Ice behaving badly.
The increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere due to human activity will contribute to future sea-level rises, but new research has revealed that rapid ice age sea-level drops were not caused by changes in CO2 concentrations.
The international study involving ANU found that the climate during the last ice age, which ended tens of thousands of years ago, could flip with smaller, more localised disruptions such as the discharge of huge masses of ice.
"During the last ice age, the state of the climate could flip with relatively small disturbances. Ice discharges were of sufficient volume to suddenly change the sea level by 10 to 15 metres in a matter of decades."
Dr Esat said the study found that abrupt sea-level drops during the Last Glacial Maximum were not precipitated by any concrete climate indicators, such as changes in carbon dioxide levels or temperature. "Transitions appear to have occurred spontaneously," he said.
http://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/ice-age-sea-level-drops-not-caused-by-co2-level-changes
I wouldn't be too worried about this one. Spray some thin, bio-neutral dark material on the ice and it should melt back. Sure, there would be countless, probably devastating side-effects, but at least stopping an ice age is manageable.
ReplyDeleteIndeed. More interesting, I thought, was the finding that temperature and sea (and therefore also ice ?) level don't correlated well. Reminds me of this :
ReplyDeletehttp://nautil.us/issue/62/systems/why-our-intuition-about-sea_level-rise-is-wrong-rp
... but I didn't get around to reading it in its entirety, which is why I haven't posted it.
I'm very interested in the period of increasing sea levels following the most recent glacial maximum. Most especially, I am interested in any stories of underwater archaeology which uncovers civilizations which existed on the formerly dry land. I have heard that during the glacial maximum, Indonesia was a large landmass instead of a series of islands. What treasurers lie under water in that region?
ReplyDeleteAlso, some people speculate that the water rose very rapidly in certain places at certain times due to glacial lakes suddenly emptying into the sea. One theory speculates that a meteorite hit the laurentide ice sheet and caused rapid catastrophic melting and rapid catastrophic sea level rise.
All that I have seen so far is fringe theories. But I suspect that careful study of this prehistoric period would yield fascinating results.