Just had an enlightening dinner with Bill Gray. An hour with Bill is more educational than a lifetime of reading global warming research.
Bill explained tonight that the recent spell of ice ages (~3 million years ago) coincided with the closing of the isthmus of Panama. This isolated the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and created the current pattern of regular glacial episodes. The Atlantic now goes through warm episodes of surface evaporation and buildup of dense saline water at the surface, followed by cold periods where the dense saline water sinks and brings up cold water from depth.
Prior to the closing of the isthmus, the Pacific and Atlantic waters mixed and remained a more even and warmer temperature.
Always a pleasure to hear a climate theory which actually seems plausible.
But…but…but…has this been peer reviewed? If not, it’s obvious we should ignore it…
My (sarc) tag dissppeared. Should be obvious though. I am extremely jealous of your time w Bill!
97% of scientists disagree with Bill! So he’s wrong! Democracy! Shut up racist!
It’s so easy to “win” when you’re “progressive”. I think I’ll switch sides, take a break from all this intellectual heavy lifting and just practice shouting “racist! racist! racist!”
The Atlantic now goes through warm episodes of surface evaporation and buildup of dense saline water at the surface, followed by cold periods where the dense saline water sinks and brings up cold water from depth.
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New to me as a cause, or contributory cause of ice ages. Is this postulated as the reason for the 100 thousand years of cold, and 12000 to 18000 year interglacial. ( The warm builds up until a massive overturning?) I do not quiet follow this of course, just looking for more understanding.
Is their a significant salinity division between the surface and the deeper waters of the Atlantic now.
The Gulf Stream is driven by salinity differences.
The fact that the ice age(s) began rather abruptly 3 million years ago would seem to cast doubt on other theories like Malinkovitch cycles.
The intensity of the Gulf Stream is driven by a thermohaline gradient, yes, but the origin of the Gulf Stream is the continental deflection of the warmer Equatorial currents arising from the Coriolis force of the rotating Earth.
Meaning that the Gulf Stream will vary in speed and intensity from year to year, and so will the North Atlantic Currents circulating to the Arctic Ocean and returning, and must be a large if not the most important influence upon Arctic ice cover from year to year.
Time to widen the Panama Canal?!
Yes, stop the Ice Ages! Blow the living crap out of Panama!
Oh wait …
we could revive Operation Plowshare, and use nukes to dig a sea level canal deep/wide enough to fix the issue.
plus, the shores will glow in the dark, improving navigation safety. 😉
Can’t we just capsize Central America by putting troops on one side?
And when the straights of Magellan close, we get glaciation? I have heard this one before. Unlike some others, it does fit all the facts.
John Kehr talked about it in his book saying the closing is what made the North Pole to join the South pole in have glacial ice cover formation: http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/data/
In the book he points to published science papers that make the case for it.
Tim Cullen has an excellent article similar to this on his Malaga Bay forum, but suggests it is the opening of Drake’s Passage that may have caused Antarctic Glaciation to start.
They both talk about Oceonic Flows.
http://malagabay.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/the-drake-passage-impact-event/
gator69……you may be on to something
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cesSRfXqS1Q
Runner up for Obama’s Science Czar.