A Return to Phanerozoic Average Sea Level?

[zankaon]

Might we be near the end of a large cyclical regression; not so different from Permian end regression? Statistically might it not seem more likely that we are due to revert at least towards an average of sea level for overall Phanerozoic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phanerozoic" , or even a further transgression? Might this be a natural underlying trend, independent of any superimposed anthropomorphic effect? Might we be headed for an Eocene/Paleocene world?

30 million years hence, what might our 'present' stratum (pl: strata) of say 10 million years look like? Might there be any evidence of mankind? For example, if we occupy the middle of such strata, then plus or minus 5 million years. For the past 5 million years, there was no effect. For the future 5 million years, transgression and Yellowstone's Western and Midwest repeated ash fallout would seem to reveal nature's dominant hand. For 200 meter elevation of sea level to less than Cretaceous peak, most of southern U.S. would be inundated, and likewise for eastern coast. The Seaway would flood and enlarge Great Lakes into an inland sea. All coastal cities, and inland lake ports would become reefs initially, and then dissolution. Humanity would would once again be on the move. Therefore, might there be no evidence of mankind's handiwork in such strata (stratum); not even hard plastic cherts? So from a geological perspective, mankind's impact on the environment might be quite negligible, in comparison to nature's broader, deeper, more sustainable ways. Does our myopia greatly underestimate nature's scope and impact, in comparison to that of mankind's? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level"

 

[Andre]

Quite a lot of speculations no? Little use to philosophize about the next ten million years.

Apart from that, there are a few things to say about that sea level graph in wiki, a better source here.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/ipcc2007/fig68.jpg

First of all, one could wonder where all that water came from, after all, 125 meters sea level rise is about equivalent to two Antarctic ice sheets, which is still there.

Of course it is long believed that http://stommel.tamu.edu/~baum/paleoveg/veg-adams-big.gif challenges that rather convincingly (fig 1):

So it would be interesting to see where all that water came from.

A second problem is the timing. It has been argued here that rather extensive northern hemisphere warming started much earlier, some 17-18 thousand years ago while the sea level rise really started to accellerate around 15 thousand years ago, with the so called Melt Water Pulse 1A.

I made a thread about that a long time ago, demonstrating that with the current standing of the research neither the Antarctic nor the North American ice sheets could have been the cause of that accelerated sea level rise.

Maybe we are looking at something different.

 

[Andre]

In addition to that there are the benthic foraminifera isotope series, which swing in correlation with the isotopes in the ice sheets. However because the oceanic bottom water is rather constant, it is believed that these (oxygen) isotopes are a proxy for sealevel. Due to fractination/destillation effects, when more water, with light isotope ratios, is on the ice sheets, the remaining isotope ratio in the oceans is enriched.

The most recent compilation of those isotopes is LR04, with the data here. It can be seen from that data that the last isotope depletion event (thought to be sea level rise) started at 18 thousand years ago, hence well before the sea level rise graph. In addition to that one has also to take the oceanic inertia into consideration, where it takes a very long time before the light melt waters at the surface, reach the bottom dwelling foraminifera all over the Altantic and Pacific.

 

[Xnn]

Andre;

Just goes to show how paleo data is often not consistent.

 

[Xnn]

I made a thread about that a long time ago, demonstrating that with the current standing of the research neither the Antarctic nor the North American ice sheets could have been the cause of that accelerated sea level rise.

Sorry, but that post was not at all convincing.

There is little reason why the Greenland ice cap should warm at the same time as the Cordilleran or southern edge of the Laurentide ice sheets. They were separated by thousands of miles. The Laurentide ice sheet at one time reached all the way to Kansas and nearly to Missouri!

Also, there was no mention of the Patagonia ice sheet or the combined effects of melting along the warmest areas of all the ice sheets that existed at the time.

The problem with these ancient ice sheets is that there is no way to obtain ice cores for measuring when and where the melting occurred. Extrapolating data that was collected from such a distance is similar to using New York City weather data to draw conclusions about conditions in Los Angeles. It should be little surprise that things don't line up.

 

[Andre]

Sorry, but that post was not at all convincing.

There is little reason why the Greenland ice cap should warm at the same time as the Cordilleran or southern edge of the Laurentide ice sheets. They were separated by thousands of miles. The Laurentide ice sheet at one time reached all the way to Kansas and nearly to Missouri!

But not during the last glacial maximum, that's why it was called Wisconsin, it did not reach beyond northern Indiana Northern Ohio.

But this is all moot because it's not me, claiming that it the North American ice sheets were not the source of meltwater pulse 1A, it was ...

Weaver A.J. et al (2003) http://www.geo.oregonstate.edu/people/faculty/clark_publications/weaveretal.-science-2003.pdf 14 March 2003 Vol 299 Science pp1710 - 1713

Meltwater pulse 1A (mwp-1A) was a prominent feature of the last deglaciation, which led to a sea-level rise of about 20 meters in less than 500 years. Concurrent with mwp-1A was the onset of the Bølling-Allerød interstadial event (14,600 years before the present), which marked the termination of the last glacial period. Previous studies have been unable to reconcile a warm Northern Hemisphere with mwp-1A originating from the Laurentide or Fennoscandian ice sheets. With the use of a climate model of intermediate complexity, we demonstrate that with mwp-1A originating from the Antarctic Ice Sheet, consistent with recent sea-level fingerprinting inferences…

Also we're talking about 20 meters in 500 years, the equivalent of three Greenland ice sheets. Can we store that on Patagonia?

 

[Andre]

Update, here is the most recent ice sheet - isotope - volume modelling for the last glacial maximum, that I'm aware of.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VGS-45J8YCC-1&_user=10&_coverDate=09%2F30%2F2002&_alid=1003458933&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_cdi=6046&_sort=r&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=5&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=e2d3b188587a1f782531de48ae339d60

Model simulations show that at the last glacial maximum (LGM) a volume of ice representing about 65 m of sea level equivalent is stored on the Eurasian continent, whereas North America stores 42 m. The other regions (Greenland, Tibet, South-America and Antarctica) contribute about 17 m to global sea level lowering at the LGM compared to present day.

In reality the last Eurasian Weichselian ice sheet of the last glacial maximum was considerable smaller than the Laurentide and Cordillerian ice sheet and ice fields.

see previous post:

 

[Xnn]

Thanks for the clarification Andre;

I initially thought you were implying that neither the Antarctic or North American ice sheets could have contributed to a rapid sea level rise.

True; the Patagonian ice sheet was small (1 or 2 meters of sea level) however the North American Sheets were huge; about 100 meters. There were also ice sheets in Asia and Australia and some large ones in mountains near the equator (Java?). So, at that time, there was a lot of ice along the fringes in both hemispheres and most of it was a long way from Greenland.

It'd be interesting to see just how much ice the different sheets had in meters of sea level, but that'd be a research project in itself. There were also massive melt water lakes behind ice dams at the time. Not much warming in Greenland would be necessary to unleash a meltwater pulse from Lake Missoula for example.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_Lake_Missoula

My subscriptiont to Science is currently broken, so I can't read and comment on the article, but will attempt to do so in the future. However, it looks like the paper concluded that that particular meltwater pulse came from Antarctica.

 

[Andre]

Xnn, again we are talking about the last glacial maximum, no ice on Siberia, the Himalayan ice fields are currently under scrutiny. I'll come back to that later, but see my previous post on the problem between the assumptions of Bintanja's model and the results of geologic surveys.

 

[Xnn]

Update, here is the most recent ice sheet - isotope - volume modelling for the last glacial maximum, that I'm aware of.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VGS-45J8YCC-1&_user=10&_coverDate=09%2F30%2F2002&_alid=1003458933&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_cdi=6046&_sort=r&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=5&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=e2d3b188587a1f782531de48ae339d60



In reality the last Eurasian Weichselian ice sheet of the last glacial maximum was considerable smaller than the Laurentide and Cordillerian ice sheet and ice fields.

The Bintanja model is very bad; and I believe he has widely acknowledged it. As I recall, he did not take into account that ice sheets will alter weather patterns and of course the bigger ice sheets become the larger the impact. Of course, to do things like this properly cost time and money.

 

[Andre]

Bad or not you'd still have to find the equivalent of almost two complete Antarctic ice sheets to melt during the last glacial maximum to account for the ~125 meters sea level rise.

 

[Xnn]

... no ice on Siberia ...

Andre;

Oh come on now!

Not even a single ice cube?

 

[Andre]

Please read this tread https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=333159

Maybe enough for a martini on the rocks

 

[Xnn]

Siberia is a huge area with plenty of room for Mammoths and Ice sheets to co-exist.
Naturally Mammoths tended to move around in search of food. Of course, they never found any on ice sheets, but instead browsed in nearby areas that were seasonally frozen. During the winter, they'd head south towards warmer pastures. Don't know how far a Mammoth can walk, but on a steppe area, it could be hundreds of miles. On top of that, general circulation and precipitation patterns during glacial maximums were not the same as today. This is particularly important in what are now arid areas.

Based on field investigations in northern Russia and interpretation of offshore seismic data, we have made a preliminary reconstruction of the maximum ice-sheet extent in the Barents and Kara Sea region during the Early/Middle Weichselian and the Late Weichselian. Our investigations indicate that the Barents and Kara ice sheets attained their maximum Weichselian positions in northern Russia prior to 50 000 yr BP, whereas the northeastern flank of the Scandinavian Ice Sheet advanced to a maximum position shortly after 17000 calendar years ago. During the Late Weichselian (25 000–10000 yr BP), much of the Russian Arctic remained ice-free. According to our reconstruction, the extent of the ice sheets in the Barents and Kara Sea region during the Late Weichselian glacial maximum was less than half that of the maximum model which, up to now, has been widely used as a boundary condition for testing and refining General Circulation Models (GCMs). Preliminary numerical-modelling experiments predict Late Weichselian ice sheets which are larger than the ice extent implied for the Kara Sea region from dated geological evidence, suggesting very low precipitation.

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119936887/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

There were also large ice-dammed lakes. So yes; no surprise, there were areas of Siberia that were not constantly frozen, and thus provided excellent habitat for Mammoths. In fact, a lot of people wonder why they died out. Hunting by human dressed in fur was a factor, but maybe the drying out of the landscape was too.

Already at the beginning of the present century, various geologists had suggested that the alluvial and lacustrine sediments that mantle the West Siberian Plain could have been the product of a sequence of gigantic ice-dammed lakes, formed within the periglacial zone during the Quaternary continental glaciations. This idea has been further developed in more recent studies. For example, detailed reconstructions of the Middle and Late Pleistocene lakes over the whole Western Siberian plain were put forward by Zarrina et al. (1961) whilst Arkhipov and Lavrushin (1957) studied the evidence of ice-dammed lakes formed within the Yenisei river basin. Palynological and diatom analyses of lacustrine, alluvial and fluvio-glacial deposits from the Middle and Late Pleistocene exposures (Fig. 1) on the terraces of the Yenisei valley, were carried out by Aleshinskaya et al. (1964). Gorshkov (1967, 1986) collected vast amounts of data at sites across a very wide area of the Late Quaternary lacustrine and alluvio-lacustrine deposits over the West Siberian Plain in the zone between 55°,00' and 61°,5' N, indicating the general distribution of sediments across this area that is summarized in the map by Arkipov & Volkov (1991).

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119936887/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

 

[Andre]

Maybe it would help if you read the thread and compare for instance the dates of the references.

And if "mammoth" gives too much association with howling blizzards and ice sheets, think horses and antelopes instead.

 

[Xnn]

Zebras are like horses, one lives in the heat of Africa while the other adapted to colder climates. Both are able to travel great distance, migrating north and south. Genetically, the same family, but wide spread adaptation.

Likewise, Antelopes and Musk Ox. Similar creatures that have adapted to very different climates.

With a shaggy coat of fur, even primates from sunny Africa could live in the Tundra.
Guess I don't see a problem with various creatures adapting to cold climates.

Keep in mind, that even during the height of the ice age, there were still summers every year and 12 to 14,000 years ago, the sun was brighter during northern hemisphere summers than it is now.

 

[sylas]

I agree with Andre in #2 that the original post #1 was vague and speculative. But you've seeded an interesting discussion, zankaon.

I'm taking [post=2336051]message #2[/post] by Andre as the real origin of the thread. This is where we get genuine substance and linkage to ideas in the scientific literature, which makes a basis for useful further discussion.

On the other hand, a lot of the subsequent discussion seems to be rather beside the point. Specifically, Andre appears to be saying that there's some kind of problem finding enough ice to account for sea level rises since the last glacial maximum. (Correct me if I am wrong.) However, no reference anywhere that I can see makes such a strange argument. It seems to be exclusively Andre's concern, and is backed up by alleged evidence conflicts that don't actually make the point at all, that I can see.

There are certainly open questions in science concerning extent and volume of the various different ice sheets and the timing of their advance and retreat, but this is about different ideas for ice distribution; not concerns with finding enough ice in total. Note especially that volume is different from extent. The height of ice sheets is much harder to constrain directly from available evidence than the extent.

Ice sheets and sea levels at Last Glacial Maximum

I recommend http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/els/02773791/2002/00000021/00000001 as a good general purpose source. It is a special issue with many papers all focused on ice sheets and sea level for the Last Glacial Maximum. The introduction paper is:

• Clark, P.U. and Mix, A.C. (2002) http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0277-3791(01)00118-4 , in Quaternary Science Reviews, Vol 21, Iss 1-3, Jan 2002, pp 1-7, doi:10.1016/S0277-3791(01)00118-4

Abstract: This paper outlines the general issues regarding ice sheets and sea level of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), which formed the basis of an EPILOG Project workshop. Papers in this special issue of Quaternary Science Reviews provide a comprehensive assessment of these issues from the perspective of geological reconstructions of ice sheet extent, records of sea level change, ice sheet modelling, geophysical models of glacial isostatic adjustment, and geochemical proxies of ice volume. This new assessment has substantially narrowed the uncertainties in the total changes in ice sheets and sea level and their proxies, suggesting a net decrease in eustatic sea level at the LGM ranging from 120 to 135 m.​

A summary of different results is given as Table 1 of this paper, giving estimates of excess ice-equivalent sea level in meters for LGM ice sheets. I've used the "code" tag as a way to give the aligned table, and have removed the footnotes, and two columns which only give a total without any allocations to ice sheets. Columns give max and min for the CLIMAP estimates made in 1981 that this workshop was revisiting, then three columns for new estimates taken from papers in this same special issue. There are max and min for ice sheet modeling based estimates, and another for estimates by Peltier. (The footnotes clarify that Peltier's 6m estimate for Greenland is known to be too high, and that he has since revised his estimates to about 3m, in a subsequent paper.)

Table 1 of Clark and Mix (2002) for estimates of excess ice-equivalent sea level in meters for LGM ice sheets:

Ice Sheet      CLIMAP Min CLIMAP Max  Ice sheet Min  Ice sheet Max  Peltier
Antarctica      24.5        24.5        14.0           21.0          17.6
North America   77.0        92.0        82.4           82.4          64.3
Greenland        1.0         6.5         2.0            3.0           6.0
Scand/Barents   20.0        34.0        13.8           18.0          25.5
All others       5.0         6.0         6.0            6.0
Total          127.5       163.0       118.2          130.4         113.5

The important take home message for discussion in this thread is that the major part of total sea level rise is easily from North America. The Eurasian sheets are given here as "Scand/Barents". These numbers confirm the major point being made by Andre about the limited contributions from Eurasia, but without making the claim that there's some kind of associated problem with finding enough water altogether.

North American Ice Sheets

Much of the thread has focused on Siberia and Asia; but actually North America stands out as much more significant in total for sea level changes. The following paper from the special issue sets out a large range of possible values in some detail.

• Marshall, S.J. et. al. (2002) http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6VBC-44MX5WF-C/2/ef131e9f7d417b54915e36f5dba7ac59, in Quaternary Science Reviews, Vol 21, Issues 1-3, pp 175-192, DOI: 10.1016/S0277-3791(01)00089-0.

Abstract:The areal extent of the last glacial maximum (LGM) ice sheets is well known in North America, but there is no direct geological proxy for ice sheet thickness or volume. Uncertainties associated with glaciological and geophysical reconstructions give widely varying estimates of North American Ice Sheet (NAIS) volume at LGM. In an effort to quantify the uncertainty associated with glaciological reconstructions, we conducted a suite of 190 numerical simulations of the last glacial cycle in North America, prescribing different climatic, mass balance, glaciologic, and isostatic treatments for the least constrained model variables. LGM ice sheet reconstructions were evaluated using the well-established geologic record of ice sheet area and southern extent at LGM (Dyke and Prest (1987)). These constraints give a subset of 33 simulations that produce reasonable LGM ice cover in North America. Ice sheet dispositions and the associated parameter settings in this subset of tests provide insight into the plausible range of NAIS thickness, form, and mass balance regime at LGM. Ice volume in this subset of tests spans a range of 28.5–38.9×10¹⁵ m³ at LGM, with a predominant cluster at 32–36×10¹⁵ m³. Taking floating ice and displaced continental water into account, this corresponds to 69–94 m eustatic sea level (msl). More than 75% of the accepted tests fall in the range 78–88 msl. We argue that this is a plausible estimate of the volume of water locked up in the NAIS at LGM.​

By comparison, the total ice volume in the present Antarctic ice sheet is about 30×10¹⁵ m³, and if entirely melted would raise sea levels by about 70 meters. That is, at LGM there was more ice in North America than there is now in the whole Antarctic.

Eurasian Ice Sheets

Most of the discussion in this thread has focused on the Eurasian sheets. There have been various substantially different proposals given in the scientific literature over the years, but by and large the best supported views at present seem to be about the same as Andre's account of the Eurasian situation. So Andre seems to be right in the mainstream as far as Eurasian ice sheets are concerned, as far as I can tell.

(I'm guessing that the line "no ice in Siberia" in [post=2337716]msg #9[/post] was hyperbole, but correct me if I am wrong about that.)

What the relevant science says is that there were large ice sheets in Eurasia; but not nearly as large as in North America. At the LGM these sheets only encroached upon a comparatively small part of Siberia. This does not represent any problem for finding ice for sea level rises.

An aside on mammoths, or flora and fauna generally

All the stuff on mammoths that has been raised recently here and in another thread has left me a bit puzzled, and now I think I know why. It's presented as if it was some kind of dramatic challenge, but the claims made for ice extent and mammoths in particular seems to be pretty standard and represents the view of most scientists working on the subject. Xnn's comments (#14 and #16) seem to indicate the same puzzlement I have had. Andre's material on the range of mammoths and the extent of ice is simply not a dramatic challenge to the mainstream at all... it IS the mainstream.

I am not referring here to Andre's claims from the other thread that mammoths or other observations of flora and fauna require substantially higher temperatures than are conventionally proposed on the basis of standard temperature proxies. I am not aware of anyone publishing such a strange notion; the conventional view seems to be as set out in the reference Andre provided for Eurasian climate in msg #2. Andre recommended a link he marked as "more recent research". The full citation is

• Hubberten, H.W. et al (2004) http://www.geol.lu.se/personal/prm/PDF_papers%20full%20text/QSR_2004_QUEEN_hubberten.pdf, in Quaternary Science Reviews Vol 23, pp 1333–1357. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2003.12.012

This gives the conventional view point. From the abstract:

... Palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental conditions for the time prior to, during, and after the LGM have been reconstructed for the non-glaciated areas around the LGM ice sheet with the use of faunal and vegetation records, permafrost, eolian sediments, alluvial deposits and other evidences. The changing environment, from interstadial conditions around 30 ka BP to a much colder and drier environment at the culmination of the LGM at 20–15 ka BP, and the beginning of warming around 15 ka BP have been elaborated from the field data, which fits well with the modelling results.​

In other words: for most of Siberia at the LGM you have very cold temperatures, but not an ice sheet. This is perfectly consistent with the presence of flora and fauna. There's a lot of discussion on this in the reference; here is a relevant sample from page 1340:

It should be noted, however, that even during the peak of the LGM (18–20 ka BP) mammoth still inhabited the whole area of the Laptev Shelf Land, including the present northernmost islands and Severnaya Zemlya. The number of mammoth dates sharply jumps up after 15 ka BP, and stays at high levels (av. 7.4 in 1000 years) until 10 ka BP. [...]

[...]Both of the peaks in the number of mammoth dates in the Laptev Sea collection correspond to periods with a relatively high proportion of xerophilic insects and the presence of steppe species (Fig. 6). A high diversity of insect fauna implies a richer vegetation mosaic, including more extensive areas with better heat supply, occupied by presumably more productive grassland. The number of mammoth dates starts to decrease at the same time as the proportions of those insect groups, reaching its lowest point soon after the period of total absence of steppe species. This pattern allows us to infer that all varieties of tundra–steppe insect assemblages indicate environments tolerable to the woolly mammoth, but that the less diverse insect faunas of the LGM, lacking the most thermophilic beetle species, may suggest less productive, probably just sparser, vegetation, and large grazers seem to have responded by reducing their numbers.​

Timing of events

A common point made in many papers is that there are significant differences across different regions. Ice sheets don't all move at the same time. Some of what has been presented as "conflict" in other threads (like the Melt Water Pulse thread) are not conflicts at all; merely different times for different events in different regions.

A second problem is the timing. It has been argued here that rather extensive northern hemisphere warming started much earlier, some 17-18 thousand years ago while the sea level rise really started to accellerate around 15 thousand years ago, with the so called Melt Water Pulse 1A.

There's no conflict at all with warming starting at one time and accelerating briefly at another. Here's a very recent paper which gives considerable detail on timing of events and the possible roles of different sheets, and considering the regional variability involved.

• Peter U. Clark, et al. (2009) The Last Glacial Maximum, in Science Vol 325, 710-714, doi:10.1126/science.1172873

Clark is a major advocate of a Southern source for the MWP-1A. But many other papers argue strongly for a Northern source. Arguments are reviewed by an advocate of the Northern source in

• Peltier, W.R. (2005) http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2004.06.023 , in Quaternary Science Reviews 24 pp 1655–1671, doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2004.06.023

Earth is large; and there are regional differences. Sorting that out is a rich source of open research questions, but its not a sign of some fundamental discrepancy not being acknowledged! There's no reason to expect all changes to be uniform over the globe, and there's no particular special problem with having the onset of retreat for different sheets being at different times, or with the existence of strongly non-linear changes (pulses) at different times.

Cheers -- sylas

 

[Xnn]

Thanks for the summary sylas;

Looking over the table of excess sea level, it is surprising to see how large of a contribution Antactica had made. That island is already so loaded with ice that it is hard to comprehend how it could have held even more during the LGM. I think the implication is that there was about 30% more ice in Antarctica than there is now.

It's also interesting that "All Others" has a greater amount than Greenland.

 

[sylas]

Thanks for the summary sylas;

Looking over the table of excess sea level, it is surprising to see how large of a contribution Antactica had made. That island is already so loaded with ice that it is hard to comprehend how it could have held even more during the LGM. I think the implication is that there was about 30% more ice in Antarctica than there is now.

Oh yes, definitely. Ice there has gone up and down a lot; especially in the West Antarctic sheet. (WAIS)

As you have noted yourself, there's a lot more involved in the advance and retreat of ice sheets than simply temperature. The WAIS has been in retreat for a long time, and so it is an open question how much this is impacted by global changes over the last century.

It's also interesting that "All Others" has a greater amount than Greenland.

Yes; in the LGM there were a lot of other smaller ice sheets and glaciers around; and Greenland stands out because it still has a lot of ice retained from the LGM.

One of the issues for me in putting together that last post was maintaining focus and limiting the amount of information I tried to summarize. Finding that special issue was a help, because it gives lots of review articles and a range of perspectives. The Quarternary Science Reviews gives http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/02773791, and even those who don't have access to the journal can look through the http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=PublicationURL&_tockey=%23TOC%235923%232002%23999789998%23278197%23FLA%23&_cdi=5923&_pubType=J&_auth=y&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=95e1a506fae7315e497066e86d3cd77b and pick out promising titles; then hunt around for preprints that are sometimes available. If someone without access has a particular article they'd like summarized, I'm happy to give it a quick look over and my impression of where it stands.

Cheers -- sylas

 

[Andre]

Sorry for the delay, I have too much distraction now to duck into this deeply but I got Clark et al 2009 now. So I'll return to that in detail later.

Meanwhile I still see a lot of questions. (remember, questions, not claims)

How could Arctic Siberian summers appear to be warmer than today in the period before the Last glacial maximum around 24 ka Cal BP, the time of the Jarkov and Fishhook mammoth (Lark needles 200k north of the present tree line), Mol et al 2006, Hubberten et al 2004, while the ice sheets in North America were approaching their maximum extent? This is especially awkward, considering the summer insolation minimum for the northern hemisphere at exactly that time (fig 4 Clark et al 2009*):

caption:

(A) Summer energy for 45^oN (red line, t =400) and 65^oN (purple line, t = 400). (B) 21 June–20 July insolation for 45^oN (red line) and 65^oN (purple line)

------

Next, the present antarctic ice sheet contains ice of some one million year old (results EPICA Dome C), the Greenland Ice sheet around 200,000 year) representing about 3000 meters of ice thickness. The Holocene boundary in the -fast accumulating- Greenland ice sheet is at about 1600-1700 meters below the surface of the ice sheet, which is good for about 12,000 years ice accumulation. However in Antarctica (ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/antarctica/epica_domec/edc3-timescale.txt) that boundary is only at around 360 meters. So what do we estimate the ice thickness of the advancing ice sheets towards their last glacial maximum positions between 26.5 ka to 19 to 20 ka (Clark et al 2009)? Considering that there are paleobiologic remains below the glacial deposits of about 26-27ka (for instance Matthews et al 1990 ) there wasn't much time to accumulate 3000 meters of ice, which would have been required to find on North America comparable ice volumes with Antarctica, or would it?

Less relevant to the current topic but essential for understanding why we don't understand what happened, are deep ocean interactions, the 100 ka cycle, not being Milankovitch related and the http://www.moraymo.us/current_projects.php ? I'll open a few threads on that in due time.

Then there is also the problem of the Greenland isotopes versus atmospheric methane concentration not concurrent with the global temperature changes as indicated by the ice melting/sealevel rise. Furthermore, it still does not explain why the benthic oceanic isotopes appear to react instanteaneously on melt water at the ocean surface, while the oceanic inertia should have caused not only a significant delay but also a signal weakening (more gradual), which is not visible at all, (fig 4, Clark et al 2009*).

caption:

(A) RSL (relative sea level) data for the interval from 10 to 50 ka (Fig. 3), converted to d18Osw
by scaling the glacial-interglacial d18Osw change of 1.0 T 0.1‰ (27) to the corresponding sea-level change
of 127.5 T 7.5 m (5, 8). (B) Time series of d18O measured in benthic foraminifera from marine cores from
the Pacific and North Atlantic basins, as well as the LR04 d18O stack (gray line) (28). Records are from Pacific
core V19-30 (purple line) (26), Pacific core TR163-31B (dark purple line) (25), Pacific core W8709A-13PC (blue line) (56), North Atlantic core NA87-22 (red line) (26), and North Atlantic core MD99-2042 (orange line) (57).

*)Both figs and captions: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/325/5941/710

 

[Xnn]

Andre;

Mammoths can walk very long distances. 200km is not a problem. The fact that a particular mammoth died in a location does not mean that is where it found it's last meal.
In fact, since it did die, there probably wasn't much good food in the area (unless it died of old age or from a preditor). Do you know the cause of death?

Larch is very common plant in the artic and grows very far north.
Tree lines are not always distinct. Not sure exactly how they are drawn on maps.
Dwarf varities grow further north than the tree line especially if soil conditions are favorable and there are often isolated pockets as well.

Any direct links to a published scientific studies of these particular mammoths?

Thanks!

ohh, I don't understand the concern with only 360 meter of boundry ice in Antartica.
Could you explain it more simplistically?

 

[Andre]

Andre;

Mammoths can walk very long distances. 200km is not a problem. The fact that a particular mammoth died in a location does not mean that is where it found it's last meal.
In fact, since it did die, there probably wasn't much good food in the area (unless it died of old age or from a preditor). Do you know the cause of death?

Any direct links to a published scientific studies of these particular mammoths?

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VGS-4G6J891-1&_user=10&_coverDate=01%2F31%2F2006&_alid=828264259&_rdoc=6&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_cdi=6046&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=8&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=bbec963260d3f229db9f465a256009ec)

There are several details about the in situ situation and also inside information directly from the author. And there are several other indications. The larch seemed the most compelling though.

Anyway, would 200km trek between consumption of needles and getting in the guts be credible, and them we would only be talking about comparable situation to today, but ice age scholars want it to be about ten degrees or so (celsius) colder in that period, looking at the isotopes.

Detailed knowledge is available from tusk (isotope) analysis of the Jarkov mammoth, done byProf Daniel Fisher of Ann Arbor Mi. As far as I can see he still hasn't published that bit. He told that the Jarkov mammoth died in the spring, just after the annual period (winter) of food stress, he also said that a biannual pattern was visible which could indicate that migration was a two-yearly event.

ohh, I don't understand the concern with only 360 meter of boundry ice in Antartica.
Could you explain it more simplistically?

We we talking ice volume for adding up the element for the sea level rise and Sylas' discoveries suggested that about the volume of Antarctica ice was to be on North America. But volume is area times thickness. The area is roughly the same, but the Antarctic ice sheet needed several hundreds of thousands years to accumulate it current thickness, whereas the Laurentide ice sheet had only so many thousand years to form.

So the area may have been availble but maybe not the time to generate the height required to match the Antarctic volume.

 

[sylas]

So the area may have been availble but maybe not the time to generate the height required to match the Antarctic volume.

You have given no argument for that frankly incredible claim.

A comparison with the Antarctic is not an argument; the North and Southern hemisphere have distinctly different conditions, and the ice sheets grew at different epochs. Both North and South are more than capable of substantial growth over spans of 40 thousand years or so, which is the kinds of magnitude we are looking at, roughly. Growth is usually slower than the melt back.

I've never heard any such claim by anyone, and I've looked at this quite a lot now from as many perspectives as I can. There was easily enough time to get several kilometers of height in the Laurentide ice sheet, given moderate rates of growth. I'm calling you on this one; I think you need to give a reference to some credible source giving some reason to think that the available times are not enough. I am dubious you'll be able to do that.

I'm just posting this quickly. I will respond to other posts as well, but I'm slow because I try to double check everything and make sure of my self before I post. Sorry about that!

Cheers -- sylas

PS. From my previously cited reference on the North American Ice Sheets, Marshall et al (2002), here is Fig 2, showing the growth and melt of the sheet in North America, in their reconstructions, over about 100 thousand years. Note the melt is much more rapid, and that the growth is intermittent as well. Ten thousand years is a long time; and there were several tens of thousands of years as the North American sheet grew from basically nothing at the previous interglacial. There's no reason whatever to claim that the times spans are not enough; in fact the changing rate of growth shows that it doesn't even require an exceptional growth rate. You get a few intervals of rapid growth, but mostly it is slow and steady, and yes, this DOES involve an ice dome of several kilometers high.

 

[Andre]

You have given no argument for that frankly incredible claim.

I've never heard any such claim by anyone, and I've looked at this quite a lot now from as many perspectives as I can. There was easily enough time to get several kilometers of height in the Laurentide ice sheet, given moderate rates of growth. I'm calling you on this one; I think you need to give a reference to some credible source giving some reason to think that the available times are not enough. I am dubious you'll be able to do that.

No? How about:

...Considering that there are paleobiologic remains below the glacial deposits of about [strike]26-27ka[/strike] 29.6 ka (for instance Matthews et al 1990 ) there wasn't much time to accumulate 3000 meters of ice, which would have been required to find on North America comparable ice volumes with Antarctica, or would it?

edit:
1: Erratum 26-27 ka should be 29.6 ka

2: incidentily, http://cgrg.geog.uvic.ca/abstracts/EnglandNewFor.html are some constraints about the lateral size of the Laurentide ice sheet

edit 2:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V6R-4NRT3MB-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=cc521e8e3a75f9473f7a807c5eaee603 is another one:

...Vegetation buried under Dawson tephra (25,300 14C yr BP) and locally diverse late Pleistocene paleoenvironments of Goldbottom Creek, Yukon, Canada. reported an in situ riparian grassy meadow ecosystem, and regional well-drained steppe-tundra, buried by Dawson tephra (ca 25,300 BP) at Goldbottom Creek in the Canadian Yukon Territory...

Van Geel et al, 2007, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology Volume 252, Issues 3-4, 3 September 2007, Pages 481-485

edit 3,
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WPN-4SP4B1B-1&_user=10&_coverDate=07%2F31%2F2008&_alid=1006292385&_rdoc=6&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_cdi=6995&_sort=r&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=2429&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=7b1f87e711fff832fa703e18429315fe we see when the advancing ice entered Michigan.

..These dates establish a maximum-limiting age of ca. 27 ka for the MIS 2 (late Wisconsin) advance into central northern Lower Michigan...

Schaetzl, Forman 2008, Quaternary Research Volume 70, Issue 1, July 2008, Pages 81-90

edit 4, finally found what I was looking for, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VBC-4888CSP-90&_user=10&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F1993&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=browse&_srch=doc-info(%23toc%235923%231993%23999879997%23410974%23FLP%23display%23Volume)&_cdi=5923&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=3&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=261565dc401a65a041bdb0bb77ce2182

...The Hudson Bay lowland became ice-free during Substage 5a. Retreat of the ice sheet on Baffin Island occurred during late Stage 5, probably Substage 5a. The exact timing of retreat from the western Canadian Arctic is unknown, but it occurred before 48 ka. The southern sector, including the St Lawrence Lowland, was ice-free during late Stage 5. The Hudson Bay lowland may have remained ice free through Stage 4 and much of Stage 3. Because of conflicting chronologies, however, it is more likely that this area was glaciated throughout Stage 3 and perhaps Stage 4. Nevertheless, the data demonstrate that the lowland was ice-free during part of the last glaciation...

The dating of the (Maritieme Isotope) stages are mentioned in this graph.

edit 5, more constraints on the maximum size and dating of the LGM Laurentide Ice Sheet http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VBC-4WDNBX3-1&_user=10&_coverDate=08%2F31%2F2009&_alid=1006308683&_rdoc=14&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_cdi=5923&_sort=r&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=2429&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=5f293a39bf44a7dfa5bcbc915a6c1949 and http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VBC-44MX5WF-2&_user=10&_coverDate=01%2F31%2F2002&_alid=1006308683&_rdoc=15&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_cdi=5923&_sort=r&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=2429&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=8a1f503f74436abe1aac809073780057

 

[Xnn]

Detailed knowledge is available from tusk (isotope) analysis of the Jarkov mammoth, done byProf Daniel Fisher of Ann Arbor Mi. As far as I can see he still hasn't published that bit. He told that the Jarkov mammoth died in the spring, just after the annual period (winter) of food stress, he also said that a biannual pattern was visible which could indicate that migration was a two-yearly event.

Excellent! So, the creature could have easily been migrating northward with no initial food stress.

It may have thought there were greener pastures up ahead since it was spring time and just kept on going. Since it was the warm time of year, there was ample water for it to drink on it's trip. However, eventually it may have gotten sick or stuck or something that led to its demise.

 

[Andre]

Excellent! So, the creature could have easily been migrating northward with no initial food stress.

It may have thought there were greener pastures up ahead since it was spring time and just kept on going. Since it was the warm time of year, there was ample water for it to drink on it's trip. However, eventually it may have gotten sick or stuck or something that led to its demise.

Non comprendre, the individual just survived food stress assumingly from the winter, which would not support the migration. Also look at current Siberia, what would it help to migrate X-hunderd km southwards, wintertemperatures out there are not much higher, if not lower than around the Antarctic coast.

Something else about the mammoth mummies in question, with conserved soft tissues, I discussed this extensively with Dick Mol, there is no formal research to the exact causes but all mummies survived the Holocene Thermal Maximum with summer temperatures much higher than today.

Also all mummies thus far, are somehow associated with nearby water. For instance the Jarkov mammoth had waterplants in it's fur. Hence some speculations are possible about the general cause of death and preservation of these mummies.

BTW I think I have a copy of Mol et al 2006 somewhere. Reading that will help.

 

[sylas]

No?

No, and now I am sure of it. The argument you are making does not appear in your references, and the location of the study you have cited is shown with an arrow on the following map.

So your study doesn't say anything useful about the volume of the ice sheets, and most certainly places no kind of bound on the time it took for the ice sheets to form. References:

• Matthews, J.V. et. al. (1990) Plant and insect fossils from the Mayo Indian Village section (central Yukon): New data on middle Wisconsinan environments and glaciation, in Géographie physique et Quaternaire, vol. 44, pp 15-26. This is the paper cited by Andre, and it gives the location of the study. See the map in figure 1 of this paper, and note that the "McConnell glaciation" there is the Northern tongue of the Cordilleran ice sheet. In the introduction of the paper, the co-ordinates are given: 63^o36'N, 135^o56'W.
• Clark, P.U., et.al. (1993) http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0277-3791(93)90011-A , in Quaternary Science Reviews, Vol 12, Iss 2, pp 79-114, doi:10.1016/0277-3791(93)90011-A. This paper includes the map for the extent of the major North American ice sheets which I used to show where the study in the previous paper is located in relation to ice sheets. This paper also to Matthews et al (1990) and many other similar papers as a source of evidence for the Yukon.

Clark et at (1993) also states:

Because there are few suitable dating methods capable of resolving events beyond the radiocarbon limit and because sites that preserve a record of events from the last glaciation are spatially restricted, we consider this synthesis as tentative and subject to significant revision as dating methods improve. Nevertheless, this perspective of the North American ice sheets through the last glaciation demonstrates their complex and dynamic behavior and attendant rapid fluctuations in ice volume.​

The bounds on extent of the ice sheets in North America is quite well constrained. The timing of advance and retreat is less so, and that is why the Clark et al call their synthesis of events tentative. But one thing is certain; the evidence indicates that ice sheets have a complex dynamic behaviour can show rapid fluctuations in volume. From page 80 of Clark et al (1993)

Certainly, development of ice sheets to their full-glacial extent required more time than deglaciation, but within the context of climate forcing-response mechanisms, proxy records indicate that, for shorter intervals, ice-sheet growth was relatively rapid. Ice-sheet development should thus be viewed as a series of "glacial buildup periods" (Andrews and Barry, 1978) when mass balance was positive, modulated by intervals of negative mass balance, culminating in a glacial maximum. Identifying the forcing(s) of these events as well as those at terminations remains a significant problem in climate research (Imbrie et al., 1992, 1993).​

Let's try again. The claim you have made is that there was not enough time to form a large ice sheet with volumes of ice comparable to the Antarctic.

Your approach to this has been to cite various factoids from the normal course of working science, and then draw unwarranted and frankly wild inferences that do not appear in any of your citations and don't follow from the evidence therein. From your posts one would think that these references you are giving actually correspond to a drastic revision of conventional notions of last glacial maximum or ice sheet formation.

In fact, they almost all are PART of conventional science, and completely consistent with the basic story I've given above. There are lots of open questions, and as I have shown previously the total volume of the various ice sheets is known to limited accuracy, but well enough to establish that there's no problem about having enough ice to explain sea level changes, and no problem about a lack of time to form these massive sheets.

Cheers -- sylas

PS. I see you've made some edits since I wrote this. I'll take a quick look.

And for Xnn; the citation Andre gave earlier to Hubberten et al (2004) has more on the mammoths. Check it out. I gave a full citation in my previous long summary post on ice sheets. It is a fair conclusion that Mammoths regularly went a long way north in Siberia, even through the last glacial maximum. It is also widely recognized that regional patters of climate in the LGM were a lot different to today. Some regions may indeed have had warmer summers in the LGM than they do today; even while the global average goes strongly the other way.

PPS. Added in edit. I have now looked quickly at your edits to the post I was answering. I am interested that we have now both independently cited Clark 1993!

However, there's still nothing in that or the other papers you've linked that gives any support at all to your personal claims about insufficient time to form the sheet or insufficient ice to exceed what is now in Antarctica.

Just the opposite in fact; they all indicate a large extent for the ice and potential for rapid changes in volume. This is explicit in Clark et al (1993) as I showed in this post already. It's weird. It's like you dump a list of references, but never pay any attention to what the references actually describe.

 

[Xnn]

look at current Siberia, what would it help to migrate X-hunderd km southwards, wintertemperatures out there are not much higher, if not lower than around the Antarctic coast.

Mammoths need to eat a lot and they will migrate in search of good food.

Larch are deciduous coniferous trees. That is, they loose their needles during the winter. Hence, they are not a good food source during the winter.

If this Mammoths last good meal was a large amount of Larch that was near the treeline, then it would make sense that it would then set off in search of more. However, in this case, it went the wrong way and ended up hundreds of kilometers away.

If there was direct evidence that Larch actually grew in that area 20,000 years ago, it'd be another thing. However, since Mammoths are mobile creatures, it's entirely possible that it died a long distance from where it consumed it's last meal.

Something else about the mammoth mummies in question, with conserved soft tissues, I discussed this extensively with Dick Mol, there is no formal research to the exact causes but all mummies survived the Holocene Thermal Maximum with summer temperatures much higher than today.

So do the mummies in Egypt!

Mummies survive best in dry environments. Just because it was warmer at some time in the past is no guarantee that humidity was high enough to significantly accelerate the breakdown of the remains.

 

[zankaon]

Might we be near the end of a large cyclical regression; not so different from Permian end regression? Statistically might it not seem more likely that we are due to revert at least towards an average of sea level for overall Phanerozoic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phanerozoic" , or even a further transgression? Might this be a natural underlying trend, independent of any superimposed anthropomorphic effect? Might we be headed for an Eocene/Paleocene world?

30 million years hence, what might our 'present' stratum (pl: strata) of say 10 million years look like? Might there be any evidence of mankind? For example, if we occupy the middle of such strata, then plus or minus 5 million years. For the past 5 million years, there was no effect. For the future 5 million years, transgression and Yellowstone's Western and Midwest repeated ash fallout would seem to reveal nature's dominant hand. For 200 meter elevation of sea level to less than Cretaceous peak, most of southern U.S. would be inundated, and likewise for eastern coast. The Seaway would flood and enlarge Great Lakes into an inland sea. All coastal cities, and inland lake ports would become reefs initially, and then dissolution. Humanity would would once again be on the move. Therefore, might there be no evidence of mankind's handiwork in such strata (stratum); not even hard plastic cherts? So from a geological perspective, mankind's impact on the environment might be quite negligible, in comparison to nature's broader, deeper, more sustainable ways. Does our myopia greatly underestimate nature's scope and impact, in comparison to that of mankind's? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level"

A 200 meter rise would be up to ~ sea level for end Eocene/Paleocene; IF east Antarctica melted in ~ 15,000 years, then perhaps 100 meter or more rise?

 

[Andre]

No http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2004/0615Oppenheimer.pdf

However if isostatic rebounce works as advertised, then the reduced perssure on the previous ice sheet areas will make them rise while the increased pressure on the ocean floor will make it subside, which would cause a small correction on the actual sealevel rise.

 

[Richard111]

Interesting thread, thank you. Sadly I lack the ability to extract the information I think I need and suspect it may be in the energy graphs above. So, if I may, I would like to ask a very hypothetical question:

Assuming current global energy levels are in balance, would it be possible to calculate, as a "forcing", the amount of energy needed to melt 96,983.8 cubic miles of ice and what would be the shortest timescale to achieve this?

Apologies if this is off topic or the wrong thread. The reason I ask is the many predictions of sea level rise being touted in the media. The latest, I read today, claimed the WWF is forecasting a 1 meter sea level rise in the next 10 years.

The ice figure above is my calculation ignoring the extra that would be required to fill low coastal areas. I am also assuming that ice already in the sea is not included. The melt must come from continental ice on Greenland and Antarctica. This also means the melt energy is provided by the atmosphere only.

I attempted to use the following:

The isothermal melting of ice requires some 334 kilojoules per kilogram at 273.16 K. At lower temperatures, it requires an average of some 2 kilojoules per degree more.

I calculated the total energy required and divided by ten to get the annual energy then divided that into the area of the planet to get watts per square meter. Problem is I am not sure I am going about this correctly. Also air melts ice from the top down, there is a limited contact area which I feel would have some effect on slowing down the energy transfer into the ice. How this would effect the timescale is beyond me.

Any thoughts or advice welcome.

Richard

 

[Richard111]

Okay then. Here are the results of my calculations. I use the timescale of 10 years as this was the forecast from the WWF.

Using the value of 334 kilojoules per kilogram at 273.16 K to melt 96,983.8 cubic miles of ice I arrive at a figure of
382,216,079,803,280.4 joules per second to melt the ice over ten years.

This equates to a "forcing" of 0.75 watts per square meter. How this energy will be delivered to the ice in the required timescale I have no idea.