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Changes In Earth's Orbit Were Key To Antarctic Warming That Ended Last Ice Age

Posted by Soulskill on from the i-blame-kepler dept.

vinces99 writes "For more than a century scientists have known that Earth's ice ages are caused by the wobbling of the planet's orbit, which changes its orientation to the sun and affects the amount of sunlight reaching higher latitudes, particularly the polar regions. The Northern Hemisphere's last ice age ended about 20,000 years ago, and most evidence has indicated that the ice age in the Southern Hemisphere ended about 2,000 years later, suggesting that the south was responding to warming in the north. But new research published online Aug. 14 in Nature (abstract) shows that Antarctic warming began at least 2,000, and perhaps 4,000, years earlier than previously thought."

13 of 180 comments (clear)

  1. Climate change is human-caused, full stop by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's Cavemanthropogenic Global Warming, if you want to get technical.

  2. Ice ages are caused by planetary wobbles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    But warming is caused by man.

    Got it.

    1. Re:Ice ages are caused by planetary wobbles by SuperKendall · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Isn't it inconvenient when people who think differently than yourself speak up?

      Other religious fanatics have the same reactions when their ideals are challenged.

      I have found through the years, "shut up" is the sign of a weak and easily manipulated mind.

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    2. Re:Ice ages are caused by planetary wobbles by Gavrielkay · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Better my trotting out a headcount of experts than others' trotting out gut feelings. I have a degree in chemistry, I understand the scientific method. I work in programming, I understand logic. Both of those concepts help me to understand that hundreds of scientists from around the world are not making this shit up. Perhaps new data will come to light and prove some or all of the current theories wrong, but it won't come from /. posters making snide remarks.

      And it won't come because some people have decided that science is great when it provides computers, internet and porn on DVD but is somehow stacked full of blithering idiots when it comes to climate change.

    3. Re:Ice ages are caused by planetary wobbles by khellendros1984 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If someone makes a post that seems to be making a false-equivalence between two situations, then they aren't even challenging anyone's "ideals", they're just introducing confusion for no good reason. Anthropogenic climate change and climate change through natural processes (like Earth's orbital wobble) aren't mutually exclusive, and any argument that says that they are is either disingenuous or badly confused about the claims being made. If you take the former to be true (and I do), then "shut up" is the correct response to the trolling attempt.

      --
      It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
    4. Re:Ice ages are caused by planetary wobbles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There is little insight in a sarcastic comment expressing a common point of confusion: that climate change processes on the scale of tens to hundreds of thousands of years are going to matter to what happens in the next century or two.

      I don't mind sarcasm if it's founded on an insightful understanding, but this isn't. It's just dumb. It promotes confusion, not understanding. Here, I'll rephrase it for you with an analogous situation:

      "Tides are caused by the Sun and Moon"
      "But waves are caused by wind"
      "Got it"

      What, is this supposed to be a contradiction? That the surface of the sea could be determined by *two* different processes at the same time at two different scales of observation and timescales? Gasp! Insanity! Sea level skeptics unite and resist the global sea level conspiracy!

      See, I can use sarcasm and hyperbole. But it doesn't really help my argument. What matters here is the observation that the guy making his sarcastic comment about controls on climate doesn't understand that there isn't anything contradictory about climate variations due to astronomical cycles at long time scales (thousands of years) being different from human inputs at shorter timescales (centuries). It's no more contradictory than the different processes responsible for the temperature variation seen over a single day versus a season. Or does he have a problem with that as well? At least it would be consistent.

  3. Don't let ice build up! by NotQuiteReal · · Score: 3, Funny

    All that ice on the poles made the Earth all wobbley, which led to Bad Things. We should de-ice the planet, as a precaution so it doesn't happen again!

    I mean, you don't let ice build up on your roof, in your freezer, or on airplanes... ice is always bad unless it is in my drink!

    --
    This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
  4. Before anyone drags climate change into it.. by sl4shd0rk · · Score: 5, Informative

    FTFA: "Changes in Earth's orbit today are not an important factor in the rapid warming that has been observed recently...Earth's orbit changes on the scale of thousands of years, but carbon dioxide today is changing on the scale of decades so climate change is happening much faster today."

    --
    Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
    1. Re:Before anyone drags climate change into it.. by Gavrielkay · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Or, it was a (partially) successful attempt to deflect the rash of comments about how their research on the previous ice age must invalidate lots of other research on current climate change.

    2. Re:Before anyone drags climate change into it.. by riverat1 · · Score: 3, Informative

      What's really funny is all the people who say we're in a cooling trend lately when the warmest year on record was 2010. All I can say is enjoy it while it lasts, I doubt you'll still be able to say that in 2020. The greenhouse effect is still in effect.

  5. Earth's balance off because of too many people? by VinylRecords · · Score: 3, Funny

    Maybe the earth's orbit changes right now are because there are too many people living in one area and they are weighing down the earth like a seesaw? Like if too man people live on one side of an island the island tips over?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cesSRfXqS1Q

  6. Re:So basically... by i+kan+reed · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No, it's pretty much just "no". The phrase "global warming" conventionally describes the unprecedentedly rapid rise in temperatures since the industrial revolution. That is entirely "our fault" because of aforementioned unprecedented rate, and that data is quite incontestable without dramatic misrepresentation of what is being compared.

  7. Author is so full of it his eyes are brown... by dtjohnson · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "For more than a century scientists have known that Earth’s ice ages are caused by the wobbling of the planet’s orbit.

    There are so many blatant errors in just this one sentence that it's publication is astounding. First, the Earth is currently in the middle of its 5th "ice age," the "Pliocene-Quaternary glaciation," (which began 2.5 million years ago) and what the article calls 'ice ages' are termed by real scientists to be "glacial periods" within the current ice age. The Earth is presently in what is called an "interglacial period" and the next "glacial period" is likely to begin within the next 1,000 to 2,000 years. Next, there is certainly no consensus that either the Earth's "Ice Ages" or "Glacial Periods" are caused by wobbling of the planet's orbit. General consensus by scientists is that both ice ages and glacial periods within those are caused by a variety of factors including atmospheric changes, solar changes, changes in the position of tectonic plates which affect ocean circulation, variations in the Earth's orbit (which are currently considered more likely to affect glacial and interglacial cycles rather than to initiate or end ice ages), and volcanism. In short, TFA is utter bullshit.