Earth’s geological past can give clues for future climate

Climate change threat is looming large and many scientists from all over the world are involved into making future climate predictions. Climate change is multidimensional issue that includes various different factors which makes it extremely difficult for scientists to accurately predict future climate. Recently, however, many scientists have turned their focus in studying earth's past as a way to help gather the data that should give them clues in predicting future changes.

Our planet's geological past is one of the best ways in obtaining clues. As Dr. Wan Yang from the Missouri University of Science and Technology said :“ The formation of rocks has everything to do with climate.“

He further explained this by saying that „different climate settings have different sediments, soil types and vegetation“, all of which can be used as valuable guide in scientific efforts to predict future climate.

Yang did most of the field work in northwest China because it's one of the few places to have an ancient land record, dating all the way back from Pangea, the supercontinent that existed between 200 million and 350 million years ago.

This period is very interesting to climate change scientists because approximately 250 million years ago, the greatest mass extinction in the Earth's history occurred, and scientists are still searching for a strong link between climate change and this huge loss of species.

There have been plenty of different theories discussing this mass extinction event but science still can't be sure about what were the real causes that caused this huge loss of our planet's biodiversity.

The currently dominant scientific theory is that 250 million years ago the Earth's climate shifted from icehouse to greenhouse and remained in greenhouse state for about 230 million years, returning back to icehouse state roughly 30 million years ago.

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Can aerosols help against climate change?

Climate change is seen by many scientists as the biggest environmental threat of our time, and there have been many proposed solutions about how we should tackle it, with one of the most interesting solutions being the use of aerosols in order to cool the planet.

Aerosols are tiny particles that include sulfates, organic carbon, black carbon, nitrates, mineral dust, and sea salt. Despite their tiny size they can play major impact on our global climate.

Some aerosols as natural (coming from volcanoes) while other are primarily produced by pollution generated by humans. Different satellite methods have shown that aerosols cancel out approximately 20% of the global warming caused by greenhouse gases by blocking sunlight.

Because of their cooling ability there are some scientists who believe that we should be using aerosols as our main weapon against climate change by somehow injecting them in our atmosphere so they can block the sunlight and cool the planet.

It also has to be said here that the aerosols themselves reflect sunlight back into space, which also helps to stop global temperature increase.

According to a latest U.S. study the easiest way to inject more aerosols into our atmosphere is to use smaller volcanic eruptions and boost them by weather systems such as monsoons, in order to reach the atmosphere.

Aerosols are far from being the perfect solution against climate change because excessive emissions of aerosols would result in deaths of many people, and therefore when scientists talk about aerosols as solution against climate change they usually refer to limited emissions of aerosols.

How good are aerosols in cooling global temperature on our planet? Well, one measuring has showed that the massive eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991 temporarily decreased global temperatures by half a degree Celsius.

The potential is definitely there but aerosols should be really used as one of the last weapons against climate change, not just because their emissions are harmful to our health but also because science still doesn't know how much aerosols should be injected in our atmosphere and how, and what exactly would this do to our planet as there have been fears that if something goes wrong we could be soon experiencing yet another ice age.

Climate change is extremely complex phenomenon, and aerosols are really just one part of the puzzle, meaning that science must search for more answers that would allow more accurate models of climate behavior and change.

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Perfect solution for climate change - Transform CO2 into something useful

There are many different scientific theories featuring variety of different climate change solutions but none sounds as good as transforming harmful carbon dioxide (CO2), the greenhouse gas mostly responsible for climate change, into some useful form of energy.

Joel Rosenthal, a chemist at the University of Delaware, is convinced that this solution is very much possible, and that this would not only decrease the CO2 levels in the atmosphere but would also offer an excellent new method to produce renewable energy.

Rosenthal's team is currently designing electrocatalysts from metals such as nickel and palladium, and these metals should freely give away electrons when they react with carbon dioxide, therefore chemically reducing this greenhouse gas into energy-rich carbon monoxide or methanol.

Carbon monoxide and methanol could be later used for many useful purposes such as production of plastics and solvents, detergents, drug manufacturing, etc.

Rosenthal said :" It's my hope to be able to map out the molecular design principles for efficient CO2 conversion into fuels. Then you can think about doing this on a commercially relevant scale."

If science were to come up with the commercially viable option to transform CO2 into useful fuels, this would mean several different benefits: first of all this would help tackle climate change and second this would improve future energy security and energy independence.

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Using Earth's past to predict future climate

Many scientists are convinced that Earth's past can provide us with many answers about Earth's future climate, and whether climate change will indeed be as huge threat as many scientists predict it will be.

The latest interesting research comes from the UCLA geoscientists who have studied fossilized mollusks from some 3.5 million years ago. The purpose of their research was to construct an ancient climate record and so gather the clues about the long-term effects of Earth's current levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, which are a main contributor to ongoing climate change phenomenon.

By studying these fossils scientists discovered that summertime Arctic temperatures 3.5 million to 4 million years ago were about 18 to 28 degrees Fahrenheit warmer compared to temperatures today.

This period in Earth's past had carbon dioxide levels very similar to today levels for thousands of years so this study is a pretty good indicator of how warm will our planet eventually become if CO2 levels are stabilized at the current value of around 400 parts per million.

The results of this study support the predictions that summertime sea ice in Arctic will likely totally disappear in the next 50 to 100 years.

The scientists also pointed out that Earth's poles are warming faster of any place on the planet, and especially the Arctic area. The poles are the most sensitive to increased temperatures because ice cover in polar regions reflects incoming solar radiation to cool Earth which makes poles incredibly sensitive to even the slight variations in climate.

Dr Aradhna Tripati, a UCLA assistant professor in the department of Earth and space sciences and the department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences, explained this by saying that "increase in Arctic temperatures would not only cause the ice sheets to melt but would also result in the exposed land and ocean absorbing significantly more incoming solar energy and further heating the planet."

How were scientists able to measure the temperatures that were present on earth 3,5 millions years ago? They've done this by measuring the isotopic content of oxygen in a combination of fossilized mollusk and plant samples. The mollusk fossils used in this study were collected at Beaver Pond, located in the Strathcona Fiord on Ellesmere Island, at northernmost point of Canada.

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How accurate are current climate change predictions?

Is it possible to predict future climate without knowing how did climate of the past look like? By knowing trends in past climate, and what influenced changes in past climate the scientists would be able to predict with much bigger level of certainty what will happen to our climate in years to come, and will the climate change really reach a catastrophic level as many predict it will.

Scientists still need to learn and discover so many different factors that have influenced past climate on our planet before being able to predict with some accuracy what's gonna happen with our climate in future because history can teach us many things about future.

Yes, by the current science standards it looks very likely that climate change will reach catastrophic proportions if our carbon emissions continue to rise, but very likely isn't the same as certainly, and scientists despite their enormous efforts and plenty research still cannot guarantee nothing when it comes to climate change.

This is because climate change phenomenon has so many different dimensions, each of which is not only influenced by certain known and unknown factors but also with the different combinations of these factors. In simple words, climate change issue is still too complex for today's science, and despite all sorts of research still more in the sphere in guessing than having the actual facts.

We know that Earth went through a periods of different climate in its history such as ice age but we still do not entirely know the mechanisms that lead to these changes.

This is the reason why I believe we should focus more on studying the Earth's past climate rather than guessing without reliable facts what will happen in the future. We need to read the past climate patterns, and then use this data to get some straight facts about our climate.

Climate change science like any other science needs to be based on facts, and not on assumptions and wild guesses.

What's your view on this?

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What event caused the end of the last ice age?

Scientists are still anything but certain in what event led to the end of the last ice age that resulted in warmer climate and the birth of human civilization. From the geological point of view we know that ice sheets in the northern hemisphere began to collapse and warming spread quickly to the south. Most scientists support the theory that the event that led to warming was an orbital shift that caused more sunlight to fall across Earth's northern half.

The latest interesting scientific report that tries to put more light into the event(s) that ended the last ice age comes from the team of scientists from the Columbia University. They believe that not one event, but actually entire chain of events caused the end of the last ice age.

According to their theory the events began with the melting of the large northern hemisphere ice sheets that happened 20,000 years ago. The melting ice sheets reconfigured the planet's wind belts, pushing warm air and seawater south, and pulling carbon dioxide from the deep ocean into the atmosphere, allowing the planet to heat even further.

Our planet regularly goes into an ice age every 100,000 years or so, and this is caused by the shifts in Earth's orientation toward the sun. At the peak of the last ice age that happened around 20,000 years ago, Earth's orbit shifted. This event lead to more summer sunlight began falling on the northern hemisphere, melting those massive ice sheets and sending icebergs and fresh water into the North Atlantic Ocean.

The report also says that freshening of the North Atlantic triggered a series of cold spells in Greenland and northern Europe by shutting down the Gulf Stream current, which usually carries warm water north from the equator. Sea ice spread across the North Atlantic, bringing bitter cold winters to Europe and profoundly reshaping the planet's wind belts. And with the North Atlantic covered in ice, the tropical trade winds shifted south, bringing dry spells across much of Asia and rain to normally arid regions of Brazil. The displaced winds moved not only rain further south, but hot air and warm seawater, heating up the southern hemisphere.

The report also states that ice core records show that between 18,000 and 11,000 years ago atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rose from 185 parts per million to 265 parts per million. (Current levels are 393 parts per million, after the heavy industrial expansion across the globe). The infusion of carbon dioxide came just as the planet's orientation was shifting, and summer sunlight to the northern hemisphere was declining, at about 11,000 years ago. The scientists have also concluded that the boost in carbon dioxide may have even prevented Earth from falling into another ice age.

This is one way to answer the question why does the Earth, when it appears so firmly in the claws of an ice age, start to warm? Most scientists agree that carbon dioxide played the crucial role in warming of the planet but up to this point scientists didn't have sound explanations in explaining the early warming in the southern hemisphere, where glaciers in Patagonia and New Zealand were melting before carbon dioxide levels rose significantly.

There were some scientists that supported a theory that a change in ocean currents, triggered by the freshening of the North Atlantic, caused this early warming. But computer models using ocean circulation to explain the rapid warming in the south have been unable to recreate the large temperature jumps seen in the paleoclimate record. Now, with the evidence for shifting southern hemisphere westerlies, the rapid warming looks to be finally explained.

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Connection between ozone hole and climate change

Today the climate change is considered as the biggest environmental threat but not so long ago big ozone hole over Antarctic was considered the biggest environmental threat. Currently, the ozone hole is steadily closing, and according to scientists at the University of Leeds this could in fact increase the impact of climate change into the southern atmosphere.

Surprisingly it looks like ozone hole actually protected southern hemisphere from much bigger climate change impact. According to British scientists high-speed winds in the area beneath the ozone hole have led to the formation of brighter summertime clouds, which reflect more of the sun's powerful rays, reflecting the sun's heat away from the surface. As the result of this the warming from rising carbon emissions has effectively been canceled out in this region during the summertime.

As the ozone hole is steadily closing these winds are also decreasing in power, and therefore rising CO2 emissions could cause significantly faster warming of the southern hemisphere.

The main ingredient in this newly found connection between climate change and ozone hole are tiny particles known as aerosols. Greenhouses gases responsible for climate change problem absorb infrared radiation from the Earth and release it back into the atmosphere as heat, causing the planet to warm up over certain period of time. Aerosols on the other hand work against this by reflecting heat from the sun back into space, cooling the planet in the process.

As the ozone hole disappears so do aerosols, and southern atmosphere could soon experience much accelerating rate of warming. It will be very interesting to learn more about these aerosols, and whether science could use them as the tool against the climate change.

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Are there any benefits of excessive carbon dioxide emissions?

Climate change problem caused by excessive carbon dioxide emissions due to heavy industrialization and dependence on fossil fuels to satisfy current energy demand is something that only looks to be extremely negative, something that will push world towards the big environmental disaster in form of floods, drought, hunger, hurricanes, sea level rise, brand new diseases, etc. The concentration of atmospheric CO2 has already increased by about 30% since the beginning of the industrial revolution, and carbon emissions are still not slowing down. While there is almost no doubt in scientific community how excessive carbon emissions can only cause great damage in the long run, there are also some very rarely mentioned short term benefits of excessive carbon emissions.

The greatest benefit of excessive carbon emissions is definitely the faster growth of the forests and plants, basically the most simplified concept looks something like "the more carbon emissions we release in the atmosphere the faster will forests and plants grow". During the famous photosynthesis process, plants take in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to create food, but as the plant dies and decays, CO2 gets released back into the atmosphere. To keep this trend positive we need to make sure to have more plants that are growing compared to the ones that are dying. However, it also has to be said that there is much bigger possibility that at some point carbon emissions will surely become too excessive, and plants won't be able to handle CO2 on desired way meaning more plants will die than grow. Because of this we must do everything that is in our power not to make carbon emissions too excessive for plants to handle. This is very difficult to do since nobody doesn't know the maximum limit of carbon emissions that plants can handle.

Some latest studies have shown that climate change is causing the growth spurt of the tress, and especially encouraging is the fact that some of the oldest trees on Earth grow faster thanks to higher carbon emissions, and as some of you know older trees absorb more CO2 from the atmosphere than their younger relatives. However there is also the downside to this phenomenon, namely that the faster growth means also the faster death of the trees; this is really not so surprising when you look at some reports that say how for instance bristlecone pines have grown faster in the past 50 years than they have in 3.7 millennia before.

Some scientists however do not see the sooner dying of these trees as the negative impact on climate change because they believe how this fast growth has potential to fertilize forests enabling many other trees and plants better conditions to grow, so is definitely a good sign to see these ancient trees kicking into life once again. In any case it is still to early to say whether benefits outweigh negatives in this whole story. Perhaps with more research we'll know the answer.

Ancient trees has certain benefits from excessive carbon emissions .

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Climate change - Why don't we listen to science?

In the last couple of years scientists from all around the globe have made different models and projections about the climate change, and how the weather will be like in years to come. Most of these climate models predict horrific scenarios that include drought, floods, hurricanes, hunger and new diseases unless world starts doing something to fight climate change. According to scientists our greenhouse gas emissions (mostly the result of fossil fuels combustion) are way too big, which has increases greenhouse effect on our planet and therefore increased average temperature of our planet (known under the name of global warming). The only thing that at this point sounds like the logical solution to climate change problem is massively reducing CO2 emissions, and the best way to do so is to use less fossil fuels. Can this be done?

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