The Significance Of The Paleoclimatology Subject Nowadays
Recent warming of the earth’s climate is unambiguous, rather, often attributed to the increasing levels of greenhouse gases due to the burning of fossil fuel and other Volatile Organic Compounds (V. O. Cs) present in the atmosphere, However, VOCs are just one of many reasons, (not the only Catalyst) that affects the warming of earth's climate for prolonged periods. Over a span of millennia’s, there have been many shifts, changes, and events on a global scale, that resulted in the warming of the earth natural climate. It is necessary to study the natural climate past and present to understand planet Earth’s future, in short, - Pass events, affects present day climates. It can be given that there is a more supplementary explanation, to the warming of the Earth, in an area of study know as paleoclimatology.
What is paleoclimatology?
Paleoclimatology is the study of climatic conditions of past geological ages. Paleoclimatology, seeks to explain climate variations for all parts of the Earth during any given geologic period, starting from the initial formation of the Earth. Similar in ways that archaeologists study fossils and other physical clues of land, to gain insight into the past, paleo climatologists study several types of environmental evidence. Over the millennia’s, the Earth has kept records of its climate conditions preserved in tree rings, locked in the skeletons of tropical coral reefs, sealed in glaciers, ice caps, buried in laminated sediments from lakes and the ocean – proxy data. Paleontologist use proxies to reconstruct those environments, to estimate past conditions, extending our understanding of climates, back hundreds to millions of years, along with models to try an construct a theory to explain these findings.
Paleoclimatology is important to us because, it teaches us about the importance and impact of the changing levels of carbon dioxide present in the environment, mainly the atmosphere but can also be found in field samples, past changes in the ocean/atmospheric circulation, what has occurred naturally in the past, time scales, climate sensitivity, rate of change in tectonic, orbital abrupt and adaptation of ecosystem. These data findings have suggested the environment before, up until this point, has affected Ocean acidification, declining in artic sea ice, seal levels rising, decreased snow cover, glacial retreat, shrinking ice sheets, warming oceans, global temperature rise are all rapid climate changes, fueling events such as extreme winds, rainfall, heat waves, droughts, mass extinctions and spontaneous burst of life. These events, over a long period of millennia’s, suggests there is a cycle in play, yes!
Earth has a climatic cycle in which is greatly influenced by solar events. As small changes in degrees in terms of angles and temperature affects climate events and is further explained later on by the Milankovitch cycle - for now focusing in the subdivision on how these events are captured, the years have been subdivided into periods based on the geological data, into smaller units of time. These smaller units of time are referred to as ‘era, ’- the era we’re focusing on is the Paleozoic era, for the reason, of its rapid fluctuation in development, as opposed to the Mesozoic and Cenozoic, which in their own right, have substantial arguments. The Paleozoic is a collective time that can be separated into smaller time frames as listed; Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous and Permian, all have individual recollections of these events found the natural records. The Paleozoic is best known for the Cambrian explosion, a sudden surge of life causing rapid evolution, which is contradicted by the greatest extinction event in Earth history found in the Permian era – an explosion of life and then extinction. A factoid is that, the Paleozoic takes its name from the Greek word for “ancient life. ”
As we learn from the past eras, we test for its future impacts which are of critical concern worldwide. Ecosystems, water availability, ocean acidity and circulation, sea-level rise, and natural hazards all interact with or respond to climate change. A testimonial to this is process of glaciation in the past and what it does to the land scape when it is thawed. Quoting my lecture and as researched “Land affected by glaciation over millions of years, results in the land that is thawed over a large-scale form desert - usually”.
Proof of concept is the characteristics of different rocks depend on the environment in which the sediments were deposited. Some sands and gravels are dropped by glaciers as they melt and they become a distinctive rock called till. Where till is found there must have been glaciers and therefore it must have been cold. Rocks that form in a hot desert environment are often colored red with iron deposits making deserts, Also, at high temperatures, sea water can evaporate quickly leaving behind a layer of salt forming miles of salt flats, on the ground which becomes preserved in the rocks and is another indicator of a hot climate - this is just one example.
Another, is the nature of tress and how sensitive there are to the climate. Big trees in your backyard are keeping a detailed climate record for thousands of years. Over this long lifetime, a tree can experience a variety of environmental conditions: wet years, dry years, cold years, hot years, early frosts, forest fires and more. Think! how do trees keep track of this information? To complete the initial statement, trees are sensitive to local climate condition and they give information about that area’s local climate in the past, by storing data on layer by layer on internal rings. For example, tree rings tend to grow wider in warm, wet years and they are thinner in years when it is cold and dry. If the tree has experienced stressful conditions, such as a drought, the tree might hardly grow at all in those years. These proxies, can extend our knowledge of climate from hundreds to millions of years.
One of the strongest arguments to concept, is the proxies found in ice, Darwin attributes evolution to be “the change in the characteristics of a species over several generations”. During these vibrant eras, vertebrates, and invertebrates alike experienced climatic changes that assisted in the process of evolution, by subdividing existing species (in a process known as speciation). As evolution persists through the eras together with climatization, there is a major event, comparatively, a cycle that is responsible for a considerable part of climatization and evolution alike - known as Glaciation. In addition, glaciation is affected by the Milankovitch Cycle - these movements are related to the Earth’s orbit around the Sun is a cyclical. There are three of them: eccentricity, oblique, and precession. These three cycles combine to affect the amount of solar heat that’s incident on the Earth’s surface and subsequently influence climatic patterns.
Eccentricity refers to the path of the Earth’s orbit around the sun is not a perfect circle, but an ellipse. This elliptical shape changes from less elliptical (nearly a perfect circle) to more elliptical and back, and is due to the gravitational fields of neighbouring planets (particularly the large ones – Jupiter and Saturn). The measure of the shape’s deviation from being a circle is called its eccentricity. That is, the larger the eccentricity, the greater is its deviation from a circle. Thus, in terms of eccentricity, the Earth’s orbit undergoes a cyclical change from less eccentric to more eccentric and back. One complete cycle for this kind of variation lasts for about 100, 000 years. ObliqueWe know the earth is spinning around its own axis, which is the reason why we have night and day. However, this axis is not upright. Rather, it tilts at angles between 22. 1-degrees and 24. 5 degrees and back. These angles are measured between the angle of the axis to an imaginary line normal (perpendicular) to the Earth’s plane of orbit. A complete cycle for the oblique lasts for about 41, 000 years.
Greater tilts mean that the hemispheres closer to the Sun, i. e. , during summer, will experience a larger amount of heat than when the tilt is less. In other words, regions in the extreme upper and lower hemispheres will experience the hottest summers and the coldest winters during a maximum tilt.
Aside from the tilt, the axis also wobbles like a top. A complete wobble cycle is more or less 26, 000 years. This motion is caused by tidal forces from the Sun and Moon. Precession as well as tilting are the reasons why regions near and at the poles experience very long nights and very long days at certain times of the year. For example, in Norway, the Sun never completely descends beneath the horizon between late May to late July.
The Milankovitch Cycles are among the arguments fielded by detractors of the Global Warming concept. According to them, the Earth’s current warming is just a part of a series of cyclical events that take thousands of years to complete, and hence cannot be prevented.
