Lecture on Global Cooling Warming

1) The earth has very strong, very predictable cycles of ice ages (glacials)
and warm interludes (interglacials).

2) These are mostly caused by changes in the earth’s orbit around the sun
and our tilt toward or away from the sun.

3) We experience a complete cycle every 40 – 45k years.

4) As it gets hotter or colder each time, positive feedback processes here

on earth tend to accelerate the rate of heating and cooling, resulting in the
heating and cooling happening not slowly and gracefully each time but
sort of all at once, or at least as “all at once” as a few thousand years.

5) The last glacial ended between 20,000 and 13,000 years ago,
depending on where you lived and what you considered “normal weather”.

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6) Our planet is completely different during the glacials.

 Temps average 40 degrees Fahrenheit lower.

 Ice covers much of the northern hemisphere. Like 1 mile thick over
Chicago, reaching down to Texas.

 Because so much water is locked up as ice, the oceans are about 100m
lower, yielding land bridges between islands and even continents.

 There is very little rain and very high constant wind. As a result, soil
isn’t held on the land but instead wind-blown over the oceans, where it
eventually precipitates down.

 As a result of all this dirt in the seas, much more life exists there,
starting with plankton and including all of the trophic levels up.

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 As a result of all of this life in the oceans, there is much less
atmospheric carbon than we are used to. Like 1/5 to 1/2 as much.

 The southern hemisphere is cooler, but not as much colder as the

north, and while the tropics shrink, they don’t die off.

 You could think of the glacials as a period with three different earth
zones – frozen north, warm(ish) south, and incredibly lively seas.

 You could also think of the warm interglacials as periods of incredible

die-offs and extinctions and loss, if you lived in the oceans, that is…

 Whose planet is this, anyway?

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7) A brief history of the last 15,000 years, the most-recent interglacial:

 As ice recedes, plants move steadily north at 500m to 1km a year.

 Animals, obviously, follow them.

 The seas rise, cutting off islands and continents.

 Global climate settles into its new normal, including a functioning

Atlantic Conveyor, which circulates heat between the hemispheres,
making it more like “one Earth”.

 Also, predictable and recognizable cycles of monsoons, hurricanes, El

Neno precipitation patterns, and river flows resume.

 Life, if you will, moves from the sea to the land, massive biomass flips
occur, and the northern land mass, in particular, becomes the center of
the world.
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 Remember all that carbon that was tied up in sea life? Remember
those positive feedback processes? Less dirt blown by less wind
yields less plankton which allows increased atmospheric carbon to
further heat the planet…

 Our species walked out of our African refuge, looked around, and said
“I’m gonna build cities here, aquaducts there, and a 7-11 over there!”

 Our interglacial is mild – the last one was actually slightly hotter.

 Don’t sleep on the tremendous stress these glacial to interglacial and

back again flips put on all the life on this planet. It is global-scale
evolutionary pressure. It compels adaptation. It determines fitness. It
is a powerful driver of change. It re-juggles communities, ecosystems,
and relationships.

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8) Takeaways:

 There are two more-or-less stable states, and we are nearing the end of
the present one (starts cooling again in 1,500 years or so, probably).

 Most of the present ecosystems are not permanent in any sort of way –
we re-colonize the planet each cycle, building new relationships and
communities, sometimes with new species, other times just with new
mixes of them.

 The human lifetime and imagination are so short, and we are such
romantics, that we like to think of this planet like our mother’s breast
or our father’s strong arms – warm, loving, life-giving, protective, and
always there for us.

 The earth, if it cared enough about us to even notice, would find that
amusing. Aren’t we cute.

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9) The global warming debate:

 Is really an anthrocentric debate – not about natural systems, but

instead about our narcissistic obsession with our contribution to
climate change. Look how big and powerful (and bad) we are!

 Is predicated on the poor decision-making of past generations. I didn’t

build your city a foot above sea level, your dumb damn grandpa did.

 Is complicated by the fact that you people have created 7 billion (and
counting) hungry-mouthed consumers. This whole thing would be so
much easier if there were only 2 billion people, like there were 100
years ago. Maybe Ana was right last week, snip-snip is the answer!

 Is, very often, cover for other agendas: Political, economic,

diplomatic, martial, racial, cultural, whatever… Too often, when
discussing the environment, people are really talking about something
else entirely…
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10) What to do?

 Enjoy all the pretty pretty evolution?

 Take care of your own?

 Save all the fossil fuels for the next glacial and try to protect the north

against ice?

 Grow gills?

 You got better ideas?