The Ice Ages!!

[Doctordick]

Well, I thought I would make a post to the Speculations category which I myself see as speculation. As I have mentioned elsewhere, I have a Ph.D. in theoretical physics awarded in 1971 by Vanderbilt University. I went into graduate study in physics because, from my experiences, it seemed that only mathematicians and physicists were the only authorities who made any serious effort to explain the basis of their assertions. Clearly mathematics was pure logic and had nothing to do with reality (the issue I wanted to understand). Physicists gave me answers which seemed well reasoned out. Whenever they could not explain some aspect of the accepted theory, they would say "well you are above my education there, you need talk to someone with more eduction in that area".

That was the pressure which led me to graduate studies in physics. Because I was interested in understanding the universe I found myself in, I had a habit not possessed by any of the other graduate students at Vanderbilt university. When I was given an assignment to read some ancient journal article, I did not read only that article but rather, read the entire journal from cover to cover.

That yields a rather different impression of publication. If you read only the referenced stuff, you get the impression that scientists are intelligent people. If you read everything your impressions are quite different. My impression was that most of the published articles were not worth the paper they were printed on.

None the less, I occasionally ran into a publication which, to me, made a lot of sense. One of those publications had to do with ice ages. Some marine biologist had published, in a physics journal, an explanation of the ice ages. Why he published in a physics journal is totally beyond me.

at any rate, his explanation made a lot of sense to me and my reaction was "hey, someone has finally found a decent explanation of the last five ice ages.

Since I was involved in physics the "ice age thing" was of no significance and I essentially forgot about it. However, several years later, Apple came up with a computer capable of interacting with the "internet" and I bought one"

A guy named Que (I may have misrepresented his name) gave a course in the creation ofprograms on the machine. One of the instructions in the lessons was often "hit Q" and most of us would walk up to Que and punch him on he shoulder. We all knew the instruction had to do with the "quit instruction" but it was a fun thing anyway.

AT any rate, there was an archeologist in that class with me and I brought up that article I had read. He had never heard of it and we discussed the thing. I have never spoken to him since that date but I still remember then article.

A marine biologist had been looking at the fossilized stuff in the mud under the gulf of mexico. He had seen a spike in the temperature of the gulf waters which exceeded anything which could be explained by solar radiation. His concern was "where did this huge surge of energy come from", The date of the spike corresponded to exactly the end of the last ice age, His conclusion was that somewhere on earth a huge volume of water had converted to Ice.

His explanation was that open water in the arctic ocean would essentially create "lake effect snows" on the northern continents. Such heavy snows would continue until the heat from the ocean currents could no longer keep the arctic ocean open water. At that point the arctic ocean would freeze over and the "ice age" would essentially be over. The glaciers would begin to melt and the whole thing just starts over.

It clearly explains why each ice age is less extensive as in each case, the case previous event was terminated earlier (ice in antarctica has reduced the amount of glacier creation required to create freeze the arctic ocean).

Now this is indeed a speculation. Do I have any comments? I can't give any references to the article as it was published over fifty years ago.

Have fun -- Dick

[pavelcherepan]

I can't answer in length now, but still a few points:

 

- not previous ice age, but current. We're still in it

- if arctic ocean is warm enough to not be frozen, how come in latitudes south of it it snows heavily?

- I don't think ice ages are getting shorter. Could you show where you found this assumption?

- can you give a link to the paper you're referring to?

[michel123456]

(...)

A marine biologist had been looking at the fossilized stuff in the mud under the gulf of mexico. He had seen a spike in the temperature of the gulf waters which exceeded anything which could be explained by solar radiation. His concern was "where did this huge surge of energy come from", The date of the spike corresponded to exactly the end of the last ice age, His conclusion was that somewhere on earth a huge volume of water had converted to Ice.

 

His explanation was that open water in the arctic ocean would essentially create "lake effect snows" on the northern continents. Such heavy snows would continue until the heat from the ocean currents could no longer keep the arctic ocean open water. At that point the arctic ocean would freeze over and the "ice age" would essentially be over. The glaciers would begin to melt and the whole thing just starts over.

 

It clearly explains why each ice age is less extensive as in each case, the case previous event was terminated earlier (ice in antarctica has reduced the amount of glacier creation required to create freeze the arctic ocean).

 

(...)

Please explain again. I understand nothing.

[TheDivineFool]

Ditto michel123456.

 

I didn't understand a thing.

[Doctordick]

"- not previous ice age, but current. We're still in it"

I have always been told that the "ice ages" referred to the times when the northern continents were buried under glaciers. The ice ages end when the ice begins to recede.

I am not at all an expert in the field but I had the impression that there have been five ice ages and that, in each case, the actual extent of the ice was less than the previous. My wife and I generally drive to Denver every year and in Oklahoma there is a short span of hills which are considered to be the rubble left by one of the early ice ages when the glaciers ceased expanding and began to recede.

"- if arctic ocean is warm enough to not be frozen, how come in latitudes south of it it snows heavily?"

Because the arctic ocean is warmed by the ocean currents flowing through the Bering Strait and gulf stream. Why was there open water north of Siberia while the ground in Siberia was still frozen? Or even better than that, why is there Snow in Iceland when the water around it is not frozen?

"- I don't think ice ages are getting shorter. Could you show where you found this assumption?"

I just googled "number of ice ages" and I suspect we are using different definitions of an "ice age". Apparently I am speaking of what are now referred to as "Quaternary glacial cycles". Sorry about that.

"- can you give a link to the paper you're referring to?"

No I can't. As I said earlier, when I was a graduate student I used to read the referenced journals from cover to cover. Not all of them but only the journals which contained the references having to do with my research. I just looked at my thesis and there are about fifty references there dated between 1952 and 1969. I know I read some journals from the 1800's and perhaps even earlier so those references must have been related to some classes I had taken. At any rate the event was better then fifty years ago. And I haven't talked about it with anyone except to that archeologist (I think he brought up his interest in those rock piles where the glaciers stopped.)

Have fun - Dick

[studiot]

 

Doctordick

Or even better than that, why is there Snow in Iceland when the water around it is not frozen?

 

Snow is frozen fresh water.

Seawater is salt, what is the freezing point of seawater?

 

The ice age timing is well defined by the Milankovich cycles.

It has to do with the variation of the tilt of the earth and when the southern and northern hemispheres are at perihelion and aphelion which affects the radiation input to each.

 

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/milankovitch.html

Edited April 22, 2015 by studiot