycles and Milankociv are automatically ruled out.
Seek sudden changes in solar insolation and of considerable magnitude. Dust is a common factor but present in every case all the time so it is not the culprit.
Dodwell pointed to it. Factor that in and see what happens. Keep in mind one thing. Warming up the ice from a minus to zero takes energy. Changing it phase takes much more, without temperture change.
A stray thought. As ice age develops millions of square kilometres of land are covered with ice preventing plant growth. CO2 is not be used up. Also as ice builds up on land so sea level drops exposing millions of square kilometres of rotting seaweed and stuff. Result; more CO2. Makes sense to me that as ice ages develop so global atmospheric CO2 levels increase.
When ice eventually melts off land plants grab that CO2 big time.
>>Oldman
>>Climate changes have been known to take place in very short times
>>in some instances less than a year. Now known historically to have
>>lead to civilisation collapse world-wide. So solar cycles and Milankociv
>>are automatically ruled out.
Not necessarily. The Winsconsin ice sheet retreat about 11k years ago was triggered in one year, but the trigger was coincident with a sudden and thick layer of dust.
You are forgetting that this theory requires two components – a Great Year summer insolation, plus dust. Only when the dust is layed down, can the melting occur. And if that dust comes suddenly and copiosly, as it did on the Winsconsin ice sheets, then the melting can be equally sudden.
Ralph
>>Oldbrew
>>So the last 3 sum to just over 300 kyr. That’s what I was talking
>>about re 100,000 year periods (5+5+4 GY = 14 GY).
I see what you mean now. Yes, the 21.7k year Milankovitch Great Year combines with the orbital eccentricity to form a 100k year harmonic frequency.
Perhaps we can call that the Grand Year, 100k years long. And this would have a Grand Summer and. Grand Spring. (There is no Grand Winter on the 100k cycle, just a neutral position.). The Interglacials are primarily responding to the 21.7k Great Year cycle, but it is true that the upcomming Grand Spring (Grand Neutral) will ensure that there are no more Ice Ages for the next 180,000 years.
Ralph
>>Richard
>>Makes sense to me that as ice ages develop so global atmospheric CO2 levels increase.
You did not read the article, did you? Look at my figure 1 (ice ages vs CO2), read the article, and then come back.
http://www.warwickhughes.com/agri15/ralph_ellis_oct15.html
Ralph
Ralph says: ‘I see what you mean now. Yes, the 21.7k year Milankovitch Great Year combines with the orbital eccentricity to form a 100k year harmonic frequency.’
There are potential solar/orbital frequencies to tie in with that. Needs a bit more work but in outline I think there’s something interesting there.
I’ll run it past Rog (Tallbloke) when he gets back from the conference.
Okay Ralph, have now read your article. See no problem. We appear to be in agreement. You said it first in much more detail. 🙂
ralfellis here is what I have concluded this should clarify my positions.
I have put forth my whole climatic theory here as to why and how the climate changes both in the long term and in the shorter abrupt term. I had put this on the WUWT web-site which found it interesting as one can see by the moderator comment. This is what I have come up with based on all my efforts in this area.
Here is what I have concluded. My explanation as to how the climate may change conforms to the historical climatic data record which has led me to this type of an explanation. It does not try to make the historical climatic record conform to my explanation. It is in two parts.
PART ONE
HOW THE CLIMATE MAY CHANGE
Below are my thoughts about how the climatic system may work. It starts with interesting observations made by Don Easterbrook. I then reply and ask some intriguing questions at the end which I hope might generate some feedback responses. I then conclude with my own thoughts to the questions I pose.
From Don Easterbrook – Aside from the statistical analyses, there are very serious problems with the Milankovitch theory. For example, (1) as John Mercer pointed out decades ago, the synchronicity of glaciations in both hemispheres is ‘’a fly in the Malankovitch soup,’ (2) glaciations typically end very abruptly, not slowly, (3) the Dansgaard-Oeschger events are so abrupt that they could not possibility be caused by Milankovitch changes (this is why the YD is so significant), and (4) since the magnitude of the Younger Dryas changes were from full non-glacial to full glacial temperatures for 1000+ years and back to full non-glacial temperatures (20+ degrees in a century), it is clear that something other than Milankovitch cycles can cause full Pleistocene glaciations. Until we more clearly understand abrupt climate changes that are simultaneous in both hemispheres we will not understand the cause of glaciations and climate changes.
My explanation:
I agree that the data does give rise to the questions/thoughts Don Easterbrook, presents in the above. That data in turn leads me to believe along with the questions I pose at the end of this article, that a climatic variable force which changes often which is superimposed upon the climate trend has to be at play in the changing climatic scheme of things. The most likely candidate for that climatic variable force that comes to mind is solar variability (because I can think of no other force that can change or reverse in a different trend often enough, and quick enough to account for the historical climatic record, and can perhaps result in primary and secondary climatic effects due to this solar variability, which I feel are a significant player in glacial/inter-glacial cycles, counter climatic trends when taken into consideration with these factors which are , land/ocean arrangements , mean land elevation ,mean magnetic field strength of the earth(magnetic excursions), the mean state of the climate (average global temperature gradient equator to pole), the initial state of the earth’s climate(how close to interglacial-glacial threshold condition it is/ average global temperature) the state of random terrestrial(violent volcanic eruption, or a random atmospheric circulation/oceanic pattern that feeds upon itself possibly) /extra terrestrial events (super-nova in vicinity of earth or a random impact) along with Milankovitch Cycles, and maybe a roll for Lunar Effects.
What I think happens is land /ocean arrangements, mean land elevation, mean magnetic field strength of the earth, the mean state of the climate, the initial state of the climate, and Milankovitch Cycles, keep the climate of the earth moving in a general trend toward either cooling or warming on a very loose cyclic or semi cyclic beat(1470 years or so) but get consistently interrupted by solar variability and the associated primary and secondary effects associated with this solar variability, and on occasion from random terrestrial/extra terrestrial events, which brings about at times counter trends in the climate of the earth within the overall trend. While at other times when the factors I have mentioned setting the gradual background for the climate trend for either cooling or warming, those being land/ocean arrangements, mean land elevation, mean state of the climate, initial state of the climate, Milankovitch Cycles , then drive the climate of the earth gradually into a cooler/warmer trend(unless interrupted by a random terrestrial or extra terrestrial event in which case it would drive the climate to a different state much more rapidly even if the climate initially was far from the glacial /inter-glacial threshold, or whatever general trend it may have been in ) UNTIL it is near that inter- glacial/glacial threshold or climate intersection at which time allows any solar variability and the associated secondary effects, and or other forcing no matter how SLIGHT at that point to be enough to not only promote a counter trend to the climate, but cascade the climate into an abrupt climatic change. The back ground for the abrupt climatic change being in the making all along until the threshold glacial/inter-glacial intersection for the climate is reached ,which then gives rise to the abrupt climatic changes that occur and possibly feed upon themselves while the climate is around that glacial/inter-glacial threshold resulting in dramatic semi cyclic constant swings in the climate from glacial to inter-glacial while factors allow such an occurrence to take place. Which was the case 20000 years ago to 10000 years ago.
The climatic back ground factors (those factors being previously mentioned) driving the climate gradually toward or away from the climate intersection or threshold of glacial versus interglacial. However when the climate is at the intersection the climate gets wild and abrupt, while once away from that intersection the climate is more stable.
Although random terrestrial events and extra terrestrial events could be involved some times to account for some of the dramatic swings in the climatic history of the earth( perhaps to the tune of 10% ) at any time , while solar variability and the associated secondary effects are superimposed upon the otherwise gradual climatic trend, resulting in counter climatic trends, no matter where the initial state of the climate is although the further from the glacial/inter-glacial threshold the climate is the less dramatic the overall climatic change should be, all other items being equal.
The climate is chaotic, random, and non linear, but in addition it is never in the same mean state or initial state which gives rise to given forcing to the climatic system always resulting in a different climatic out-come although the semi cyclic nature of the climate can still be derived to a degree amongst all the noise and counter trends within the main trend.
QUESTIONS:
Why is it when ever the climate changes the climate does not stray indefinitely from it’s mean in either a positive or negative direction? Why or rather what ALWAYS brings the climate back toward it’s mean value ? Why does the climate never go in the same direction once it heads in that direction?
Along those lines ,why is it that when the ice sheets expand the higher albedo /lower temperature more ice expansion positive feedback cycle does not keep going on once it is set into motion? What causes it not only to stop but reverse?
Vice Versa why is it when the Paleocene – Eocene Thermal Maximum once set into motion, that being an increase in CO2/higher temperature positive feedback cycle did not feed upon itself? Again it did not only stop but reversed?
My conclusion is the climate system is always in a general gradual trend toward a warmer or cooler climate in a semi cyclic fashion which at times brings the climate system toward thresholds which make it subject to dramatic change with the slightest change of force superimposed upon the general trend and applied to it. While at other times the climate is subject to randomness being brought about from terrestrial /extra terrestrial events which can set up a rapid counter trend within the general slow moving climatic trend.
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Despite this ,if enough time goes by (much time) the same factors that drive the climate toward a general gradual warming trend or cooling trend will prevail bringing the climate away from glacial/inter-glacial threshold conditions it had once brought the climate toward ending abrupt climatic change periods eventually, or reversing over time dramatic climate changes from randomness, because the climate is always under a semi extra terrestrial cyclic beat which stops the climate from going in one direction for eternity.
NOTE 1- Thermohaline Circulation Changes are more likely in my opinion when the climate is near the glacial/ inter-glacial threshold probably due to greater sources of fresh water input into the North Atlantic.
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Here is part two.
PART TWO
HOW THE CLIMATE MAY CHANGE
Below I list my low average solar parameters criteria which I think will result in secondary effects being exerted upon the climatic system.
My biggest hurdle I think is not if these low average solar parameters would exert an influence upon the climate but rather will they be reached and if reached for how long a period of time?
I think each of the items I list , both primary and secondary effects due to solar variability if reached are more then enough to bring the global temperatures down by at least .5c in the coming years.
Even a .15 % decrease from just solar irradiance alone is going to bring the average global temperature down by .2c or so all other things being equal. That is 40% of the .5c drop I think can be attained. Never mind the contribution from everything else that is mentioned.
What I am going to do is look into research on sun like stars to try to get some sort of a gage as to how much possible variation might be inherent with the total solar irradiance of the sun. That said we know EUV light varies by much greater amounts, and within the spectrum of total solar irradiance some of it is in anti phase which mask total variability within the spectrum. It makes the total irradiance variation seem less then it is.
I also think the .1% variation that is so acceptable for TSI is on flimsy ground in that measurements for this item are not consistent and the history of measuring this item with instrumentation is just to short to draw these conclusions not to mention I know some sun like stars (which I am going to look into more) have much greater variability of .1%.
I think Milankovich Cycles, the Initial State of the Climate or Mean State of the Climate , State of Earth’s Magnetic Field set the background for long run climate change and how effective given solar variability will be when it changes when combined with those items. Nevertheless I think solar variability within itself will always be able to exert some kind of an influence on the climate regardless if , and that is my hurdle IF the solar variability is great enough in magnitude and duration of time. Sometimes solar variability acting in concert with factors setting the long term climatic trend while at other times acting in opposition.
THE CRITERIA
Solar Flux avg. sub 90
Solar Wind avg. sub 350 km/sec
AP index avg. sub 5.0
Cosmic ray counts north of 6500 counts per minute
Total Solar Irradiance off .15% or more
EUV light average 0-105 nm sub 100 units (or off 100% or more) and longer UV light emissions around 300 nm off by several percent.
IMF around 4.0 nt or lower.
The above solar parameter averages following several years of sub solar activity in general which commenced in year 2005. The key is duration of time because although sunspot activity can diminish it takes a much longer time for coronal holes to dissipate which can keep the solar wind elevated which was the case during the recent solar lull of 2008-2010 ,which in turn keep solar climatic effects more at bay. Duration of time therefore being key.
If , these average solar parameters are the rule going forward for the remainder of this decade expect global average temperatures to fall by -.5C, with the largest global temperature declines occurring over the high latitudes of N.H. land areas.
The decline in temperatures should begin to start to take place within six months after the ending of the maximum of solar cycle 24,if sub- solar conditions have been in place for 10 years + which we have now had. Again the solar wind will be needed to get to an average of below 350km/sec. which takes time because not only do the sunspots have to dissipate but also the coronal holes. In other words a long period of very low sunspots will be need to accomplish this. It will be a gradual wind down..
Secondary Effects With Prolonged Minimum Solar Activity. A Brief Overview. Even if one or two should turn out to be true it would be enough to accomplish the solar /climatic connection.
A Greater Meridional Atmospheric Circulation- due to less UV Light Lower Ozone in Lower Stratosphere.
Increase In Low Clouds- due to an increase in Galactic Cosmic Rays.
Greater Snow-Ice Cover- associated with a Meridional Atmospheric Circulation/an Increase In Clouds.
Greater Snow-Ice Cover probably resulting over time to a more Zonal Atmospheric Circulation. This Circulation increasing the Aridity over the Ice Sheets eventually. Dust probably increasing into the atmosphere over time.
Increase in Volcanic Activity – Since 1600 AD, data shows 85 % approximately of all major Volcanic eruptions have been associated with Prolonged Solar Minimum Conditions. Data from the Space and Science Center headed by Dr. Casey.
Volcanic Activity -acting as a cooling agent for the climate,(SO2) and enhancing Aerosols possibly aiding in greater Cloud formation.
Decrease In Ocean Heat Content/Sea Surface Temperature -due to a decline in Visible Light and Near UV light.
This in turn should diminish the Greenhouse Gas Effect over time, while promoting a slow drying out of the atmosphere over time. This may be part of the reason why Aridity is very common with glacial periods.
In addition sea surface temperature distribution changes should come about ,which probably results in different oceanic current patterns.
The above accounts for abrupt climatic changes within a glacial or inter- glacial period. Dr. Curry this is similar to your stadium theory.
Below is what Bob Weber had posted which I think is spot on.
From looking at the El Ninos in the graphic above during times of low solar activity, such as the 1960-70’s and almost every solar minimum, I think that albedo does change during low solar activity, that can lead to heat build-up even under low TSI.
I think the mechanisms are simple but three-fold, and they are layered and time dependent.
1.) When the sun is more active, it drives more evaporation, more cloud cover, and more cloud top reflection, clouds that lower the ocean insolation, cooling the ocean, whereupon less cloud cover lets in more insolation, warming the ocean. It’s a see-saw. Back and forth. Up and down.
That in a nutshell is what I think many lukewarmers think (the thermostat idea) is the only important factor, except they haven’t made a connection between the sun’s activity and albedo, so far….
2.) Heat builds under high-pressure domes under either low or high solar activity, driving temps up. Frontal movement appears to slow down under low solar activity, and under high-pressure conditions, it can get very hot, as it did in the early 1900’s in the US when solar activity was low.
3.) Then there’s the solar induced ocean wind burst aspect too, making it a bit more complicated.
It seems thanks to ENSO the ocean spits out it’s extra heat – it just won’t build it up indefinitely, and that’s why there’s no record of runaway heat. It’s also due to the sun’s inability to produce sustained higher TSI, another finding of my research, that I have quantified, informing us that we will never cook too much for too long under high solar activity, and all that will ever happen is modern maximum style slow increases in mean temperatures until extended lower solar activity (the absence of additional heat) drives mean temps downward. It’s a see-saw, back & forth, up & down.
Climate change is primarily due to SSN-TSI variation and the resulting OHC-SST reaction.
As the TSI energy input is where the heat really comes from, that factor overwhelms albedo, IMO.
Salvatore – you don’t need solar variability to explain the Ice Ages.
>> (1) the synchronicity of glaciations in both
>>hemispheres is ‘a fly in the Malankovitch soup’
Not really. Once the NH has been cleared of ice, the total absorption of insolation across the entire globe is substantially greater. And since the heat transfer is from the tropics and temperature regions to the poles, then both poles will receive more warmth.
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>>(2) glaciations typically end very abruptly, not slowly.
>>As they will, in the ‘Great Summer + dust’ scenario:
The ice-sheets have10,000 years of dust on them, deposited by the great dust storms that preceded each Interglacial warming period. So as the Interglacial proceeds to melt the surface ice, the surface dust will combine with earlier dust lower down, thus creating a dirtier and dirtier surface with less and less albedo each and every year. So the Interglacial melting is not incremental and proportional, it accelerates until all the 10,000 years of dust layers now reside on the surface of the ice sheets.
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>>(3) the Dansgaard-Oeschger events are so abrupt that they
>>could not possibility be caused by Milankovitch changes.
D-O events prove that the driving factor in Ice Age temperatures is the Northern Hemisphere, as I stated. The events are much more pronounced in Greenland than in Antarctica.
D-O events appear to have no periodicity and are of millennial scale (between 1,500 years and 4,000 years). If Albedo is the key to Ice Age forcing and feedbacks, then any albedo change to the ice sheets will produce a rapid change in temperature. An albedo change from 0.6 to 0.4 will deliver an extra 60 wm2 to the northern ice sheets during the annual summer. I would suggest that volcanic activity might be responsible for lowering the ice-albedo. I will look at the Greenland cores in more detail, and see what I can find.
Ralph
I think Milankovitch Cycles are part of the puzzle, but not all of it. If Milankovitch Cycles were the sole cause of Ice Ages then Ice Ages would have come and gone on a regular basis. History shows this is not so, and then cold periods like the Younger Dryas (one of many) come on sometimes despite Milankovitch Cycles sometimes favoring warming, as was the case with the YD.
More is at play here, and I try to point out those items in my previous post.
Click to access Ice_age.pdf
This is a good article to read.
It looks like D-O events are conclusively caused by biomass burning, with charcoal deposits being discovered worldwide that coincide perfectly with the D-O events.
Click to access Daniau_2010-2%2861-63%29.pdf
And since the increased CO2 will provide about 1 wm2, while the reduced albedo may provide an extra 60 wm2 during the summer melt, one might easily deduce that carbon deposits and reduced albedo is the key to the rapid D-O temperature fluctuations.
>>Salvatore
>>If Milankovitch Cycles were the sole cause of Ice Ages
>>then Ice Ages would have come and gone on a regular basis.
You are missing out my key ingredient yet again. Did you read my article?
We will only get an Interglacial when there is a combination of a Great Year summer season plus a dusty ice surface. So the climate system has to wait until the conditions are right, because it is quite stable and happy in the Ice Age temperature regime. So yes, three or four Great Year summer seasons can easily be missed out – waiting for the all important dust storm era.
But even when conditions are right, the Interglacial will only happen during a Great Year summer season, because the extra insolation is a key ingredient.
http://www.warwickhughes.com/agri15/ralph_ellis_oct15.html
Ralph
Click to access cp-8-1473-2012.pdf
Ralph I agree with you for the most part.
You may find this article very interesting.
You say below.
My reply is it is not that simple ,there are many other factors involved which I have mentioned in my previous post which you do not even consider.
Then again get 10 people in a room on this subject and you will get 10 different takes on it.
Nevertheless we agree it is not CO2 and it has to do with solar in one way or another or combination off factors.
So the major recent Ice Ages are not modulated by orbital eccentricity, as is often assumed, and nor are they regulated by obliquity-inclination. Instead, they are actually regulated by the precession of the equinox and its resulting Great Year seasons. So just as the standard solar spring and summer seasons will chase away the winter snows in the NH, so too will the Great Year’s spring and summer melt the Ice Age ice sheets in the NH — sometimes
Ralph I think the strength of the geo magnetic field of the earth is a factor which you do not consider , I think ocean /land arrangements are even more important and you are not allowing for the random cosmic impacts or super volcanic eruptions which can turn the climate system upside down and must have from time to time.
regarding quote I see above & as I’ve alerted the community before:
Easterbrook = seriously wrong — not consistent with observations; based on serious misconceptions about spatiotemporal insolation pattern — only sensible option is to dismiss
In summary I have yet to find an adequate explanation for Ice Ages including my own explanation that I can say I am 100% or even 90% confident in.
I will say this I am confident that if my low average value solar parameters are met going forward and duration of time is sufficient the down trend in Holocene temperatures since the Holocene Optimum some 6000 years ago will stay intact.
Milankovitch Cycles on balance in my opinion since the Holocene Optimum have favored a slight cooling trend and this cooling trend going forward should be enhanced due to prolonged minimum solar conditions and a continued weakening of the geo magnetic field of the earth.
Easterbrook’s side of things . Just presenting it.
This contribution in Science 14th May 2010 I feel says it all.
W F Ruddiman “A Paleoclimate Enigma@?”
Nothing much has changed from that 2010 position.
I read it wrong my previous post is wrong . I see what you are saying.
Ice ages reduced CO2 to a point that it became so low vegetation died off and dust resulted ending Ice Ages which does show CO2 following the temp.
My mistake.
[mod] Do you want your previous comment to be deleted?
yes thanks. [done – mod]
Ralph after reading this more carefully your theory is as good as any I have come across and your explanation for how an Ice Age may end is among the best.
I am confused and have a question. I hope this makes sense. If the seasonal great year is 21700 years why do the ICE AGES span 4 or 5 precessionary cycles? Why not one precessionary cycle or two?
The Seasonal Great Year of 21,700 years in length is the reason for the variability in Interglacial spacings. If an Ice Age spans four precessionary cycles or Great Years, it will have a total cycle length of 87 k years, but if it spans 5 Great Years it will have a total cycle length of 109 k years. And this is exactly what we see in the historic climate record, as fig 1 demonstrates. However, climate scientists will dismiss this suggestion as being impossible, because a mechanism is then required whereby Ice Ages can span four or five Great Years (precessionary cycles) before producing another Interglacial. Why would any cyclical system miss out a number of intermediate cycles before responding? This is a good question and it will be fully explained later in this paper through the action of a special ‘secret’ ingredient.
Ralph’s explanation to my question but I still do not understand why the dusty surface would not take place every 21,700 years?
We will only get an Interglacial when there is a combination of a Great Year summer season plus a dusty ice surface. So the climate system has to wait until the conditions are right, because it is quite stable and happy in the Ice Age temperature regime. So yes, three or four Great Year summer seasons can easily be missed out – waiting for the all important dust storm era.
But even when conditions are right, the Interglacial will only happen during a Great Year summer season, because the extra insolation is a key ingredient
>>If the seasonal great year is 21700 years why do the ICE AGES
>>span 4 or 5 precessionary cycles? Why not one precessionary cycle or two?
Because the dust storms are few and far between, and a Great Year summer cannot have any effect on pristine white ice sheets. So the 21.7k year Great year can get no leverage at all, unless the ice gets dirty. If you look at my fig 8, the dust storms only occur after CO2 has come down to absolute minimum (and dangerous) levels. And that takes about 80 – 100 k years to do.
I am not sure why it takes that long for temperatures and COI2 to reach a minimum, but my guess might be the ability of the oceans to sequastrate atmospheric CO2. Perhaps the time it takes for plants to sequestrate that CO2 in the ground as peat and loam.
Whatever the cause, the temperature and CO2 reduce on a predictable path (with a few D-O interruptions from forest fires) down to an absolute minimum. And at that point and that point only, you get plant dieback, widespread desert lands, and huge dust storms – just as my fig 8 demonstrates.
And it is the dirty ice that allows the next Gret Year summer season, and its increased insolation, to warm the ice sheets and the NH. A NH ice sheet albedo change from 0.7 to 0.4 during the Great Years’ summer season can produce a massive 150 wm2. That’s two orders of magnitude greater than anything CO2 can do. And albedo will make the change immediately, not over a few thousand years.
Assumptions:
380 wm2 surface insolation, after cloud albedo.
Absorption increasing from 114 wm2 to 228 wm2.
60 wm2 increase insolation die GY summer, 36 wm2 net.
I would think that obliquity is more likely a better match than precession, and this graph from Javier would certainly seem to agree. Note the smooth curve of obliquity in purple laid on top of the temperatures in black for the last 11000 years. It leaves little room for doubt as to the future of the overpopulated northern hemisphere.
J Martin: the end of the graph (purple line) seems stuck in the Little Ice Age?
>>I would think that obliquity is more likely a better match than precession
The obliquity will have an effect on temperature, as your graph quite possibly demonstrates, but its 41k year cycle does not match the recent Ice Ages over the last million years at all. However, before 2.5 million years, it IS the dominant factor on temperature.
R
Stuck in in the LIA and heading down, at some point current temperatures must return to meet or go below the purple line.
If precession provides a better match then it needs to be shown as clearly as the graph above. If precession doesn’t match temperarures as well as the graph above but does match ice ages then perhaps that isn’t contradictory.
At the end of the day, mankind will seek to reduce the effects of glaciations or even to prevent them altogether.
I am interested to know when and how fast we drop back to that purple line as it surely just a matter of time. Will solar cycle 25 be enough ?
Precession and obliquity are closely related. Perhaps the change in tilt drives changes in ocean currents and cloud cover / albedo.
>>>>I would think that obliquity is more likely a better match than precession.
Do remember that the Great Year summer season ended about 9,000 years ago too….
R
Ralph your theory has merit.
One problem that comes to light is, if there is that much dust from dust storms to cover the Ice sheets with dust to bring an end to an Ice Age, why does not that same dust which must also be in the atmosphere block out a sufficient amount of solar radiation which would cause the temperatures to drop?
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http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/miller_01/
dust and climate effects this study shows.
Various studies in the last twenty years (plus Milankovitch) point to obliquity as the key player in ice formation and the glaciations. But Rayma/Huybers in Nature 2008 “Unlocking the mysteries of the ice ages” say 22-24 degrees obliquity is enough to prevent ice build-up.
Dust has been around all the time and it neither caused glaciations nor a meltdown. On the other hand ancient historians -and the ancient scientists who measured obliquity, tell a different version of the ice story.
Perhaps they too deserve a hearing.
This talk of dust triggered an obscure memory. The solar system does not orbit the galaxy in a flat plain, it swings above and below the galactic plain. Interstellar gas clouds could be encountered. That could effect TSI.
>>Precession and obliquity are closely related.
Yes, they are both included when calculating the Milankovitch insolation value in the following graph (black line). So your obliquity reduction is already included in these calculations. You can see the difference on the following graph. The red line is the Precession Index (the strength of the Great Year seasons). The black line is the resulting insolation in the NH high latitudes (including obliquity).
When precession (red line) goes to a minimum, so too does the insolation variation, because the precessional Great Year is the dominant factor. Although it is true that at present we are in a Great Year minimum period, and so obliquity has much more power than usual.
It looks like about half the current NH insolation increase was caused by the obliquity. Both precession and obliquity declined at the same time, but the precession index is now back on the increase – reducing the effects of the obliquity continuing to decline.
>>Oldman
>>Various studies in the last twenty years (plus Milankovitch) point
>>to obliquity as the key player in ice formation and the glaciations.
It cannot be obliquity, as that has a 41k year cycle, and does not match the 90 – 110 k year Interglacial cycle at all. The Interglacial cycle is actually multiples of the 21.7 k year precessional Great Year. See this analysis by Leif Svalgaard.
Click to access 2006GL027817-Milankovitch.pdf
However, Svalgaard’s analysis cannot explain D-O events or the missing Great Year Interglacials, and these are explained by my dust albedo theory. See the article I wrote on the Warwick Hughes site:
http://www.warwickhughes.com/agri15/ralph_ellis_oct15.html
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>>Dust has been around all the time and it neither
>>caused glaciations nor a meltdown.
But that is not true is it. The dust storms only occurred every 90 – 110 k years. See fig 8 in my article, linked above.
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>>On the other hand ancient historians -and the ancient scientists who
>>measured obliquity, tell a different version of the ice story.
Not sure what you mean by that. The cycle that the ancient scientists tracked was the precession of the equinox, or the Great Year as they called it. They did not track obliquity, as its effects are almost unnoticable and its period so long.
A thousand years of obliquity will change a star position by 3 seconds of arc. A thousand years of precession will change a star position by 14 degrees ( 830 seconds) of arc (relative to the Vernal Equinox). What is the easiest to observe and follow?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Year
This was my answer to Professor Leif Svalgaard:
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Dear Prof Svalgaard,
Thank you for taking the time to reply. And your analysis is perhaps the best I have seen. However, there are some aspects of Ice Age cycles that Milankovitch Great Years cannot explain, and they are fairly fundamental.
a. The Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles, which occur on scales much too short for Great Years to be responsible.
b. The fact that some Milankovitch Great Years produce a very minimal response, while others produce an interglacial.
The extra factors that explain both of these is dust and albedo.
a. Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles are created by continent wide forest fires. But the resulting increase in world temperature of up to 10ºc is far too large to be a response to increased CO2. So the true cause of these D-O temperature increases is soot deposition on northern ice sheets, and the resulting greatly reduced albedo.
b. Some Milankovitch Great Years produce a minimal temperature response because fresh ice has a large albedo and can easily brush-off the insolation increase from a Milankovitch Great Year’s summer season. What the Great Year’s summer season requires, to get a grip on the ice, is reduced albedo. And that reduction is provided by dust, because every true Interglacial period is preceded by at least 10,000 years of dust storms. So it is the dust storms that determine if a Great Year summer produces an Interglacial, and these dust storms only occur about every 90 – 100 k years.
This is important, as it demonstrates that albedo is much stronger than CO2, as a forcing-feedback during the Ice Ages. And this also reduces CO2’s abilities in the modern world, because the forcing of CO2 was calculated in part from its presumed role in Interglacial warming. But if Interglacials are modulated by Great Years and albedo, and D-O events are modulated by soot and albedo, then the role of CO2 in all climatic events is minimal – both in the past and now.
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You also say: “variations in summertime shortwave forcing exceed the direct CO2 radiative forcing by about a factor of five.” But I think that is a great underestimate. My calculations are as follows. In the first couple of hundred years of an Interglacial, the following changes may take place:
CO2…
Feedback-forcing change over entire 5,000 year Interglacial 4 wm2.
Feedback-forcing change over 200 years years 0.15 wm2.
Albedo…
Normal summer insolation 65N = 420 wm2. Cloud albedo 0.2 = 340 wm2 net
Ice albedo 0.6 = 135 wm2 absorption.
Great Year summer insolation 65N = 480 wm2. Cloud albedo 0.2 = 380 wm2 net
Ice albedo 0.4 = 230 wm2 absorption.
Net increase in radiative absorption over first 200 years of Interglacial:
CO2 0.15 wm2 (worldwide)
Albedo 95.0 wm2 (regionally)
Thus albedo has approx 600 times as much forcing-feedback ability as CO2 (regionally).
Because the top 10,000 years of ice is full of dust from the dust-storm era, the albedo of the ice will steadily decrease as the dust layers concentrate on the steadily melting and reducing surface. So the albedo reduction and warming will accelerate, as the Interglacial centuries progress.
Thanks,
Ralph Ellis
Prof Svalgaard’s paper:
Click to access 2006GL027817-Milankovitch.pdf
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>>Salvatore
>>why does the dust not block out solar radiation and cause the temperatures to drop?
Could be many factors here. If the dust storms were winter events (cold dry winters), then the dust deposition would occur when the insolation is irrelevant. The ice-sheet melting is only a factor of summer inslation, and as long as the atmospheric dust takes place at a different time (or not very frequently), the insolation and melting can continue.
And we know that this albedo melting can happen, because the D-O events were caused by forest fires. These fires presumably occurred in the NH summer, but they still did not prevent the temporary melting of ice sheets and a temperature increase.
D-O events are the wild (blue and purple) swings in temperature in the following graph. They are sudden, temporary, erratic and up to 10ºc difference. They are caused by forest fires depositing soot on pristine white ice sheets. From this alone we can deduce that CO2 plays almost no role in Interglacial temperature increases, and the prime factor is albedo.
And if albedo is the star of the show then CO2 has to take a back seat, both in ancient and modern climate forcing-feedbacks. CO2 climate sensitivity was calculated in part from its ‘great influence’ in Interglacial warming. If it was actually albedo that made this warming, as this diagram demonstrates, then all the CO2 sensitivity calculations are completely wrong. Instead of there being 3.0ºc warming for a doubling of CO2, there may actually only be 0.3ºc of warming for a doubling of CO2:
ralfellis “it cannot be obliquity as it has a 41k y cycle” (and TY for the reply).
That is a secular characteristic as derived by Cel Mech. courtesy of later Newcomb et al, But there is no proof that it was so for so long, and that transient changes did not take place, of which there was no evidence.
But there was evidence, to the contrary. Historically Plato speaks of ‘a declination of the heavens’ in his geocentric concept and as viewed from earth; A Wittmann in “The obliquity of the ecliptic” points to discrepancies in ancient measured values as against the formula values (plus Dodwell but he is still a ‘persona non grata’ with the astro fraternity). My input here is directly measured obliquity from ancient calendars (more than 16 separate instances).
The recent idea that obliquity is maintained stable by the moon is a relatively recent mathematical model which is supported by no evidence (at least none that I came across).
Question everything and believe nothing until it comes with solid proof.
Careful ralfellis, you may inspire military vision:
large fleets of tiny drones sparking widespread northern hemisphere forest fires.
So long as the effects are spatially imbalanced in a predictable manner, powers on some part of the globe may see an advantage. Perhaps we’ll live to see some of your theories tested …and to think people were worried about nukes when a 10 degree C threat can be sparked by a colony of insects…
Better yet maybe they can genetically modify fire flies to get the job done. Expect lucrative government contracts for defensively preventative insecticide… And what will drone “insecticide” look like? Will there be collateral human damage when we learn how the military aims to counter massive fleets of fire-lighting drones? A movie inspired by ralfellis… opens in theaters the week of the next IPCC meeting… (cue the dramatic trailers)
Not sure what’s up with that …but whether by ignorance or deception it’s dark either way…
With a pair of precisely-targeted anti-propaganda silver bullets Captain Dallas captdallas shoots the legs right out from under wuwt’s (WE’s, DE’s, etc.) sloppy counter-Milankovitch campaign:
What I’ve been finding humorous is how timid people are to call them out for this blatant error. It suggests people don’t actually understand firsthand how ridiculous the wuwt narrative is. Alternatively, it could indicate that people are deliberately banding together to support a corrupt story line.
more military engineering inspired by ralfellis:
What would happen to coastal cities worldwide if black paint bombs were dropped on Antarctica &/or Greenland every summer day?
a hint about spatial patterns from captdallas:
—
I see 2 errors above in comments about multiples of the 21ka precession cycle in relation to 100ka eccentricity event timing. If/when I can find time I’ll dig out some references and briefly outline corrections.
I don’t see any agenda within WUWT, nor within W.E.’s posts. He did a good analysis of the Milankovitch cycle, but concluded that there were too many gaps and discrepancies in it to be responsible for Interglacials. What he did not realise, is that dust, soot and albedo reductions in otherwise blilliantly reflective ice can fill in an explain those many gaps and discrepencies.
But I have to say it was W.E’s analysis, and Leif’s reluctance to investigate why there were so many gaps and discrepancies, that started me looking in the first place. We all build our knowledge on the shoulders of others.
Ralph
.That statement is flat out wrong.
Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles are created by continent wide forest fires. But the resulting increase in world temperature of up to 10ºc is far too large to be a response to increased CO2. So the true cause of these D-O temperature increases is soot deposition on northern ice sheets, and the resulting greatly reduced albedo.
b
ralfellis (October 14, 2015 at 11:11 am) wrote:
”
This was my answer to Professor Leif Svalgaard:
.
Dear Prof Svalgaard,
Thank you for taking the time to reply. And your analysis is perhaps the best I have seen.
[…]
Prof Svalgaard’s paper:
“
LS didn’t write that paper.
Ralph, Captain Dallas mowed down WE’s misunderstanding / misrepresentation of the equator. Whatever they’re up to with tricks like that it certainly doesn’t build trust.
This is by far the best theory for D/O events.
As far as Ralph’s theory their is merit in some of it and it is probably part of the puzzle but no more a part then what I have presented with my theory.
Another problem with Ralph’s theory is it can not explain abrupt climate changes. Forest fires do not cut it.
Click to access cp-8-1473-2012.pdf
This is the best explanation I have come across for Ice Ages.
One last point here is if the sun varies enough over a sufficient length of time it is going to have a climatic impact that there can be no doubt. I have another paper to share that favors this point.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040618200000604
Speculation with everything having to go exactly as called for. ?????????????
Could be many factors here. If the dust storms were winter events (cold dry winters), then the dust deposition would occur when the insolation is irrelevant. The ice-sheet melting is only a factor of summer inslation, and as long as the atmospheric dust takes place at a different time (or not very frequently), the insolation and melting can continue.
SdP: ‘One last point here is if the sun varies enough over a sufficient length of time it is going to have a climatic impact that there can be no doubt.’
It could be like a ‘compound interest’ analogue from finance, i.e. each additional ‘unit of warming’ (let’s say one year’s worth) is added as a percentage to the net gains made in the year before.
That would increase at a faster rate than just adding the same fixed amount per year. I’m probably expressing it poorly, but this point or something like it has been made elsewhere.
Yes oldbrew something like that.
Ralph’s theory has some good points but one has to really speculate and have imagination to make it practical.
At first I glanced at it then I studied it and kind of liked it, but now it lacks in so many areas ,so speculative and so everything has to fit just right.
Still some merit.
>>Why did ice ages only begin 2 million years ago?
The Panama theory is incorrect. And we know this because obliquity oscillations suddenly become dominant before 2 m years ago. No amount of isthmus closing can prevent the precessional Great Year being the dominant insolation controller on the Earth.
The only thing that can stop the Great Year, and that is a lack of orbital eccentricity. No eccentricity – no difference between the Great Summer and the Great Winter. As to how or why the orbital eccentricity should be reduced before 2 m years ago, well that is another question entirely…. 😉
Ralph
>>LS didn’t write that paper.
How right you are. Sorry, the way it was presented, and knowing Leif’s staunch support for the Milankovitch theory, I thought it was his.
Ralph
>>That statement is flat out wrong.
Why? No arm waving, tell us why.
In reality the amonium and sulphate products from continent-wide forest fires match perfectly with the D-O events (marked here as G-13, G14… etc)
>>Speculation with everything having to go exactly as called for. ???????
Not speculation, Salvatore, because we know that exactly this happened with the D-O events. They were caused by smoke and soot from fires. But it was not the cooling effect of a hazy atmosphere that was dominant, it was the warming effect of albedo. And this was a dramatic warming, with the NH warming up to 10ºc in five or ten years (less in the south).
So we know that smoke-haze or dust-haze is not a hindrance to warming at all.
Ralph
Another point, Salvatore, for your consideration.
Climate ‘scientists’ have spent 30 years on this problem, to refine their ideas. I have spent five days on this, and another five days defending the idea. Do you really think I will have every angle covered, after five days??
R
Ralph, are you familiar with Jose Rial’s work? (SDP that’s where Jim Steele got ideas.)
I put up a bunch of links to Rial on one of the Talkshop suggestions threads (maybe Suggestions-12 or Suggestions-13).
[mod] this one?: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/suggestions-10/comment-page-1/#comment-98822
Ralph my theory is as good as yours . As far as D/O EVENTS the Arctic Iris theory is by far the best theory out there in my opinion. Still nothing is 100%.
All of the theories including my own have a varied degree of speculation and if that were not the case the Ice Age Puzzle and therefore predicting the future climate would be solved.
We are not even close to having a consensus on why/how the climate may change because of the complexity of the climatic system and al the various facets that are involved.
Some people like Ian Wilson are big on Lunar influencing the climate some like yourself are big on Milankovich Cycles/dust, while I am big on solar variations /geo magnetic variability and the associates secondary and primary effects.
In closing we all have thoughts as to why/how the climate changes and why D/O events and Ice Ages occur but none can be proven thus far.
Your theory has some merit as I think mine does along with others such as Paul Vaughn ,Ian Wilson, Rog , Casey, Piers Corbyn, Stephen Wilde, Bob Weber , along with many others.
I say the answer probably is in the various theories all of us skeptics have put forth, as opposed to AGW theory which is nothing more then BS.
My theory will have a good chance to be tested if the prolonged minimum solar condition stays intact and the global temperatures react by falling off.
I have said if low average solar parameters are meant or approached over a sufficient duration of time that the global temperature trends will be down. I expect this to take place before 2020.
We shall see, and if the global temperatures do trend down while the prolonged solar minimum is in progress along with the weakening geo magnetic field, then this thought is gong to be given more consideration.
I say let the data do the talking. I am in a wait and see mode.
. A focus on the Last Glacial Period further shows that paleofires follow the variability of Dansgaard–Oeschger oscillation and Heinrich events and, therefore, parallel the variability of atmospheric temperatures over Greenland detected in ice cores.
If there is a fire connection to D/O events according to this study and other studies the fires are a result not he cause of the D/O events.
Ralph,
About the D.O. events?
Correlation is not causation.
D.O. events are tidal events and this would involve a discussion about lunar influence.
A serious discussion about the Milankovic cycles has to include the orbit of the sun
around the center of mass.
Your work is exceptional but I see a strong reluctance to be seen as a barycentrist.
I don’t blame you, its a career killer.
It just happens to be the correct theory.
>>TL Mango
Correlation is not causation, it is true. But if you have a correlation and a solid viable link and mechanism, then you are almost home and dry.
As to barycenterism, you would have to demonstrate a variable barycentric cycle from 1 to 4 k years; a mechanism whereby solar output is greatly effected; a mechanism whereby terrestrial temperatures can be altered by up to 10 degrees in five to ten years; and a mechanism whereby forests would always spontaneously combust as all this happens.
That, I believe, is a tall order. Dear old Occam suggests that soot from forest fires is a much simpler possibility.
Ralph
The problem I have is climate variability to me is on a loose semi cyclic cycle at best with much randomness superimposed upon this loose semi cyclic cycle, which is in contrast to what many papers try to suggest. I find none of them hold up over time.
Ralph why would forest fires suddenly occur at the depths of cold during a D/O event?
Does not make sense.
Ralph the Arctic Iris Theory has an explanation far superior then forest fires as to why/how D/O events take place.
It explains it all in a very convincing way.
Why did ice ages only begin 2 million years ago?
The answer is because land /ocean arrangements finally meeting that threshold of arrangement which would allow Milankovitch Cycles, Solar Variability etc being able to impart sufficient force upon the climate in order to change it..
>>Ralph why would forest fires suddenly occur
>>at the depths of cold during a D/O event?
The entire world was not cold during an Ice Age. Forest grew, just as they do in Siberia, and forests can burn. But forest fires can be randomly cyclic, as the forest needs to build up a large fuel-load before you get a really big fire. And we know that these continent-wide forest fires did take place, because they left many traces in the sea-bed core records and ice core records.
Another possibility for the regulation of these fires is my CO2 dieback theory. All the experiments I have seen, on plant growth vs Co2, involve crops. But what about trees? I will have to look for more data. There were CO2 reductions prior to all these fires, so if trees can die back around 200 ppm CO2, for trees growing in more marginal conditions (like the great birch forests of northern Sibera), a large die-back at 200 ppm would mean a lot of dry wood in a dead forest, just ready for combustion.
And again this would be a cyclical event, because the burn-off would release CO2 and allow the forests to regrow. So another couple of thousand years would pass, before all the CO2 was re-sequestrated by the new forests, and another large fuel-load had built up on the ground. Hence the D-O events are simultaneously cyclical but also random – for who knows when the next conflagration will take place??
Ralph
I have now put the article up on the Academia.edu site. This is a slightly revised version, with most of the revisions merely being for clarity and readability:
https://www.academia.edu/16866736/Albedo_regulation_of_Ice_Ages_with_no_CO2_feedbacks
‘for trees growing in more marginal conditions (like the great birch forests of northern Sibera), a large die-back at 200 ppm would mean a lot of dry wood in a dead forest’
Quite possibly, since Siberia (13,100,000 km²) is about 40% larger than the USA.
Ralph good theory with much speculation but I will be incorporating parts of it to one degree or another in my thinking of why /how the climate changes.
Another part of the puzzle I think.
Click to access cubasch_asr.pdf
I find this study quite useful.
That article reflects where I am coming from as far as the role of solar insolation and Milankovitch Cycles upon the climate.
From oldbrew ‘for trees growing in more marginal conditions (like the great birch forests of northern Sibera), a large die-back at 200 ppm would mean a lot of dry wood in a dead forest’
Good question, but those trees were just as likely to end up buried as coal seams. Then ask how come they got there. What put them there changed also the weather – big time-. It is obvious some big events took place.
A second point, earth orbit has been nearly circular in recent kyears. With obliquity near constant, then what caused the events during the Holocene maximum stretch? A major influencing “something” is being left out.
Obliquity is a mix of 2 precessions 26,000 years and 70,000 years. So precession is already included in obliquity. So when i hear of an hypothesis that takes both precesion and obliquity into account i am dubious of it as it suggests that precession is being counted twice.
http://astro.wsu.edu/worthey/astro/html/lec-precession.html
I haven’t got my head round this concept of a great year, but Ralf said that the great year ended about 9000 years ago, and I notice that this would tie up with the max of obliquity, the purple line, on Javier’s graph.
.
>>But those trees were just as likely to end up buried as coal seams.
And some did each time, while some burned. So each D-O event released some Co2 and buried the rest. This, combined with the ever cooling climate, caused by more and more ice-albedo, reduced Co2 concentrations to critical levels. And it was the critically low Co2, and the desert regions and dust it created, that eventually ended the Ice Age. So the climate has to cool for many thousands of years, before recovering in an Interglacial, because the system needs to bury and dissolve all that Co2 first.
.
>>A second point, earth orbit has been nearly circular in recent k-years.
>>Then what caused the events during the Holocene maximum stretch?
No orbital eccentricity means no difference between the Great Summer and Great Winter. So the future has no Great Winter Ice Age negative forcing for another 180,000 years. So yes, we should not expect another full Ice Age.
However, we should have cooled a little more than we have, since the Great Summer maximum, which peaked about 10,000 years ago. But I have a suspicion that the beginning of the last Ice Age in my fig 2 is misaligned. I think the cooling should come a little more after the start of the Great Autumn (when insolation was falling). There may have been a counting error by the Vostok ice researchers. If this is so, then the climate needs a larger reduction in forcing before it will cool, and we have not got to that point yet – but we have still cooled a little, since the Holocene maximum.
And since the NH forcing will not reduce any further than now, according to Milankovitch predictions, we may be lucky and stay in these relatively mild conditions for the next 180,000 years. And if the world does cool a bit, we just need to spray the ice sheets black every decade or so, and thus keep the world warm.
Ralph
Ralf, I was under the impression that less orbital eccentricity especially when combined with less obliquity meant that ice ages were more likely, not less likely. So I think that 180,000 years without a glaciation is most unlikely.
.
>>Obliquity is a mix of 2 precessions 26,000 years and 70,000 years.
>>So precession is already included in obliquity.
You have this wrong.
Precession is the gyroscopic change in the orientation of the obliquity. A 25,700 year cycle.
Obliquity is a reference to the change in the angle of obliquity (22.5 to 24.5). A 41,000 year cycle.
They are entirely different cycles. But changes in obliquity can enhance or diminish the effects of precession (as can changes in eccentricity).
Ralph
Eccentricity is low and decreasing, so the Earths orbit is becoming more circular so we can expect long glaciations to continue. If the only thing that brings us out of glaciations is a big bonfire and some dust then I struggle to accept that. Both will be quickly swept away by melting ice leaving pristine highly reflective ice in place. There has to be something else that brings glaciations to an end in my view. UV ?
>>Ralf said that the great year ended about 9000 years ago,
>>This would tie up with the max of obliquity, the purple line,
The Great Year summer ended 10,000 years ago.
It ‘ties up’ with the max insolation line in my fig 2. All those peaks in my fig 2 represent NH Great Summer seasons (Milankovitch cycles), not obliquity. The troughs are NH Great Winters, not obliquity.
This is why the temperature line follows the Great Year line, because it requires an increase in NH insolation to create an Interglacial.
>>Eccentricity is low and decreasing.
Correct.
.
>>So the Earths orbit is becoming more circular so we can expect long glaciations to continue.
Incorrect.
When there is no eccentricity, there are no Great Seasons, just one long Great Neutral. Where the climate and temperature will settle during a Great Neutral, needs further research. In my opinion the world appears to be more stable in Ice Age conditions than Interglacial, so I have no great hope that our current Interglacial temperature will be stable in the long term. But the descent into an Ice Age may be slower than usual.
But if the primary climate feedback is albedo, as I have proven, then spreading soot over the poles would be an effective remedy. The fast changes induced by the D-O events demonstrate that a rapid warming response is possible, with soot deposits. NH temperatures rose up to ten degrees in ten years. If the climate is THAT responsive to a reduction in albedo, it suggests that not too much soot spraying would be required to achieve a result.
Ralph
We don’t know all there is to know about the sun and I wonder if it has some longer term cycles we are not aware of that combined with Milankovich produce and end glaciations. Solar UV can vary a lot and can penetrate clouds and ice, but I’ve no idea how much energy there might be in UV. Rowe did some work on rate of change of ice and related it to solar ?
As for Milankovitch variation, I would think that harmonics rather than multiples of planetary cycles might be more convincing, as relying on well timed particulates to rescue us every now and again seems a bit too chancy. I would like to have a more predictable event, ie a cycle or harmonic.
In outer space objects can only move in straight lines or spin, unless in the presence of another force so a straight line can curve or become an orbit. Obliquity on its own cannot exist. A planet cannot rock one way, then stop and rock back the other way. So obliquity is a result of a spin ie a precession or several precessions, in this case primarily two. Someone at JPL or NASA no doubt could enlighten us, I just have this link on the subject.
http://astro.wsu.edu/worthey/astro/html/lec-precession.html
>>Obliquity on its own cannot exist. A planet cannot
>>rock one way, then stop and rock back the other way.
Sorry, can you do some research before blogging.
Yes obliquity can rock back and forth – influences of Jupiter etc: Try firing up a gyroscope, and see what happens.
R
ralfellis said “Try firing up a gyroscope, and see what happens.” Correct. Or a spinning top and see how easy it is to tip the top into a new stable state of rotation, ie a new obliquity, with the slightest input of energy.
But, quote” then spreading soot over the poles would be an effective remedy”. No, the effect might be in reverse of what you anticipate. Spreading soot can cause the ice to melt faster. The the hypothesis of ‘climate friction’ then kicks in. Meaning the removal of the weight of the ice caps will jerk the earth to jump from its present obliquity to a lower one. See Rubincam’s paper “Has climate friction changed the earth’s obliquity?” on how it works, and from where that hypothesis developed. Then the risk of inducing the beginning of a glaciation becomes real, ie if the jump is to a very low obliquity. Hard evidence shows that jumps in obliquity occurred several times in Holocene. (See my posts in the Dodwell blog).
The coming and going of glaciations are likely due to intrinsic charateristics of the earth itself, without outside input (except solar insolation which is in relative effect constant; ice caps wax and wane due to obliquity changes alone. Large ice cap growth >obliquity increase; ice caps melt> obliquity decrease).
>>Oldman
>>Spreading soot can cause the ice to melt faster.
That was the idea, to end an impending Ice Age and warm the world.
Surprisingly, the extra top-heavy mass of all that ice seems to do nothing to precession or obliquity. If you look at the plots in my fig 9, your will see that both obliquity and precession march on during the Ice Ages without missing a beat.
I am presuming, of course, that astronomers have got these calculations correct….
Cheers,
Ralph
ralfellis,
They have not got the calculations wrong. They got the wrong or incomplete mathematical model.
the formula is for secular dynamics but there are also many transients that are not accounted for.
Take obliquity. The first workings go back to Stockwell and then Newcomb, in spite of the fact that their formula did not agree with the factual measurements, principally from those of the Chinese in 1100 bce and Hipparchus later, plus several others. The graphs of obliquity for earlier than 1800 ce are only an extrapolation backwards of the polynomial chosen by Newcomb to fit dates 1600, 1850 and 2100. There exists no shred of proof that it was so earlier.
Dodwell first realised there are jumps in obliquity. That was a shock to everyone and the reaction, as usual, was denial. I came across that from a completely different avenue and field, megalithic optical calendars dating from 4500 or earlier to after 2200 bce. Because they relied on the phenomenon of obliquity for their working, that info has been recorded “in stone” and measureable. Not only , one dating from 3000 was designed on one low value, like others previous to it, but altered to a higher value as it is today, thus also corroborating Dodwell. It is so well engineered that it is impossible to deny that it is an optical astronomical device.
Additional:
Factor the above to keep to the subject of this thread. Consider the behaviour of earth as ‘chaotic’ (if I’m not mistaken like Mars). Then jumps to a very low obliquity will bring about polar glaciations, at both poles simultaneously, a point that was observed frequently but not explained. A jump to high obliquity ,above 50 will cause equatorial permanent ice of which (but i’m unsure here) there is also evidence in remote past.
My conclusion is Ralph will make it work no matter what the counter view is, which takes away from the original theory he presented which has some good thoughts.
This report may be of interest: The Chaotic Obliquity of Mars
Click to access mars-obliquity.pdf
‘Sudden changes’ in obliquity are discussed, e.g. about 4 million years ago.
The authors link this to ‘resonance’.
Another report (oldmanK may know of it?):
http://www.nature.com/news/1998/981210/full/news981210-1.html
Quote: ‘But climate may also, in turn, have an effect on obliquity. When, in ice ages, large volumes of water are sucked out of the oceans to form ice caps, the consequent alteration in the distribution of mass also affects axial tilt, as the Earth ‘shifts itself’ to compensate. Williams and colleagues suggest that the interaction between obliquity and mass distribution drove itself in a process of self-amplification called a ‘positive feedback’ loop: A shift of mass led to a change of tilt, which produced to a further shift of mass, another change of tilt, and so on. The researchers calculate that the process was sufficient to shift the Earth’s axis of rotation through the required angle.
The researchers find support for their view from an unexpected quarter – the Moon. Earth’s only satellite has an orbit inclined by about five degrees to the plane of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. This inclination is hard to explain. However, there is an interaction between the lunar orbit and the Earth’s obliquity. For example, obliquity is currently increasing slightly, as a result of tidal interactions with the Moon. Past changes in obliquity might have left an imprint on the Moon’s orbit. Using the principle that momentum in the Earth-Moon system will have been conserved, and assuming that the Moon’s orbit originally had no inclination, the researchers calculate that a shift in obliquity of around 25 degrees would be compensated by the inclination of the lunar orbit by about five degrees, as observed.’ [bold added]
>>Ralph will make it work no matter what the counter view is
Not sure what you mean, Salvatore, I have not had to change one thing. I have had to explain many things, as one has to with a new idea, but nothing has changed. I would say it has withstood the contentions and challenges very well. Which is quite remarkable really, considering I formulated this idea and article in five days.
Ralph
Ralph, I know you have not have to change one thing. The reason being is because you have made everything fir the way you see it should fit regardless of other thoughts and theories which may run counter to your way of thinking..
I have done the same with my theory so I understand where you are coming from.
The difference is although I like my theory I am not as sure as you are about yours that it is correct.
Parts of your theory and mine nevertheless having a degree of commonality.
In addition my theory is in large part ,taken form little parts and pieces from many other theories to a varied degree.
I just think at this stage to be 100% sure any theory is 100% correct is foolish.
Ralph, I know you have not have to change one thing. The reason being is because you have made everything fir the way you see it should fit regardless of other thoughts and theories which may run counter to your way of thinking..
I have done the same with my theory so I understand where you are coming from.
The difference is although I like my theory I am not as sure as you are about yours that it is correct.
Parts of your theory and mine nevertheless having a degree of commonality.
In addition my theory is in large part ,taken form little parts and pieces from many other theories to a varied degree.
I just think at this stage to be 100% sure any theory is 100% correct is foolish.
Thanks for the interesting notes on obliquity shifts OB.
Here I’ve provided 2 new illustrations, partially in response to misconceptions I’ve read in this thread ….notably people dropping quotes clarifying beyond shadow-of-doubt they’ve been misled by DE’s serious lack of awareness (“fly in milankovitch soup” 100% darkly ignorant &/or deceptive BS) of insolation spatiotemporal pattern —– where Ralph Ellis says fire Jose Rial says ice:
Chain-of-command to simplify conflict-resolution is fine but it doesn’t pay to actually submit to believing authority (DE in this case) when authority is dead-wrong.
>>Another report (oldmanK may know of it?):
>>http://www.nature.com/news/1998/981210/full/news981210-1.html
Geeez, that’s a bit speculative isn’t it? How did they get that published in Nature, with no evidence, no mechanism, no real rationale, and no graphs?? I get two fingers from Nature, and then they publish this tripe! Wonderful.
Ralph
>>I just think at this stage to be 100% sure any theory is 100% correct is foolish.
I’m not 100% sure Salvatore, it matters not if this theory floats or sinks. I only devised it ten days ago. No loss to me.
However, I have done this enough times in other fields to know that the only way to test a theory, is to mount a vigorous defence to keep the challenges comming. Trial by fire, if you like. Or perhaps trial by whack-a-mole. If you can keep knocking the challenges down, the theory not only grows stronger each time, but your knowledge of possible errors and objections grows too.
And really, I see no killer moles here. Which mole would you say, has undermined the theory?
Ralph
.
Oh, and I have put this theory to Lief (and others in the field). And you know Leif, I am sure – never afraid to play wack-a-mole with people who have other ideas. Especially regards orbital mechanics, solar forcing and climate response.
And yet not a peep. No response at all. A turning of the back. And this from the guy that I had a long argument with, a few months ago, on this very subject. I asked why his interest was not piqued, by the many errors and gaps in the Milankovitch theory, and yet he brushed these lacunas aside saying they were not important.
And yet when I answer those highly pertient questions – no answer. So the guy who could raise the most challenging, armour-plated of moles has not done so.
R
LS is untrustworthy.
Peer review online – we like it 🙂
Credit to Ralph for ‘facing the music’.
How? Filed under news.-
This is a compilation of papers from NASA from the late 80s. They demonstrate that in the Cretaceous era there was no significant departure from the current orbital parameters of the Earth. The precession and eccentricity have slowed down a bit, but not by much.
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19930009773.pdf#page=123
p110
Fig 3 shows that the average precessionary cycle (the Seasonal Great Year) was 21.1 years back in the Cretaceous era, instead of 21.7 ky. (The SGY cycles +/- 1 kys either side of the mean.)
p 97-98
Quote:
“Schwarzacher viewed the alternations of massive and laminated carbonates in the Late Triassic as precessional, and their grouping into bundles of 5 as an expression of the 100 ky eccentricity cycle.”
Explanation:
Lazy again. The average cycle is not an average 100 ky, but an average 95 ky (15.8 cycles over 1,500 ky) in the Cretaceous era. And the groupings are not bundles of 5 but bundles of alternating 4 and 5.
Quite clearly the 21.1 ky Precessional Great Summer in the NH is being modulated by the eccentricity cycle, which appears to be 95 ky ish, in the Cretaceous era, as can be seen in fig 3 on p110. And it does so by alternating between 4 and 5 cycles. 4 cycles = 85 ky and 5 cycles = 105 ky, with an average of 95 ky.
So the underlying climate cycle was obviously a 21.1 ky cycle even in the Cretaceous era (21.7 ky now), which is clearly visible in fig 3 on p110. Which is what I said. So the Ice Age cycle is not the fundamental building-block of paleo-climate, rather the 21.1 ky (now 21.7 ky) Seasonal Great Year is. But the Seasonal Great Year is modulated into blocks of 4 or 5 to approximately match the 95 ky eccentricity cycle (which is now closer to 98 ky).
Thus the recent modern 87 ky to 108 ky Ice Age cycle shows up as an underlying 98 ky cycle (formerly a 95 ky cycle) even when there were no Ice Ages. The only difference is that the Ice Ages exaggerated the effect, making the temperature swings more extreme and making a central peak in temperature (the Interglacial warming). And the additional components that increased the climate variability in the recent Ice Age era, are ICE, ALBEDO, and DUST or SOOT.
.
Other interesting comments
p96
Quote:
“Magnetic secular variation here carry a strong 39 ka periodicity corresponding to the theoretical obliquity period of that time. Does the obliquity cycle perhaps have some direct influence on the magnetic field?”
p99
Quote:
“It is even more difficult to understand why a 39 ky obliquity should dominate the magnetic intensity spectra. …. There would appear to be a possibility that the magnetic field is effected by orbital variations.”
Explanation:
There is a comment in an earlier paper that may explain this. Apparently the core has a different obliquity to the mantle, and the two resonate. And since the core generated the magnetic field, its resonance with the obliquity might also make the magnetic reversals alternate in step with the obliquity.
.
p45
Orbital paramaters 2 billion years ago.
Earth inclination 22.5 to 24.1
Earth precession 13 ky instead of 21.7 ky (Seasonal Great Year)
Earth obliquity cycle 20 ky instead of 41 ky
This would make sense. If you look at a gyroscope, the precession gets slower (but normally more obliquity too) as it slows down. And the Earth’s rotation has been slowing down, due to the Moon.
Ralph
P.S. Don’t you love the way that there is no mention of CO2 feedbacks in these early papers. Can you image any of them being written this way today?
I don’t understand the bundles of 4 or 5.
How does that work?
>>I don’t understand the bundles of 4 or 5.
Their phraseology, not mine. All they mean is that the 21.1 ky (or 21.7 ky) Great Year (GY) cycle is further modulated on longer time scales, due to the periodicity of the orbital eccentricity and other orbital resonances (possibly from Jupiter).
So the 21.1 ky Great Year has a peak oscillation every 4 or 5 cycles (85 to 105 ky).
The GY also has another grand peak oscillation every 19 or 20 cycles. (approx 400 ky).
The Grand oscillation can be seen in fig 3 graph E, which shows up quite clearly in the length of sea-bed wormholes, of all things.
In radio frequencies these extra beat-frequencies are called heterodyning.
Ralph
Oldbrew:> no I did not see that particular report from Nature (or I don’t remember), but it is a collection of notable material from several papers, some of which are familiar.
But note: Papers that are free to download are usually about 15 years old. Many would have been republished with reconsidered material so that you are never sure that the info is still valid.
There is something damned in academia that, like a macciavellian religion, makes sure you can never check it out, or rely on it. Hypothesis is followed by theory but its when there is hard proof that one can rely on it. If that were to be so then the crop circle crowd were right, aliens have been here long ago, and all the important politicians abducted.
There is a bloody-minded insistence on an obliquity of 22-24 for millions of years. Prove it with incontrovertible evidence. To me the balance of what evidence is available says otherwise.
Ralph your theory does not explain abrupt climate changes such as the YD. If it did forest fires would have been given as evidence and be one of the theories put forth.
Neither is the case until you came up with it. I have studied this for years and never have come across forest fires as a theory as to why ice ages may have ended or why d/o events might have taken place.
The other problem which your theory is the role of dust in the atmosphere which you assume will help cause an Ice Age to end.
Then you do not explain why a dusty environment if that was the cause of an Ice age to end does not happen every 21,700 years or so
The eccentricity issue the way you apply it is just speculation .
But where the theory really falls short is your failure to incorporate lunar, geo magnetic,solar variability,land ocean arrangements, initial state of the climate(how far climate is from inter-glacial/glacial threshold when given forcing is applied to it, random terrestrial or extra terrestrial influences which must have happened from time to time to turn the climatic system upside down, all those kind of factors .
There are more so yes your theory offers a piece to the puzzle but it is not the answer not by a long shot.
Paul how do rates Ralph’s theory?
Ralph says (from NASA): ‘The precession and eccentricity have slowed down a bit, but not by much.’
What do they attribute that to?
‘A slight mismatch between the spin axis and the center of mass will guarantee that gravity exerts a torque on the top about its tip. The rapidly spinning top will precess in a direction determined by the torque exerted by its weight. The precession angular velocity is inversely proportional to the spin angular velocity, so that the precession is faster and more pronounced as the top slows down.’
http://www.4physics.com/phy_demo/top/top.html
Doesn’t the logic of that suggest the top (Earth) must be spinning a bit faster than it used to?
Albedo changes are symptom of solar changes which then proceeds to impact the climate.
_______________________________
Sorry, no. Read the article again. Albedo changes are controlled by dust levels on the ice. And then controlled by the Milankovitch Great Summer. So there are no changes in solar output at all (which is what I presume you mean). The solar forcing occurs because the NH is inclined to the Sun at perihelion, during the NH Great Year summer.
My reply is sorry Ralph but that is how it is. Dust has been shown to be an overall cooling agent not warming agent,as is evidenced by the study i had sent over.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/miller_01/
The dust effect
Much to learn…
‘Dust is a global phenomenon. Where it comes from, where it goes, and how it impacts climate and the bio-geochemistry of land and oceans are questions that span all the realms of earth science. In order to understand its function in Earth’s climate system, researchers from all fields need to collaborate together. This conference provided a forum wherein the attendees could figure out what they, as a group, want for the future and how this could eventually allow them to figure out the role that dust has played in Earth’s history, and most importantly, what role it will play in the future.’
http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2010/06/17/dust-and-its-impact-on-earth%E2%80%99s-climate-system/
There’s also a need to deal separately with dust in the atmosphere and dust on the ground, isn’t there?
Since dust is the attraction at the moment, Krakatoa provided a good example to check with. Can it get worse than that with forest fires?
which oldbrew prove my point speculating.
ralfellis says:
October 18, 2015 at 8:51 pm
>>Ralph your theory does not explain abrupt climate changes such
>>as the YD. If it did forest fires would have been given as evidence
>>and be one of the theories put forth.
Did I say that forest fires ended the YD? Where was that? You are making it all up again, Salvatore.
It is likely that the YD cooling was an impact response, although I have not researched that aspect a great deal. However, the exit from the YD was caused by dust. Not soot, apparently, but dust. This is an account of the ice-core analysis:
Quote:
‘You did not need to be a trained ice core observer to see this,’ recalled Alley. ‘Ken Taylor is sitting there with the ECM and he’s running along and his green line is going wee, wee, wee, wee – Boing! Weep! Woop! And then it stays down.’ Dust in the windy ice age atmosphere lowered the acidity of the core to a completely new state.‘We’re just standing there and he just draws a picture of it,”‘Alley said.”….
“In the GISP2 science trench, the tray holding the section of core rolled down the assembly line and then it was Alley’s turn at the ice. “It slides across in front of me and I’m trying to identify years: ‘That’s a year, that’s a year and that’s a year, and – woops, that one’s only half as thick.’ And it’s sitting there just looking at you. And there’s a huge change in the appearance of the ice, it goes from being clear to being not clear, having a lot of dust.”
Climate Crash: Abrupt Climate Change and What it Means for our Future, John D Cox.
.
>>Then you do not explain why a dusty environment if that was the cause
>>of an Ice age to end does not happen every 21,700 years or so.
I think we have been through this. The Co2 has to get low enough for for a plant die-back, to expose barren desert lands, to allow a dust era. And the dust storms only happen every 88 k to 108 k years. The dust-storm match with the eccentricity maximum is interesting, but the storms are also coincident with the CO2 minimum, which is why the plant-life died.
In addition I do not ‘use eccentricity’. And why involve Lunar and and-ocean arrangements, if they are not necessary? And how can land-ocean arrangements, that take millions of years to significantly alter, be responsible for temperature changes that take: 10 years (for D-O events), one year (for YD warming), or 5000 years (for Interglacials)?
Ralph
>>http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/miller_01/
>>The dust effect.
What is this for, Salvatore?
It does not mention ice, snow or albedo.
So your point is?
R
>>Oldman
>>Krakatoa provided a good example to check with.
>>Can it get worse than that with forest fires?
We were not in an Ice Age when Krakatoa blew, Oldman.
The point is dust and soot on pristine white snow, not dust and soot on dirty fields.
R
>>‘The precession and eccentricity have slowed down a bit, but not by much.’
>>What do they attribute that to?
The Moon is slowing the Earth’s spin down, via tidal effects. A slower spin means a slower precession rate. Not sure how it will effect eccentricity. Ask Lief, he will know… 😉
R
>>‘The precession and eccentricity have slowed down a bit, but not by much.’
>>What do they attribute that to?
The Moon is slowing the Earth’s spin down, via tidal effects. A slower spin means a slower precession rate. Not sure how it will effect eccentricity. Ask Lief, he will know… 😉
.
>>so that the precession is faster and more pronounced as the top slows down.
That is a spinning top on a work-bench. The Earth has no ‘gravity exerting a torque on its tip’. The only gravity the Earth experiences is lateral, from the Sun, Moon and Jupiter, and it acts on both poles simultaneously.
R
.
Gyroscopes and Precession:
Since the motion of the Earth seems so similar to that of a gyroscope, it seems that it has been assumed that the same mechanism is at work … Even though they LOOK to be the same, they are actually somewhat OPPOSITE!
A child’s gyroscope is affected by the outside effect (gravity) where the gyroscope tries to FALL OVER. The Earth is affected by the outside effect(s) (the separate gravitation of the Sun and Moon, when either or both are OUT of the plane of the rotation of the Earth) where the Earth tries to STAND UP straighter!
http://mb-soft.com/public/precess.html
Ralph: interesting link re precession. We may do a post on this soon, but in a nutshell we find the numbers say the precession cycle splits into four quarters.
Link: ‘So we have NO precession around March 21, a MAXIMUM around June 21, NONE again around September 21 and MAXIMUM again around December 21!’ [= 4 quarters]
Availability of time series and in a good state seem to be an obstacle.
This from 2011 is kind of related, maybe it adds something, maybe not.
I vaguely recall getting the modulation out of something or other. In the end so much is missing or unreliable or plain wrong there seems little point, handwaving.
@ tchannon >>the link in the your post above provides a opportunity for a small diversion on my part (which perhaps should go into the other thread) –but anyway. You put a question there:> Should there be summing?
I have tried comparing Vostok to Gisp2 temp (polar) proxies and then both to similar from Kilimanjaro. My source was this https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png
Problem 1:> Why at Younger Dryas vostok to gisp vary by 1100 years in their upshoot when other info says they should go together. Vostok and Kilimanjaro temp rise correlate perfectly.
Point2 >if gisp2 is moved to correlate with the other two then some interesting things emerge. Somewhere near 2400bce vostok and gisp come together in a peak. Simultaneously Kilimanjaro dips. Something happens that warms the poles but freezes the equator. That equator sudden freeze appeared at the quelccaya ,also equatorial. vide Lonnie Thompson. It also supports Dodwell.
This is another indicator of unknown events but needs better study re temp proxies. Can anyone provide /suggest .?
>>Oldbrew
>>precession cycle splits into four quarters.
>>Quote:
>>‘So we have NO precession around March 21, a MAXIMUM around June 21,
>>NONE again around September 21 and MAXIMUM again around December 21!’
I think that quote is confusing. Precession happens all the time, it NEVER stops. It cannot stop.
What he is saying is that the FORCES that control the Earth’s precession are zero on March 21 and maximum on June 21. That is not the same as saying there is NO precession. The Earth will continue its wobble, just as a gyroscope will continue its wobble.
So the forces that govern the Earth’s precession and obliquity are not steady and continuous, they are a series of knocks, twice a year. And over greater expanses of time those same knocks are greater or smaller depending on the obliquity and eccentricity and what the Moon is doing.
All very complex.
R
‘All very complex.’ – Indeed.
‘The Moon is slowing the Earth’s spin down, via tidal effects. A slower spin means a slower precession rate. ‘
We don’t see that though?
‘The rate of general precession is currently about 50.29 arcseconds per year. At this rate, the equinoxes would make one revolution in about 25,770 years. However, the rate has been increasing slightly, decreasing the tropical year even more.’
http://www.astrosociety.org/edu/publications/tnl/45/globe3.html
At 50.31 arcseconds the precession would be about 25,760 years.
—
‘A competing theory, recently revived and redefined, holds that a major climatic factor in the last one million years is the changing inclination of the Earth’s orbit with respect to the invariable plane (a 100,000-year cycle). Around maximum, this inclination is thought to dip the Earth’s orbit low enough that a dust cloud between the Earth and the Sun reduces the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth and triggers a glacial cycle.’
http://www.astrosociety.org/edu/publications/tnl/45/globe4.html
This is a great thread with much info. which I will be saving.
My earlier mention of Krakatoa was intended to try to quantify the dust effect which in that case can be measured, and as a comparison.
Weather-wise here is Wiki’s quote “In the year following the eruption, average Northern Hemisphere summer temperatures fell by as much as 1.2 °C (2.2 °F).[9] Weather patterns continued to be chaotic for years, and temperatures did not return to normal until 1888.” Dust in the atmosphere resulted in cooling. Other info indicates that when it settled on snow it was quickly buried.
Krakatoa released tons of dust. Forest fires burn tons of wood, but that wood carbon needs to be converted to CO2 to support burning and convert tree moisture to steam. The percentage that remains as ash–I expect– is quite small in comparison.
The dust in the air would have been much thicker than any dust cloud in space. See this link which says dust clouds in space are relatively diffuse.
http://www.space.com/23683-giant-venus-dust-ring-nasa-stereo.html
You have to look for something else to explain polar glaciations, or equatorial permanent ice-fields.
oldman K Good info. Ralph thinks he has solved the problem . We could all say that if we made our speculations from our theories fit what we deem they should be and have the desired results.
oldmanK: your link says ‘The lifetime of dust trapped in the ring is only about 100,000 years’.
Krakatoa dust would only last a few years.
My point is that dust is not a main actor. It is diffuse enough in dust clouds not to cause severe cooling (krakatoa was far more dense and localised near earth) and neither will it be the cause of ice ablation when it settles ,again as krakatoa dust has shown..
Then again, trying to take a holistic approach, dust alone is very unlikely to fit the bill for the beginning or ending of glaciations..
Oven-fresh news, remotely related but with well founded implications:
http://www.newhistorian.com/new-study-agrarian-states-influenced-by-climate-change/5110/
Quelccaya is mentioned in my earlier post. Lonnie Thompson recorded extensive sudden freezing of that glacier at a time that has near correlation with the 2345Bce date (after his reconsidered dating). A sudden obliquity increase has a major cooling effect at this latitude, a point of maximum insolation reduction (from an earlier obliquity of circa 14.5deg as measured). In effect something similar to what caught out the Siberian mastodons while dining on buttercups.
Let the evidence lead the theory.
>>However, the rate has been increasing slightly,
>>decreasing the tropical year even more.
I wish they had explained how any why this could be so, or given references. Precession is a form of angular momentum, it would seem unlikely that the Earth can gain angular momentum, rather than lose it, especially when the Moon is robbing the Earth of its angular momentum. I will look further.
.
>>and neither will ice be the cause of ice ablation when it
>>settles, again as krakatoa dust has shown..
I don’t think that is correct. We know that soot can stay on the surface of ice sheets and considerably reduce their albedo, as this picture shows. Whether the soot get buried by furtehr snowfall is another matter. There are obviously a wide range of possible responses to soot settling on the Arctic, depending on how much settled and now strong the next snowfalls are.
Remember that during cold periods, like the Ice Ages, the D-O events and the Younger Dryas, there was much, much less snowfall than usual. These were very dry periods. So the soot could have stayed on the surface fairly easily. And remember that the D-O warming events were VERY rapid – just 5 or 10 years at most for an 8 degree warming. So the soot does not have to stay on the ice for decades or centuries, just a few short years.
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/arctic_soot.html
And I don’t think using Krakatoa is a good simile at all. Krakatoa was a tropical event, and the amount of dust that found its way to the Arctic was negligible. The D-O fires were in N America and N Asia, and very close to the ice sheets.
The only thing I have not found in the references, is how much carbon-soot was in the ice cores. I have found details of dust layers and details of combustion products of great fires, but no references to how much soot was found in the ice cores. I shall keep looking.
Cheers,
Ralph
The IAU recognizes that ‘the gravitational attraction of the planets make a significant contribution to the motion of the Earth’s equator, making the terms lunisolar precession and planetary precession misleading’.
The IAU recommends:
1. The terms lunisolar precession and planetary precession be replaced by
precession of the equator and precession of the ecliptic, respectively.
2. The IAU adopt the P03 precession theory, of Capitaine et al., (2003a,
Astron. Astrophys., 412, 567–586) for the precession of the equator
(Equations 37) and the precession of the ecliptic (Equations 38); the
same paper provides the polynomial developments for the P03 primary
angles and a number of derived quantities for use in both the equinox
based and CIO based paradigms.
3. The choice of precession parameters be left to the user.
(plus two more items)
Click to access cm06_94_PEWG.pdf
No.3 seems a bit strange?
>>Oldman
>>sudden obliquity increase has a major cooling effect at this latitude.
But obliquity cannot change suddenly. Calculate the mass of the Earth, and then the torque moment required to change its obliquity. That is why obliquity has a long 41,000 year oscillation, and only a 2 degree amplitude.
If you are looking for abrupt changes in climate, don’t assume that there will be corresponding abrupt changes in orbital configurations. It ain’t going to happen.
R
ralfellis>> The dust from Krakatoa was very quickly covered by snow, as recorded by some who checked it a few years after the event. Also do not assume aridity because that leads to dry tundra not forests with very little to burn. Trees/forests mean plenty of moisture.
Re obliquity the 41k years oscillation derives from planetary influence if I’m not mistaken, a secular reaction. I do not question that.
On the other hand a non-uniformly oblated rotating sphere that is not a solid (semi-fluid, viscous or whatever, non-uniformly oblated suddenly for some reason) would realise a new rotational axis without any change in total energy. No torque no energy required or exchanged. Just a partial non uniform mass displacement and the rotating mass assumes a new axis.
I risk proposing an example here, which admittedly is not an accurate representation. Ever seen the wobbling of a spin dryer with clothes in it, and when sometimes a piece of clothing shifts the whole rotor shifts its rotating axis (it does not rotate about the mechanical axis but about its inertial axis). The motor energy then is only overcoming friction.
Question: how did the earthquake at Japan shift the earth’s axis 40-10 inches?
Perhaps the sudden end of glaciations is down to a reduction in plant based aerosols ? On the Albedo post Ralf Ellis proposed that the reduction in co2 led to a massive die off of plant life which led to large fires and soot blanketing the ice.
But if a severe drop in co2 during a glaciation causes a large drop in plant life and forests in particular then that would lead to less aerosols and thus less clouds, so more solar energy, enough to kick off the interstitial with the background Milankovitch conditions suitable. Maybe some soot involved as well.
RE: ‘I wish they had explained how any why this could be so, or given references. Precession is a form of angular momentum, it would seem unlikely that the Earth can gain angular momentum, rather than lose it, especially when the Moon is robbing the Earth of its angular momentum.’
They can’t explain it, but it has been observed since 1900-ish to be true. That’s why the IAU has to keep calling conferences to amend the formula for rate of precession. Theory out of step with reality?
Look up this report:
progress report of the iau working group on precession and the ecliptic
aa.usno.navy.mil/publications/reports/Hiltonetal2005.pdf
It questions whether the Earth model is realistic. It gives a true picture of the unknowns/pitfalls when working with models.
Re “Precession is a form of angular momentum”, I think ralfellis got that wrong, not the IAU.
Some say there’s a reference frame problem in precession theory.
The idea is that the whole solar system could also be precessing relative to the ‘fixed stars’.
We know the precession rate is not fixed. Something has to explain that, and the Moon doesn’t because it should make precession slower as Ralph said, but observation shows the opposite. Also precession can’t continue to vary indefinitely in one direction or the Earth will really be ‘spinning like a top’ one day.
All a digression, I feel. The point is, that presession and obliquity are very long-term cycles that have been oscillating and precessing at about their current rate for millions of years. In which case, sudden changes in these celestial metronomes are NOT the reason for Ice Ages. And since the E.M. radiation of the Sun barely changes, that is an unlikely source of variation too.
That leaves solar magnetism oscillations (millennial changes?), and solar-terrestrial configuration changes.
The latter is the most likely because every Interglacial warming is associated with a Seasonal Great Year Summer (SGYS). That is a fact. But how are we to align the SGYS with an Interglacial cycle that misses out so many SGYS warming events – some as if they were not even there. That is the traditional problem, and the reason why the precessional SGYS has been dismissed as a cause of Interglacials.
But I think my CO2-desert-dust-albedo explanation makes sense of all this, and places the precessional SGYS at the very heart of the Ice Age modulation enigma.
Ralph
oldbrew, the earth is spinning like a top, but with one important difference. The fixed point about which all action takes place in the top is its point contact with the ground, whereas the earth moves about its centre of mass (better, its instantaneous c o m).
As to ralfellis’ “presession and obliquity are very long-term cycles that have been oscillating and precessing at about their current rate for millions of years” that is an assumption that available evidence says its wrong. There is no evidence in favour.
This is a good brief of it (with a caveat) http://mb-soft.com/public/precess.html
OldmanK, thanks for the link. Very interesting, and pertinent to our ‘why phi? question, which apparently requires energy transfer between planetary orbits and spin angular momenta.
A climate and geological mystery solved?
What created the many elliptical Carolina Bay landform depressions?
And what caused the Younger Dryas cooling period 12,900 years ago?
Could these two seemingly disparate topics be linked in any way? Ralph Ellis takes a look at current research on both of these subjects, and discovers that they are likely to be linked to a large meteoric impact in the Great Lakes region some 12,900 years ago. It was the ejecta from this impact that created the Carolina Bays, and it was the same ejecta that blanketed the Earth and caused the Younger Dryas cooling period.
https://www.academia.edu/17274053/The_Carolina_Bays_and_the_destruction_of_North_America
The extra terrestrial impact for the YD does not hold up and even if it did the YD is one of many abrupt climatic changes which were at least as significant as the YD.
This explanation is probably wrong.
Obliquity is needed along with precession/eccentricity to get the most dramatic effects from Milankovitch cycles.
Even so as the climatic historical data has shown periods like the OD ,YD, can occur at any time in relation to Milkankovitch Cycles meaning Ralph that there are other climatic factors at play.
Again the extra terrestrial impact does not hold up because the abrupt swings in the climate are far to many for this to be the answer.
This throws the extra terrestrial impact into serious question and lends support to the theory I have presented which is a composite of many factors which at times phase together and reach climatic thresholds to bring about a climatic change.
Any one that thinks they have THE climate solution is in denial.
My explanation which I posted Oct 13 at 2:52pm and 3:06pm I think is on the most correct path to explain abrupt climatic changes along with why Ice Ages come and go.
A test will be coming if this prolonged solar minimum reaches my stated solar parameters and the climate reacts in a more direct response.
My explanation is different from AGW theory and others in that my theory conforms to what the historical climatic data shows rather then have the historical climatic data conform to the theory which is what most of the other theories do to a varied degree.
Salvatore>>>The one variable to which climatic changes are very sensitive to is obliquity. A common opinion among researchers if that obliquity is key, especially to major polar glaciation at both poles simultaneously. But a 22-24 deg variation is far from enough.
I do not wish to go on about it but man-made evidence (both quantitative and qualitative that is easy to understand and proof of intentional design) of bigger changes is hard to beat or deny. It is also cyclic when it occurs, a major problem I found with many papers about it being caused by extra-terrestrial impact.
A major problem with most avenues of research is the gut rejection of anything cataclysmic that is beyond human control. The Paris big-do, and what is being said in many blogs is a sort of knee-jerk reaction to that. A general denial.
>>The extra terrestrial impact for the YD does not hold up
>>This explanation is probably wrong.
Gezz, Salvatore, you should know better than that. Why not read the article, before condemning it?
The whole point about the Younger Dryas article I posted, is that it SOLVES the many problems with the impact theory.
.
>>Historical data has shown periods like the OD ,YD, can occur
>>at any time in relation to Milkankovitch Cycles
>>meaning Ralph that there are other climatic factors at play.
Err, did you read the article? The whole point of the article, is that there ARE ‘other climatic factors at play’. Namely: CO2 reductions, plant extinctions, barran land formation, dust storms, low albedo on the ice sheets, increased insolation absorption, and rapid warming.
Did you get that?
Ralph
Re the effect of dust in the air see here: http://customers.hbci.com/~wenonah/history/535ad.htm
You can download the videos from youtube (in ‘secrets of the dead’ prts 1 &2.quite informative with references of actual experiences)
The article is wrongly not only trying to treat the YD as a single isolated abrupt climatic change but in addition does not address all the abrupt temperature changes within the YD.
I would say the impact theory as an explanation for the YD is next to zero.
Click to access cp-8-1473-2012.pdf
This is the best explanation I have come across for Ice Ages.
oldman K this study might be of interest to you.
>>It is also cyclic when it occurs, a major problem I found with
>>many papers about it being caused by extra-terrestrial impact.
Indeed, which is why the Younger Dryas impact is probably a one-off event, totally unconnected with the normal Ice Age cycle.
If the YD impact is as big as I think it was (as deduced by others before me), then this would have to be an almost unique event. You could not have seven of these impacts in the last million years, without someone noticing. So the normal Ice Ages are based upon celestial cycles.
Ralph
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/222671086_Reduced_solar_activity_as_a_trigger_for_the_start_of_the_Younger_Dryas
This theory makes the case that reduced solar activity may have been the trigger for the YD. I subscribe this take as being the most likely cause or explanation for the YD and all other various abrupt climatic changes tied in with the Arctic Iris Effect which Jim Steele, has presented.
When the climate of the earth is near the inter-glacial/glacial threshold area and the ice dynamic is in play it does not take much of a change in climatic forcing under that scenario to have a big rapid abrupt change in the climate , and once more this can vary back and forth which was so much the case 20000 to 10000 years ago.
All this superimposed upon the slow moving land/ocean arrangements, Milankovitch Cycles, and geo magnetic field strength , which I think play a role in bringing on the great Ice Ages.
The Ordovicion Ice Age for example being due to the fact that most of the land mass at that time was located where Antarctica is presently located but about 7x larger then present Antarctica.
Ralph were gong in circles the YD event is not unique therefore it’s cause is no different then all of the other similar abrupt climatic events which were as abrupt as the YD if not even greater in scope.
Indeed, which is why the Younger Dryas impact is probably a one-off event
Ralph says which is NOT the case.
I will say this I have no doubt impacts have played a role from time to time in the climate changing but on time scales probably tens of millions of years apart not thousands of years apart which is what happened to the climate 20000 to 10000 years ago to name the most recent period of very abrupt climatic changes.
>> http://www.clim-past.net/8/1473/2012/cp-8-1473-2012.pdf
>> This is the best explanation I have come across for Ice Ages.
A pretty weak study if ever there was one, cherry-picking the data they want to believe.
What they do here is prove that Interglacial warming is STRONGLY related to the N Hemisphere Great Year summer (fig 5) and only WEAKLY related to obliquity (fig 6). Which is exactly what I said.
But then they:
a. Fail to say why an Interglacial can end during a GY summer maximum.
b. Fail to say why some GY summer maximums are completely ignored by the climate.
My argument explains all of this, by saying that ALBEDO is the dominant factor in climate-temperature, rather than celestial cycles. The Earth’s Ice Age high albedo is strongly biased towards the cold end of the Ice Age cycle, no matter what the celestial cycles do. — Unless the climate is given a boost, by reducing the albedo via a build up of dust on the ice sheets.
Ralph
>>Ralph were gong in circles the YD event is not unique
Salvadore, the YD WAS a unique event. The other smaller cooling events did not have the dust and salt concentrations of the YD, demonstrating that the YD was different.
Ralph
No it was not a unique event.
As the historical climatic data shows the YD was nothing special.
From the above article according to the data the temp. change some 11000 years ago was smaller then 14 others.
Figure 4. Magnitudes of the largest warming/cooling events over the past 25,000 years. Temperatures on the vertical axis are rise or fall of temperatures in about a century. Event number 1 is about 24,000years ago and event number 15 is about 11,000 years old. At least three warming events were 20 to 24 times the magnitude of warming over the past century and four were 6 to 9 times the magnitude of warming over the past century. The magnitude of the only modern warming which might possibly have been caused by CO2. (1978-1998) is insignificant compared to the earlier periods of warming. (Plotted from data in Cuffy and Clow, 1997 and Alley, 2000)
(http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/24/easterbrook-on-the-magnitude-of-greenland-gisp2-ice-core-data/).
This explains it better. There are 15 events shown the YD not being unique.
My first sentence in my previous post was not correct.
Salvatore>> your link in the above post is particularly interesting, having something anomalous that I have been trying to figure. In the first graph the sudden temperature rise is given at around 10,000 BP. Wiki has a “Holocene temp var” for several sites and the date for gisp2 agrees perfectly, so wiki had copied correctly. Its here
But look at the sudden temp rise of both Vostok and Kilimajaro. The sudden rise is the same and concurrent, indicating global sudden change, but gisp2 is delayed by 1100 years. This is impossible and there must be a mismatch in the timeline. At points like these one can see through the obfuscations, intentional or not.
This is important because later large swings/changes around 3200BCE and 2345 BCE are supported by a lot of evidence. Both dates are conspicuous marks in dendrochronology, plus other evidence (3195 to building re-orientation in Switzerland and Malta{and here it is seen why} , read cataclysm).
Note also in a previous post of yours ” Ordovicion Ice Age for example being due to the fact that most of the land mass at that time was located where Antarctica is presently located”. An underlying assumption that this landmass change occurred over millions of years may be wrong too. Evidence exists that seem to point to relatively fast changes in landmass position and orientation.
In 2010 Prof. Ruddiman (quoted in the earlier paper you pointed out to me) wrote in ‘Science’ giving three possible reasons what may be wrong in the basics of most of the studies on climate. An admission that something is very wrong, generally.
Something to read:
http://gji.oxfordjournals.org/content/154/3/970.full
Note that the paper points to several attempts to explain obliquity “anomalies”, but none want to venture away from established thinking, to the extent of finding suitable assumptions to counter. But the process exists.
Then the sudden onset of climate changes are easy to explain, including the sudden shifts before and after the YD, as that event itself. It cannot be the orbital changes. As to other factors they are likely the result not the cause.
Thanks oldman k.
I will say this the problem with most theories such as Ralph’s is that they try to make the data fit their theory rather then have the theory conform to the data.
One thing I have learned in this climate study area is no one, and I mean no one has the climate puzzled solved.
From Salvatore>> ” no one, and I mean no one has the climate puzzled solved”. Agreed .
But data we have, of various kinds. Example>> The Sahara did not become a desert in millions of years but far quicker (quite sudden;5000 yrs ago, Piora oscillation). It was not climate change,but something else. Climate change is what happened to the Sahara as a result.
As it was said long ago: “The singer not the song”
@ oldmank. What could cause sudden obliquity change ? The sudden emptying of a large ice bound lake covering a substantial part of North America ? Lake Agassiz ?
@ J Martin >> See the below links
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/93JE00999/full
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/95PA00578/full
A possible cause is there. There is evidence of the cyclic changes, not slow but a sudden relaxation and cataclysmic. Several sources of evidence (mutually unrelated, eg ice cores; legends; historical statements that were extremely baffling, dendrochronolgy indicators, calendar design in that era (my subject)etc) point to these having taken place during the Holocene optimum. In fact it is the only explanation that fitted all the evidence.
See the other blog
[…] few months ago the Talkshop featured a thesis by Ralph Ellis based on his concept of the Great Year, namely the perihelion precession cycle. […]