Ellis sent me his paper “Modulation of Ice-ages via Precession and Dust-Albedo Feedbacks” in Geoscience Frontiers, and I found it rather intriguing. To greatly simplify: CO2 is good for you, and it’s going to get real cold not too long from now. I asked him to write a summary, which is below, but use the paper for any intelligent criticisms.
I wonder if Bill Gates will fund a startup company that invents a “glacier Roomba” to get rid of the Gobi dust? Oh! Then he can use the dust to darken the Earth’s skies!
Are there any other climatologists / papers discussing the dust layers in ice cores and the potential / likely impact of same? I can come up with guesses at search terms but am curious if you or anyone knows of some off-hand.
There are a few papers that have used dust-albedo to assist CO2 as a feedback (eg: Ganopolski et al). But Ganopolski said this was glaciogenic dust from the ice sheet front, which is completely wrong, and he had to include CO2 in his models in order to get a grant.
The result was a pigsty paper which bore no resemblance to reality. It is perfectly clear that ice sheets do not bulldoze their way across the land, with a cliff-face front like something out of a Disney cartoon. And isotopic analysis plus the Loess Plateau strata, have long ago demonstrated that Greenland dust came from the Gobi.
So no - this is a new theory that at last explains every facet of the ice age cycle. And it does not need CO2 in the normal fashion. An no, I was not worried about losing my grant, because all my work is privately funded.
Your response is very much appreciated, as is the easily digestible explanation in it, and your summary of your paper above.
These last few years in Victoria Australia have been terrible from a pandemic management POV, but I imagine being trapped in an environment where reality and truth are shunned to sustain politically-charged funding is equally frustrating. It's fantastic to read your funding is private, although no doubt people will try to use that against you once this paper gets air-time.
I'm writing a little article to publicise your paper, for what my contribution is worth.
Nice to make your acquaintance - if you have a twitter feed or somewhere to follow you, please let us know.
The paper itself has had 45,000 downloads, and the video on the Tom Nelson channel has had 25,000 views, so the theory has gained some traction. Yet the mainstream media will not touch it, of course.
They will cite my lack of a degree in the subject. But will simultaneously ignore my 20,000 hours flying in the in the troposphere, assessing and observing the weather and climate for 40 years. The M.O. of academia is always to discredit the author, rather than debate the theory or facts.
Thanks for your contribution. We see in your Fig 1, climate responses for the higher latitudes as responses to Milankovitch cycle forcings over the last 450,000 years. We see the temperatures rise in the higher latitudes only every third orbital obliquity cycle (41ky). The glacial-interglacial period during this time period is around 100,000 years. This roughly corresponds to the orbital eccentricity cycle of 100,000 years. It should be noted that the precise way these Milankovitch orbital variations work together to regulate the timing of glacial-interglacial cycles is not that well understood. Let’s give it a try anyway...
In 2017, Jung-Eun Lee and associates published model results which indicated that as the planet cools to a critical minimum temperature, and as obliquity moves lower (smaller tilt angle), and as planetary axial precession and obliquity effects drive both polar regions colder, a glaciation cascade via sea ice expansion can occur with subsequent ice-albedo and water vapor feedbacks maintaining the glacial state.
Let’s explore one possible explanation for the progression of glaciation. The early Pleistocene glacial-interglacial period where the ice expanded for 20k years then receded for 20k years appears to be driven by the Milankovitch obliquity cycle producing a 41k year period. This climate cycle is the result of the modulation of Earth’s tilt axis. The tilt angle changes from a minimum of about 23 degrees to a maximum of around 25 degrees in a continuous cycle. After glacial inception and as obliquity starts to move higher, the higher latitudes and the poles begin to get more warming sunlight. High obliquity then begins to melt the glaciers and sea ice which reduces the Earth’s albedo and initiates a 20k year warmer interglacial period. As obliquity again starts to move lower, cooling both polar regions, ice-albedo again fuels the cooling feedback where low obliquity then drives the next 20k year glaciation. This glacial-interglacial cycle had repeated for nearly 2 million years.
Starting about one million years ago, the oxygen isotope proxy temperatures indicate that the late Pleistocene glacial - interglacial period makes a significant shift to 100k years. Even though the 100k year eccentricity cycle alone is the weakest of the three Milankovitch cycles to the degree that it affects solar radiation, it can modulate and enhance precession and obliquity effects.
Oh instigator, thy name is Precession -
As the planet continues cool, low obliquity cooling and cooling feedbacks can still initiate and maintain glaciation. High obliquity alone however, will not be sufficient to break the feedback loops of this colder, icier world. During the late Pleistocene, as the global temperatures continue to fall, the 100k year glacial-interglacial period remains frigid and ice-bound for 80k years (two obliquity cycles). As the Earth’s orbit once again becomes more elliptical and with the added insolation from the Milankovitch eccentricity mode coupled with high obliquity of the third cycle, precession produces a series of significantly hotter northern hemisphere summers when the Earth is near its closest distance to the sun (apogee). This results in breaking the ice-albedo feedback with increased insolation and subsequent deglaciation and a 20k year interglacial period. The interglacial is then terminated when obliquity moves lower with eccentricity remaining high. Precession then produces a period where northern hemisphere summers occur near apogee with high eccentricity and low obliquity resulting in those summers getting a little warmer while southern hemisphere summers become significantly colder near perigee resulting in rapid sea ice expansion and the next 80k year glacial period.
I wonder if Bill Gates will fund a startup company that invents a “glacier Roomba” to get rid of the Gobi dust? Oh! Then he can use the dust to darken the Earth’s skies!
😂🤩 Entrepreneurial thinking par excellence! No waste in sustainable green-cycle economics (& blue & red & yellow & purple to boot) 🤭
I love it! Aren't facts horribly inconvenient? I'm going to get a t-shirt made that reads:
Support our Forests!
Increase your Carbon output!
I have to say, I like Ralph Ellis writings, but he is more heretical about religion than myself. LOL!
So for any Christians here, don't be too surprised if you read more things from this researcher.
This research on the Milankovitch Cycle is very interesting, and his style is very persuasive, in my opinion.
I think the biggest issue is it makes sense and has easily digestible explanatory power- the expertocracy won't like that.
The expertocracy much prefer fear-based explanations that keep the populace in their place and the taxpayer funding stream flowing.
Top shelf! But as we know, the MACAs (Make America Communist Altogether) cult members are too dumbed down to grasp this unwoke (real) science.
Fantastic reasoning.
Are there any other climatologists / papers discussing the dust layers in ice cores and the potential / likely impact of same? I can come up with guesses at search terms but am curious if you or anyone knows of some off-hand.
There are a few papers that have used dust-albedo to assist CO2 as a feedback (eg: Ganopolski et al). But Ganopolski said this was glaciogenic dust from the ice sheet front, which is completely wrong, and he had to include CO2 in his models in order to get a grant.
The result was a pigsty paper which bore no resemblance to reality. It is perfectly clear that ice sheets do not bulldoze their way across the land, with a cliff-face front like something out of a Disney cartoon. And isotopic analysis plus the Loess Plateau strata, have long ago demonstrated that Greenland dust came from the Gobi.
So no - this is a new theory that at last explains every facet of the ice age cycle. And it does not need CO2 in the normal fashion. An no, I was not worried about losing my grant, because all my work is privately funded.
Ralph
Your response is very much appreciated, as is the easily digestible explanation in it, and your summary of your paper above.
These last few years in Victoria Australia have been terrible from a pandemic management POV, but I imagine being trapped in an environment where reality and truth are shunned to sustain politically-charged funding is equally frustrating. It's fantastic to read your funding is private, although no doubt people will try to use that against you once this paper gets air-time.
I'm writing a little article to publicise your paper, for what my contribution is worth.
Nice to make your acquaintance - if you have a twitter feed or somewhere to follow you, please let us know.
Thanks for your support.
The paper itself has had 45,000 downloads, and the video on the Tom Nelson channel has had 25,000 views, so the theory has gained some traction. Yet the mainstream media will not touch it, of course.
They will cite my lack of a degree in the subject. But will simultaneously ignore my 20,000 hours flying in the in the troposphere, assessing and observing the weather and climate for 40 years. The M.O. of academia is always to discredit the author, rather than debate the theory or facts.
ralf.ellis at me.com
Cheers,
Ralph
Thanks for your contribution. We see in your Fig 1, climate responses for the higher latitudes as responses to Milankovitch cycle forcings over the last 450,000 years. We see the temperatures rise in the higher latitudes only every third orbital obliquity cycle (41ky). The glacial-interglacial period during this time period is around 100,000 years. This roughly corresponds to the orbital eccentricity cycle of 100,000 years. It should be noted that the precise way these Milankovitch orbital variations work together to regulate the timing of glacial-interglacial cycles is not that well understood. Let’s give it a try anyway...
In 2017, Jung-Eun Lee and associates published model results which indicated that as the planet cools to a critical minimum temperature, and as obliquity moves lower (smaller tilt angle), and as planetary axial precession and obliquity effects drive both polar regions colder, a glaciation cascade via sea ice expansion can occur with subsequent ice-albedo and water vapor feedbacks maintaining the glacial state.
Let’s explore one possible explanation for the progression of glaciation. The early Pleistocene glacial-interglacial period where the ice expanded for 20k years then receded for 20k years appears to be driven by the Milankovitch obliquity cycle producing a 41k year period. This climate cycle is the result of the modulation of Earth’s tilt axis. The tilt angle changes from a minimum of about 23 degrees to a maximum of around 25 degrees in a continuous cycle. After glacial inception and as obliquity starts to move higher, the higher latitudes and the poles begin to get more warming sunlight. High obliquity then begins to melt the glaciers and sea ice which reduces the Earth’s albedo and initiates a 20k year warmer interglacial period. As obliquity again starts to move lower, cooling both polar regions, ice-albedo again fuels the cooling feedback where low obliquity then drives the next 20k year glaciation. This glacial-interglacial cycle had repeated for nearly 2 million years.
Starting about one million years ago, the oxygen isotope proxy temperatures indicate that the late Pleistocene glacial - interglacial period makes a significant shift to 100k years. Even though the 100k year eccentricity cycle alone is the weakest of the three Milankovitch cycles to the degree that it affects solar radiation, it can modulate and enhance precession and obliquity effects.
Oh instigator, thy name is Precession -
As the planet continues cool, low obliquity cooling and cooling feedbacks can still initiate and maintain glaciation. High obliquity alone however, will not be sufficient to break the feedback loops of this colder, icier world. During the late Pleistocene, as the global temperatures continue to fall, the 100k year glacial-interglacial period remains frigid and ice-bound for 80k years (two obliquity cycles). As the Earth’s orbit once again becomes more elliptical and with the added insolation from the Milankovitch eccentricity mode coupled with high obliquity of the third cycle, precession produces a series of significantly hotter northern hemisphere summers when the Earth is near its closest distance to the sun (apogee). This results in breaking the ice-albedo feedback with increased insolation and subsequent deglaciation and a 20k year interglacial period. The interglacial is then terminated when obliquity moves lower with eccentricity remaining high. Precession then produces a period where northern hemisphere summers occur near apogee with high eccentricity and low obliquity resulting in those summers getting a little warmer while southern hemisphere summers become significantly colder near perigee resulting in rapid sea ice expansion and the next 80k year glacial period.
Kirby Schlaht,
The Story of Climate Change, https://thestoryofclimatechange.substack.com