Introduction: The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether global warming could affect the thermohaline circulation cycle (THC) significantly enough that it could even shut it down and thus cause a shift in the climate of Europe severe enough to cause another Little Ice Age. To answer the question about whether global warming could cause another ice age, I have divided this paper into segments. The first will explain what the thermohaline circulation cycle is. Next, I will look at the last interglacial period and observe what the conditions were like especially in respect to the THC. I will look at how the last interglacial led to the last great Ice Age, and the sudden demise of that Ice Age, as well as the nearly equally sudden cooling that occurred in the Younger Dryas about 12,000 years ago before the warming resumed in earnest shortly thereafter. In the final part of this paper I will look at two different predictions of what could happen as a result of the melting of the North Atlantic region's ice sheets with respect to the THC and how it could affect the regional climate in Europe. What is the thermohaline Circulation Cycle? The thermohaline circulation cycle (THC) delivers heat to the North Atlantic. In the winter the heat from the water is released into the eastward moving air masses like the Gulf Stream, thereby warming much of western and northern Europe. Cooling in the North Atlantic increases the density of the 'upper ocean water' to the point at which it becomes so dense that it sinks to the bottom and flows south towards the Antarctic, forming the 'lower limb' of this conveyor belt of North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) (1583 Broecker). Figure 1 (9.8, Principles of Environmental Science, 198 Cunn... ... middle of paper ... ... Our Climate Systems,' Science 278(505) (Nov 1997): 1582-8. Gent, Peter R, 'Will the North Atlantic Ocean Thermohaline Circulation Weaken During the 21st Century?' Geophysical Research Letters 28(5-8) (2001): 1023-6. Knudsen, Karen-Luise and Marit-Solveig Seidenkrantz and Kristenson, Peter, 'Last Interglacial and Early Global Circulation in the northern North Atlantic Ocean,' Quaternary Research 58 (July 2002): 22-6. McManus, Jerry and Delia W. Oppo and Keigwin, Lloyd D., 'Thermohaline Circulation Cycle and Prolonged Interglacial Warmth in the North Atlantic,' Quaternary Research 58 (July 2002): 17-21. 'Table 2.4: Guide to the terminology used in paleoclimate studies of the past 150,000 years.' Table. Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 4 February 2003 http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/072.htm
Americas by 14,000 ago” (O’Brien 12), after large portions of North America encountered the last ice age, which
...Clague, John J., Luckman, Brian H., Wiles, Gregory C. “Tree-Ring Dating of the Nineteenth-Century Advance of Brady Glacier and the Evolution of Two Ice- Marginal Lakes, Alaska.” The Holocene 21.4 (2001): 641-649. Sage Journals. Web. 9. Feb. 2014.
Antarctic’s ice melt and accelerating sea level rise, the growing number of large wildfires, intense heat wave shocks, severe drought and blizzards, disrupted and decreased food supply, and extreme storm events are increasing to happen in many areas world wide and these are just some of the consequences of global warming. The fossil fuel we burn for energy coal, natural gas, and oil plus the loss of forests due to disforestation, in the southern hemisphere are all contributors for climate change. In the past three decades, every single year was warmer then the previous year and the warmest 12 years were recorded since 1998. We are overloading our atmosphere with carbon dioxide and trapping the heat and recently, the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere reached 400 pmm. Not just environmental issues are rising due to carbon dioxide increase but more and miscellaneous issues are appearing as climate change becomes more severe. For example, regional models and local analyses agree that Mongolia has become noticeably warmer and the climate change effect is damaging their millennial of historic nomadic lifestyle and even came to the peek of extinction. The Mongolian nomadic pastoralists became highly vulnerable to many an unusual climate impacts and extreme temperature fluctuation that have led to inadequate pasture land and loss of enormous number of livestock, often faces hostile environmental conditions that led o entrenched pastoral poverty. This essay focuses on how the climate change impacts the qualitative and quantitative value of indigenous culture and nomadic life style, and how the economy struggles in the magnitudes of massive migration of nomads to urban area while it fails to value t...
The Little Ice Age is the name for the period of cooling spanning from 1400 to 1900 c.e. that took place after the Medieval Warm Period. Scientists believe that solar minimums and reversals in the Northern Atlantic Oscillation, a large atmospheric-circulation system that affects weather in the North Atlantic area including Europe, drove these changes (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2014). It is often assumed that the Little Ice Age had a global impact. However, in 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change put forth in a climate assessment report that though there were glacial increases in other parts of the world, they were not synchronous with the glacia...
During this period, groups had migrated long distances, following the edge of the glacial ice in search of food, mostly hunting seals. Some groups following seals and other marine food stuffs, made it all the Way to North America.
Newfoundland and Labrador’s fisheries might start to be dated in a period not too distant from that Age of Discovery years, about five centuries ago, and since this period it had been performed an important role in both economic and socio-cultural structure of Atlantic Canada. Among several species, northern cods performed one of the main sources of food for both populations from Atlantic Canada and Eastern European countries such as Spain, Portugal, France, and principally England (Higgins, Lifestyle of Fishers, 1600-1900, 2008).
90 percent of the effects of global warming are attributed to rising temperatures and heat. This heat tends to affect our oceans due to the ...
Climate change, otherwise known as global warming, has grown more apparent in recent years, with increased natural disasters, significantly warmer temperatures and unreasonably long seasons. Global warming is one of the main concerns that scientists have been researching for the past century. Scientific evidence shows that global warming is caused by human behaviors. Due to the amount of human-induced carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that have been released into the air, the earth is becoming a highly poisonous place to live on. Earth’s climate has been constantly changing ever since the Industrial Revolution, when innovations began and factories were built, which emitted mass air pollution. As more technological advances continued the years after, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air also increased. According to the UPI Space Daily News, “Global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) - the main cause of global warming - increased by 45% between 1990 and 2010, and reached an all-time high of 33 billion tonnes in 2010” (Writers 1). The 1900s through the 2000s is the time period in which humans caused the most air pollution by creating vehicles and other industrial machinery. In the contemporary time period, human activities that contribute to climate change consist of hydraulic fracturing, rice cultivation, the increase of fossil fuel burning, and the rise of deforestation.
21,000 years ago, the Last Glacial Maximum, or LGM, occurred. It was the most recent period in climate history where ice sheets were at their peak size. This era “represents the nearest of a series of past climatic extremes characterizing the waxing and waning of Quaternary ice ages and as such serves as an excellent testing ground for assessment of sensitivity of the Earth’s climatic system,” (814, MAROGT). Due to this sensitivity of the climatic system, when data modeling global climates it is easier to see the individual effects of various external forcings (factors that alter the climate) when they are manipulated. This makes the Last Glacial Maximum ideal for testing, and it can be essential to global climate data modeling, including our
To draw a conclusion about the use of Hg isotopes to understand Hg biogeochemical cycles in the Canadian Arctic marine
O'Hare, G.. (2011). Updating our understanding of climate change in the North Atlantic: the role of global warming and the Gulf Stream. Geography,1 96, 5-15. Retrieved September 20, 2011, from Research Library. (Document ID: 2346235711).
The Atlantic Ocean has been affected by the recent climate change in the Amazon. The water temperature of the ocean has rose. The temperature of the Atlantic Ocean is being determi...
There is no longer any question that our world climate has changed (King, 2004). Over the last 100 years, "temperatures have risen by about 0.6 degrees Celsius and global sea level has risen by about 20cm" (K...
Although climate change isn’t visible from one day to the next, year to year there are many visible signs of climate change, are there is strong evidence of this due to observations and measurements all over the world. Some of the most prominent visible signs are higher temperatures, more droughts, increased extreme weather events, changing rain and snow patterns, less snowpack, melting glaciers, shrinking sea ice, thawing permafrost, increased ocean acidity, warmer oceans and rising sea levels.
all the time. The greenhouse effect is a natural process that keeps the earth at temperatures that