Climate Modes Of The Phanerozoic

The changes in the Earth's climate over the past 600 million years, from the Cambrian to the Quaternary, come under scrutiny in this book, first published in 1992. The geological evidence for ancient climates is examined, such as the distribution of climate-sensitive sediments. The Earth's climate has changed many times throughout the Phanerozoic. Thus in this book the climate history has been divided into Warm and Cool modes, intervals when either the Earth was in a former 'greenhouse' state with higher levels of atmospheric CO2 and polar regions free of ice, or the global climate was cooler and ice was present in high latitudes. The studies presented here highlight the complex interactions between the carbon cycle, continental distribution, tectonics, sea level variation, ocean circulation and temperature change as well as other parameters. In particular, the potential of the carbon isotope records as an important signal of the past climates of the Earth is explored. This book will be useful to all students and researchers with an interest in palaeoclimates and palaeoenvironments.

This book views the Earth's climate as a global system, by describing the evolution of climate throughout the past 600 million years, from the Cambrian to the Quaternary. Palaeoclimates are examined in terms of Cold and Warm modes--phases during which the Earth's climates were either relatively cool with ice forming in high latitudes or when high levels of CO2 led to "greenhouse" warmings and temperate floras and faunas inhabited polar regions. Evidence for climate changes, such as biological indicators, geochemical parameters, and the presence of ice, are compared between these modes. These studies have highlighted the crucial role of tectonics and continental distribution in governing ocean circulation, the distribution of sea ice, sea level changes and global temperature distribution. Orbital forcing and the carbon cycle are also shown as important influences, particularly on short term climatic variations.

This book is an unorthodox ground-breaking scientific study on natural climate change and its contribution to ongoing multi-centennial global warming. The book critically reviews the effect of the following on climate: - Milankovitch cycles - abrupt glacial (Dansgaard-Oeschger) events - Holocene climate variability - the 1500-year cycle - solar activity - volcanic eruptions - greenhouse gases - energy transport Applying the scientific method to available evidence reveals that some of these phenomena are profoundly misunderstood by most researchers. Milankovitch cycles are tied to orbital obliquity, not to orbital precessional summer insolation; glacial megatides might have triggered abrupt Dansgaard-Oeschger events; and tides are likely responsible for the related 1500-year climate cycle. Climate change affects volcanic eruptions more than the opposite; and secular variations in solar activity are more important to climate change during the Holocene than greenhouse gases. In this book, we see how important natural climate change has been on human societies of the past. It also produces new climate projections for the 21st century and when the next glaciation could happen. What emerges from this study of natural climate change is a central theme: Variations in the transport of energy from the tropics to the poles have been neglected as a cause of climate change, and solar activity variations affect climate by modulating this transport. The author tells us: –Transporting more energy from a greenhouse gas-rich region, the tropics, to a greenhouse gas-poor region, the poles, increases the amount of energy lost at the top of the atmosphere. The effect resembles a reduction in the greenhouse gas content.– The book presents the Winter-Gatekeeper Hypothesis on how variations in solar activity regulate Earth's energy transport and in so doing affect atmospheric circulation, the rotation of the planet, and the El Niño/Southern Oscillation. This book is oriented toward students and academics in the climate sciences and climate anthropology and should also appeal to readers interested in the science of natural climate change. The repercussions of Climate of the Past, Present and Future are far reaching. By uncovering a strong natural climate change component, it provides a novel view of anthropogenic climate change, fossil energy use, and our future climate; a view quite different from the IPCC's gloomy projections.

To understand climate change today, we first need to know how Earth’s climate changed over the past 450 million years. Finding answers depends upon contributions from a wide range of sciences, not just the rock record uncovered by geologists. In Earth’s Climate Evolution, Colin Summerhayes analyzes reports and records of past climate change dating back to the late 18th century to uncover key patterns in the climate system. The book will transform debate and set the agenda for the next generation of thought about future climate change. The book takes a unique approach to the subject providing a description of the greenhouse and icehouse worlds of the past 450 million years since land plants emerged, ignoring major earlier glaciations like that of Snowball Earth, which occurred around 600 million years ago in a world free of land plants. It describes the evolution of thinking in palaeoclimatology and introduces the main players in the field and how their ideas were received and, in many cases, subsequently modified. It records the arguments and discussions about the merits of different ideas along the way. It also includes several notes made from the author’s own personal involvement in palaeoclimatological and palaeoceanographic studies, and from his experience of working alongside several of the major players in these fields in recent years. This book will be an invaluable reference for both undergraduate and postgraduate students taking courses in related fields and will also be of interest to historians of science and/or geology, climatology and oceanography. It should also be of interest to the wider scientific and engineering community, high school science students, policy makers, and environmental NGOs. Reviews: "Outstanding in its presentation of the facts and a good read in the way that it intersperses the climate story with the author's own experiences. [This book] puts the climate story into a compelling geological history." -Dr. James Baker "The book is written in very clear and concise prose, [and takes] original, enlightening, and engaging approach to talking about 'ideas' from the perspective of the scientists who promoted them." -Professor Christopher R. Scotese "A thrilling ride through continental drift and its consequences." - Professor Gerald R. North "Written in a style and language which can be easily understood by laymen as well as scientists." - Professor Dr Jörn Thiede "What makes this book particularly distinctive is how well it builds in the narrative of change in ideas over time." - Holocene book reviews, May 2016 "This is a fascinating book and the author’s biographical approach gives it great human appeal." - E Adlard

In recent years, efforts to integrate solid earth geophysical studies and climate studies have progressed slowly, but this volume responds to the deficiency with an in-depth examination of climate modeling. Written by eminent figures from both disciplines, it focuses on the role of tectonic boundary conditions for paleoclimate reconstruction at the same time it presents background material on the impact of tectonic changes on climate and the uncertainties in tectonic boundary conditions.

The Oligocene and Miocene Epochs comprise the most important phases in the Cenozoic global cooling that led from a greenhouse to an icehouse Earth. Recent major advances in the understanding and time-resolution of climate events taking place at this time, as well as the proliferation of studies on Oligocene and Miocene shallow-water/neritic carbonate systems, invite us to re-evaluate the significance of these carbonate systems in the context of changes in climate and Earth surface processes. Carbonate systems, because of a wide dependence on the ecological requirements of organisms producing the sediment, are sensitive recorders of changes in environmental conditions on the Earth surface. The papers included in this Special Publication address the dynamic evolution of carbonate systems deposited during the Oligocene and Miocene in the context on climatic and Earth surfaces processes focusing on climatic trends and controls over deposition; temporal changes in carbonate producers and palaeoecology; carbonate terminology; facies; processes and environmental parameters (including water temperature and production depth profiles); carbonate producers and their spatial and temporal variability; and tectonic controls over architecture. This book is part of the International Association of Sedimentologists (IAS) Special Publications. The Special Publications from the IAS are a set of thematic volumes edited by specialists on subjects of central interest to sedimentologists. Papers are reviewed and printed to the same high standards as those published in the journal Sedimentology and several of these volumes have become standard works of reference.

This two-volume book provides a comprehensive, detailed understanding of paleoclimatology beginning by describing the “proxy data” from which quantitative climate parameters are reconstructed and finally by developing a comprehensive Earth system model able to simulate past climates of the Earth. It compiles contributions from specialists in each field who each have an in-depth knowledge of their particular area of expertise. The first volume is devoted to “Finding, dating and interpreting the evidence”. It describes the different geo-chronological technical methods used in paleoclimatology. Different fields of geosciences such as: stratigraphy, magnetism, dendrochronology, sedimentology, are drawn from and proxy reconstructions from ice sheets, terrestrial (speleothems, lakes, and vegetation) and oceanic data, are used to reconstruct the ancient climates of the Earth. The second volume, entitled “Investigation into ancient climates,” focuses on building comprehensive models of past climate evolution. The chapters are based on understanding the processes driving the evolution of each component of the Earth system (atmosphere, ocean, ice). This volume provides both an analytical understanding of each component using a hierarchy of models (from conceptual to very sophisticated 3D general circulation models) and a synthetic approach incorporating all of these components to explore the evolution of the Earth as a global system. As a whole this book provides the reader with a complete view of data reconstruction and modeling of the climate of the Earth from deep time to present day with even an excursion to include impacts on future climate.