When the ice melts, the Earth spews fire

I do agree that large impacts have and will continue to affect the earth’s geology and biosphere. IMO though, it would take a pretty large or multiple impacts to have the same effect as thousands of underwater and above ground volcanoes erupting. Some climate researchers support the theory: all that is needed is enough moisture in the atmosphere, and we’ll have another age of ice. Warm up the oceans and you should see a rise in atmospheric moisture content.

Ice core data supports the theory that the earth’s normal climate is much colder than what we’re seeing today, and that we’re currently at the end of a typical 12K year warm period which themselves occur approximately every 100K years or so in the recent past (from 800K years of ice core data).

If we go with the theory that impacts cause glacial periods, we have to address the following:

First, is ice core data accurate and reliable?

If so, what causes the earth to warm up for 12K years after the 100K year cold period? The climate hardly knows when the asteroids/comets are due to return.

What causes the warming? Does the sun somehow “know” it’s time to warm up the planets through some yet unknown force or through transitioning certain areas of space periodically?

What are the orbits of 100K year impactors or does the solar system transition fields of periodically?

Why does the ice core data show an increase in CO2 prior to and post colder ice age entries?

One thing I have been considering: the possibility of comet ISON breaking up as it swings around the sun next year, if it makes it that far. Depending upon where a possible breakup might occur, the earth could wind up in the path of some of the debris.

It's ALL interesting food for thought! :)

Thanks Errant.

Ice core data supports the theory that the earth’s normal climate is much colder than what we’re seeing today, and that we’re currently at the end of a typical 12K year warm period which themselves occur approximately every 100K years or so in the recent past (from 800K years of ice core data)... what causes the earth to warm up for 12K years after the 100K year cold period? ...What causes the warming?

Use of the ice core data means the assumption that none of the ice was laid down quickly, iow, that there is a ring structure analogous to tree rings, with a stable period of accumulation.

Large impacts are usually on open water, due to the Earth's surface being mostly water; the energy puts the enormous amount of water into the atmosphere as vapor, and it precipitates over a short period of time as ice, snow, sleet, etc, after losing heat at high altitude, and any dust cover darkens the globe, such that the darkness and attendant cooling continues for a long period of time (weeks, months, sometimes a few years). There's no change in the solar output, other than what it was going to do anyway, but it takes many a summer to melt miles of ice, even after the cloud cover is gone.

The distribution of the ice age glaciers varies a great deal, and supports this impact model, even showing where to look for the impact craters, e.g., somewhere near the center of the distribution.

Thanks for the interesting description of a large impact event over water. You raise some interesting questions (large increase in ice accumulation and etc.). Certainly you're talking some extinction level event.

There is a theory out there concerning an impact in Argentina over 3M years ago that wiped out some South American species as being the last major impact, and most know about the big one North of the Yucatan that is attributed to the demise of the dinos, 65M years ago.

Likewise, really large volcano eruptions have been attributed to major losses of flora and fauna. A few came close to wiping out Homo sapiens if you can trust the work of certain researchers.

Evidence seems to support large impacts occurring over millions of years while major volcanic eruptions occur over thousands or hundreds of thousands of years. Take another look at the ice core data chart. As far as I know, the science behind its accuracy is pretty solid (please direct me to evidence otherwise).

Looking at only the last 400K years, it’s hard to miss the four unusual periods of VERY short term warming (relatively) before temperatures fall again. The odds are good that some sort of cyclical phenomenon is causing this warming. IMO, either the sun through increased output, or heat pulses from the earth’s interior (warming oceans) are the likely candidates. I don’t see how an impact would cause a warming period; much less not leave recent evidence behind, since we’re at the end of the current 12K year warm period.

“The science behind its accuracy” is the assumption that nothing has happened out of the ordinary, and that there are therefore definitive layering patterns representing individual years. In the case of the Eltanin impact (that may be what you referred to as the Argentinian impact 3M years ago, it was actually about 2M years ago, and offshore in the Pacific) laid down an iridium signal found in the ocean bed cores.

https://www.google.com/search?q=eltanin+impact+iridium

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/1248414/posts

The problem with *any* gradualist model for massive glaciation (the ice ages iow) is that those assume that cold will make it work, but don’t have any mechanism by which the Earth can stay cold enough that snow won’t melt but with warm enough waters that the hydrologic cycle will continue to contribute snow accumulation. This problem is why there is so much disagreement among the gradualists as to how it happened, and why the basic consensus doesn’t work, merely restates the lowest common gradualist view — that glaciation happened gradually.

My problem with CO2 and Antarctic cores is twofold — number one, despite the “lag” between higher temperatures as inferred from proxy data and the later increase in CO2 (ditto), the Antarctic core data is pointed to by the AGW propagandists (including those formerly allowed to operate on FR) as evidence that CO2 causes warming, IOW, that the studies themselves only came about due to the political seduction of the sciences; and number two, again, that they operate under the assumption that there’s been no sudden deposition of ice.

Since the conclusion is completely founded on the assumption, the conclusion can’t be pointed to as evidence of the assumption.

Iridium in the seabed means iridium may have been deposited in the lower layers of the Antarctic ice. If someone drills a 3M year core, with the dating of the core based on the gradualist assumption, they probably won’t find any iridium. Since most of the icecap was laid down at one time (or possibly in several widely spaced episodes; again, the Sun doesn’t have much time to melt miles of ice in the Antarctic, but the N Pole ice is thinner, afloat on the ocean, and melts every year in the 24 hour days of summer), the iridium concentration should be greatest near the foundation, although it could also be spread out through the entire layer that was laid down over a short interval.

Since the evidence (see the link to the FR topic for more links and info) is that Antarctica was temperate less than 3M years ago, the ice cap there can’t be 30 million years old — that 30M year figure is of course based on the continental drift model, rather than actual data from Antarctica.

Thanks again, Errant!

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