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Sudden Dramatic Climate Change |
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| The lines of investigation in the following articles are a consequence of W. Broecker and G. Denton's audacious and unorthodox breakthrough article, "What Drives Glacial Cycles" (Scientific American, Jan. 1990). |
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In their breakthrough article the authors assert that the Earth's climate system is quantum in nature, and that the Earth's climate can "flip" - and indeed has done so in the geological past - between entirely different quantized states or "modes of operation"
They are right. What we call the "Newtonian Dynamics" of our everyday world are actually "Macro Quantum Dynamics". Based upon my discovery of the unified law of Change & Stability (see
CHANGE & STABILITY in these pages), I had asserted that the Earth's climate is quantum in my 1985 article "The Quantum Dynamics of our Biosphere" - which was completely ignored - and in my 1990 repeat of this assertion in my article "The Last Spring". The latter was considered (see ON THE RECORD in these pages) because the predicted escalating climatic extremes - as the "threshold " dynamics preceding a sudden climatic "flip" to an entirely different climatic quantum state, or mode of operation - had by then become at least conceivable.
And now we have endless empirical proof. The bottom line is that we are well into the "threshold dynamics" to an abrupt, mankind-driven "phase shift" (called "jump" and "band jump" in the following synopses; my emphases) of our biosphere to an entirely different global climate - and since the external conditions for another ice age are not a factor at this time, it will be to that of an oxygen-less "desert planet".
Original Abstracts:
ABRUPT DRAMATIC CLIMATE CHANGE
Studies of past climate changes indicate that the Earth system has experienced greater and more rapid changes over larger areas than was generally believed possible, with jumping between fundamentally different modes of operation in as little as a few years. Most of the last 100,000 years or longer has been characterized by large and abrupt regional-to-global climate changes, and agriculture and industry have developed during anomalously stable climatic conditions. New high-resolution analysis of sediment cores indicates these past changes have been caused by "band jumps" between modes of operation of the climate system. Recurrence of such band jumps is possible and might be affected by human activities.
R.B. Alley et al: Global climate change. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. US 31 Aug 99 96:9987
QY: Richard B. Alley [ralley@essc.psu.edu]
ON THE POSSIBILITY OF RAPID CLIMATE CHANGE
Over the course of geologic history, the environment on Earth has been far from static. Geologic evidence suggests that 600 million years ago the atmosphere lacked sufficient oxygen to support animal life.
The author reports that by examining ice cores from Greenland, he and his colleagues have determined that climate changes large enough to have extensive impacts on our society have occurred in a time-frame of less than 10 years. The author suggests that the climate of Earth could change significantly during a lifetime, that we are still a long way from being able to predict such a change, but we are getting closer to an understanding of how it might occur. A pressing concern is whether anthropogenic changes in the atmosphere of the planet might perturb climate stability.
The author points out that climate is the result of the exchange of heat and mass between the land, ocean, atmosphere, ice sheets, and space. As long as changes to the land, ocean, atmosphere, and ice sheets stay below certain thresholds, climate changes will occur slowly. But climate will change rapidly if those thresholds are crossed. Greenhouse warming, for example, by altering ocean circulation and the flow of tropical heat to the North Atlantic, could lead to rapid cooling in eastern North America, Europe and Scandinavia. Altered ocean circulation could lead to much larger changes. We have no experience predicting climate switches between stable modes.
Kendrick Taylor: Rapid climate change. American Scientist Jul/Aug 1999 87:320
QY: Kendrick Taylor [kendrick@dri.edu]
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