What drives glacial cycles?
Abstract
It is argued that massive reorganizations of the ocean-atmosphere system are the key events that link cyclic changes in the earth's orbit to the advance and retreat of ice sheets. It is shown that changes in the earth's atmosphere can lead to alterations in the ocean current which causes the formation of the North Atlantic deep water. Because of these changes, there is a significant lessening of heat release in the Northern Hemisphere and an ice age results. This theory explains why ice age glaciers occur heavily in the Northern Hemisphere but not in the Southern Hemisphere.
- Publication:
-
Scientific American
- Pub Date:
- January 1990
- Bibcode:
- 1990SciAm.262a..49B
- Keywords:
-
- Air Water Interactions;
- Climate Change;
- Glaciology;
- Ice Formation;
- Carbon Dioxide;
- Methane;
- Polar Regions;
- Snow Cover;
- Geophysics