Ice Ages and interglacials : measurements, interpretation and models / Donald Rapp.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rapp, Donald, 1934-

Contributor:

Alumni and Friends Memorial Book Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Climatic changes.

Physical Description:

xxii, 263 pages : illustrations, maps. ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Berlin ; Chichester : Springer, 2009.

Summary:

The unusually warm period that the Earth has been experiencing over the past 11,000 years or so is an interglacial; over the previous 100,000 years a long build-up of gigantic ice sheets culminated in the last glacial maximum about 20,000 years ago when so much of the Earth's water was tied up as ice that the oceans were lowered by more than 100 meters. This pattern of long, slow build-up of ice ages interspersed by relatively shorter interglacial periods has been repeated many times.

During the last ice age, humans developed elaborate tools and homo sapiens migrated from Africa to Europe as well as from Asia to North America via the Bering Straits. However, it wasn't until the ice age ended that agriculture began - and with it the foundation of modern civilization. Today, we are experiencing climate change that may be partly due to industrialization, land clearing, and other elements of human activity. Predictions have been made that this could trigger or prevent future ice ages from occurring. It is therefore not surprising that there is enormous interest in the mechanisms which trigger the onset of ice ages, as well as what causes them to end so abruptly.

Ice Ages and Interglacials reviews the methodologies used and the evidence from surface geology, ice cores, ocean sediments and other data sources to summarize what is known about past ice ages and interglacials. It then elaborates the various theories that have been proposed to explain their occurrence, with particular emphasis on the predominant astronomical theory.

This book provides by far the most complete comparison of ice age theories with a broad range of data from many sources.

Contents:

1 Life and climate in an ice age 1

1.1 Continental climates during the Ice Age 1

1.2 The glacial world-according to Wally 8

1.3 Ice Age forests 10

2 Variability of the Earth's climate 13

2.1 Factors that influence global climate 13

2.2 Stable extremes of the Earth's climate 16

2.3 Continental drift and continental geometry as a factor in paleoclimate change 19

2.3.1 Effects of continental geometry 19

2.3.2 Evolution of glaciation near the south pole ~34 million years ago 23

2.3.3 The effect of the Isthmus of Panama on NH glaciation in the past 2,700,000 years 25

2.4 Ice ages in the recent geological past 29

2.5 Geological evidence of ice ages 30

3 Ice core methodology 37

3.1 History of ice core research 37

3.2 Dating ice core data 42

3.2.1 Introduction 42

3.2.2 Age markers 43

3.2.3 Counting layers visually 45

3.2.4 Layers determined by measurement 49

3.2.5 Ice flow modeling 50

3.2.6 Other dating methods 53

3.2.7 Synchronization of dating of ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica 54

3.2.8 GISP2 experience 54

3.2.9 Tuning 55

3.2.10 Flimsy logic 56

3.3 Processing ice core data 58

3.3.1 Temperature estimates from ice cores 58

3.3.2 Climate variations 65

3.3.3 Trapped gases 65

4 Ice core data 67

4.1 Greenland ice core historical temperatures 67

4.2 Antarctica ice core historical temperatures 71

4.2.1 Vostok and EPICA data 71

4.2.2 Homogeneity of Antarctic ice cores 73

4.3 North-south synchrony 76

4.4 Data from high-elevation ice cores 79

4.5 Carbon dioxide 80

4.6 Sudden climate changes 83

5 Ocean sediment data 87

5.1 Introduction 87

5.2 Chronology 92

5.3 Universality of ocean sediment data 97

5.4 Summary of ocean sediment ice volume data 98

5.5 Comparison of ocean sediment data with polar ice core data 99

5.6 Historical sea surface temperatures 102

5.7 Ice-rafted debris 103

6 Other data sources 105

6.1 Devil's Hole 105

6.1.1 Devil's Hole data 105

6.1.2 Comparison of Devil's Hole data with ocean sediment data 106

6.1.3 Devil's Hole: global or regional data? 108

6.1.4 Comparison of Devil's Hole data with Vostok data 109

6.2 Speleothems in caves 110

6.3 Magnetism in rocks and loess 113

6.3.1 Magnetism in loess 113

6.3.2 Rock magnetism in lake sediments 113

6.4 Pollen records 114

6.5 Physical indicators 116

6.5.1 Ice sheet moraines 116

6.5.2 Coral terraces 116

6.5.3 Mountain glaciers 118

6.6 Red Sea sediments 118

7 Summary of climate variations 121

7.1 Origin of glaciation-past 34 million years 121

7.2 The past 3 million years 121

7.3 The past 800,000 years 122

7.4 The most recent ice age and its aftermath 122

7.5 The last termination 123

7.6 North-south synchrony 125

7.7 Carbon dioxide and methane 125

8 Overview of the various models for ice ages in the recent past (3 million years ago to the present) 127

8.1 Introduction 128

8.2 Variability of the Sun 129

8.3 Astronomical theory 130

8.4 Volcanism 131

8.5 Greenhouse gases 134

8.6 Role of the oceans 134

8.6.1 Glacial-interglacial cycles: the consensus view 134

8.6.2 Sudden climate change: the consensus view 138

8.6.3 Wunsch's objections 141

8.7 Models based on clouds 147

8.7.1 Extraterrestrial dust accretion 148

8.7.2 Clouds induced by cosmic rays 149

8.7.3 Ocean-atmosphere model 152

8.8 Models based on the southern hemisphere 153

9 Variability of the Earth's orbit: Astronomical theory 155

9.1 Introduction 155

9.2 Variability of the Earth's orbit 157

9.2.1 Variability within the orbital plane 157

9.2.2 Variability of the orbital plane 159

9.3 Calculation of solar intensities 160

9.4 Importance of each orbital parameter 162

9.5 Historical solar irradiance at higher latitudes 165

9.6 Connection between solar variability and glaciation/deglaciation cycles according to astronomical theory 169

9.6.1 Models for ice volume 170

9.6.2 Review of the Imbries' model 178

9.6.3 Memory model 181

9.7 A model based on eccentricity 181

9.8 North or south? 183

10 Comparison of astronomical theory with data 185

10.1 Introduction 185

10.2 Comparison of data with astronomical theory 186

10.2.1 Direct comparison of the variability of solar intensity with ice core data 188

10.2.2 Comparison of Imbries' ice volume model with ocean sediment data 194

10.3 Spectral analysis 196

10.3.1 Introduction 196

10.3.2 Spectral analysis of solar and paleoclimate data 201

10.4 Status of our understanding 206

11 Future prospects 211

11.1 The next ice age (or lack thereof) 211

11.1.1 Introduction 211

11.1.2 Orthodoxy in climatology 212

11.1.3 Effect of CO₂ growth on global temperature 216

11.1.4 Other evidence 228

11.1.5 Will global warming prevent or initiate the next ice age? 233

11.2 Approaches for improving our understanding 237

11.2.1 The need to depoliticize climate change 237

11.2.2 Technical progress 240.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Alumni and Friends Memorial Book Fund.

ISBN:

9783540896791

3540896791

OCLC:

297148353