This story was originally published in Wired, and is reproduced as part of Climate Desk’s collaboration. If you lived 50 million years ago, and traveled to the poles today, you would find lush forests and creatures such as crocodiles in place of miles-thick glaciers. This is because greenhouse gas concentrations during the Eocene were lower.
This article, which was first published by Wired, is being reprinted these as a part of the Climate Desk partnership.
Instead of miles-thick ice sheets, you would have encountered beautiful forests and creatures like crocodiles if you had traveled to the poles 50 million years ago. This is due to the fact that global warming occurred naturally during the Eocene because greenhouse gas concentrations were significantly higher than they are today. Particularly higher levels of methane, which is 80 times more potent than a planet and warmer than carbon dioxide, caused temperatures to rise and allowed plants and animals to carefully migrate back toward the poles.
By forming a blanket of unknown clouds that trapped warmth against the surface, methane may have been heating the Eocene poles in an additional, more delicate, and exciting way. According to a recent paper published in Nature Geoscience, that only could have increased warming at the poles by 7 degrees Celsius during the coldest winter months. According to climate scientist and head author Deepashree Dutta, who is currently a student at the University of Cambridge but conducted the study there,” we know that when methane is in the atmosphere, it gets oxidized, and therefore it produces water vapor.” In order to create polar stratospheric clouds, or PSCs for little, this water vapor next rises into the atmosphere and contributes to their formation.
Due in part to gnarly feedback loops, the Arctic is currently warming up to four times faster than the rest of the planet. This is because the ice melts and exposes darker water or land beneath, which heats up more quickly and causes more warming and melting. Researchers refer to this as antarctic amplification.
” If humanity keeps spewing methane, that might produce the water vapor required to create more of these unknown clouds.”
Polar warming is regularly underrated by forecast climate models, and scientists ‘ actual observations are frequently more dire than predictions predict. For earlier climates like the Eocene, this disagreement is also greater. PSCs might be a crucial component that explains why. Although they are now less popular in the Arctic than in Antarctica, scientists are concerned that as greenhouse gas emissions rise, these clouds may eventually become more common over both poles.
Ecologist Isla Myers-Smith of the Universities of British Columbia and Edinburgh, who studies the Arctic but was n’t involved in the new research, says that if we do n’ have projections—that are realistic—of the warming that is coming, then we’re probably going to get our understanding of how the system is very wrong. The discovered temperatures are now substantially higher than the models have predicted due to the recent warming that has been occurring in the Arctic.
Clouds are a significant source of uncertainty in climate science. In September, it was discovered that trees can plant clouds in more humid climate regions, which raised the possibility that future and preindustrial climate models may need to be revised. However, clouds are n’t always taken into account in simulations. Given the limitations of computing power, models can only handle a certain amount of detail.
During the cold winter months, PSCs can be seen in the skies of the Arctic and Antarctica between 15 and 25 kilometers ( 9.3 and 15.5 miles ). They are typically visible, but when the sun is angled perfectly, they can be seen. Because of their erratic coloration, which includes swirls of purple, teal, and bright, they are known as mother-of-pearl clouds in these situations. They create an insulating layer over the poles, much like large clouds do abroad, preventing sharp temperature drops.
The locations of the continents and mountains on Earth during the Eocene contributed to the formation of these clouds. For instance, Greenland’s lack of miles-thick ice meant lower land elevations because the Himalayas had n’t fully formed yet. As a result, there were more pressure waves in the atmosphere, which caused more energy to be directed toward the tropics. The Arctic ether cooled as less energy entered it, forming a PSC blanket. Things on land became warm.
The good news for us is probably that PSCs wo n’t be as large as they were in the Eocene.
Fortunately, the topography and ambient circulation have changed over the past 50 million years, thinning this blanket. PSCs continue to form and trap heat, but they are n’t as common as they once were. However, things could heat up up: If humanity keeps releasing methane into the atmosphere, that might produce the meteoric water vapor required to create more of these invisible clouds. Dutta says,” I need to be very clear: The magnitude of PSCs wo n’t be as high as the Eocene.” And that’s most likely the great news for us.
As the poles continue to change quickly, a better understanding of clouds will be crucial. According to ambient chemist Sophie Szopa, who has not participated in the new study but has studied the Eocene climate at France’s Laboratory for the Sciences of the Climate and Environment, the intensity of cloud feedbacks continues to be those with the greatest uncertainties. In order to comprehend the significance of this feedback on polar amplification for the upcoming century, it is so important to compare the outcomes of various climate models, including those of arctic soaring clouds.
Scientists will be better able to predict what will happen next if they understand how the Eocene ether affected the climate. According to Dutta,” these previous climates serve as a testbed for our models.” The possible warming caused by Earth’s healthy climatic changes can then be compared to the contribution of gas emissions from our civilization, according to basic science.
Improved models can also be used to forecast how the ecosystems of the Arctic will continue to change. For instance, the area is turning greener as plant species migrate north due to higher temperatures. As a result, the way the landscape absorbs or reflects the sun’s energy changes. For example, as more shrubs grow, more snow is trapped, preventing the ground from being penetrated by the cloudy winter air. That might hasten Arctic permafrost’s thawing and release methane and carbon dioxide, creating yet another feedback loop for climate change.
This summer, the Arctic was really popular, just like the rest of the world. Myers-Smith recalls temperatures reaching 77 degrees Fahrenheit at her research facility. She claims,” I had never encountered that at the site.” It provides more proof that the area is changing dramatically and that precise tracking models are required by scientists. You can also be surprised, she says, “even when you work in these systems and think you have a pretty good understanding of how things go.” This article, which was first published by Designed, is being reprinted below as a part of the Climate Desk partnership. Instead of miles-thick ice sheets, if you had lived 50 million years before and traveled to the poles, you would have discovered beautiful forests and creatures like crocodiles. This is due to the fact that greenhouse gas concentrations were high during the Eocene.
This story was originally published in Wired, and is reproduced as part of Climate Desk’s collaboration. If you lived 50 million years ago, and traveled to the poles today, you would find lush forests and creatures such as crocodiles in place of miles-thick glaciers. This is because greenhouse gas concentrations during the Eocene were lower.
Iceberg A-23A is sailing in a northerly direction throughout the Weddell Sea. NASA has taken a picture of the Earth from space, using its ZUMA telescope. If you had gone to the North and South Poles some 50 million years ago, you would have encountered lush forests and creatures like crocodiles, and not dense sheets of ice as seen today. This narrative was originally published by Wired and is now being shared as part of the Climate Desk project. Due to higher concentrations of greenhouse gases during the Eocene, the planet experienced a significant period of natural heat increase. Methane, an incredibly effective heat-trapping gas at 80 times the potency of carbon dioxide, was present in high levels at the time, motivating plants and animals to move toward the poles. Nowadays, the same migration is occurring once more. In addition to this, methane may have also been causing a type of cloud to appear, creating an invisible, trapping layer of warmth around the poles. An article in Nature Geoscience stated that the temperatures at the poles could have been raised by 7 Celsius degrees in the coldest winter months if only this happened. Climate scientist Deepashree Dutta, who was conducting her study at the University of New South Wales when the findings were made, states that when methane is present in the air, it undergoes oxidation which leads to the production of water vapor. The moisture present in water vapor then moves up into the stratosphere. This has a part in the formation of Polar Stratospheric Clouds (PSCs). High levels of global warming, which are occurring at a rate of four times faster in the Arctic, are due in large part to negative feedback loops. This process involves melting ice, which reveals the darker water or land beneath, and causes it to heat up quickly, resulting in even more drenching and melting.
