12/28/2023 0 Comments Warmer climes hype machine![]() Still, they believe the net effect of glaciation could be to supply carbon dioxide to the atmosphere rather than to remove it. Silicates release alkalinity that removes carbon from the atmosphere. The researchers acknowledged that glaciers are equal-opportunity weathering agents, as they also break down silicates in rocks. ![]() ![]() "In particular, we're looking at rivers that drain areas of land surface that are covered by glaciers, and whether or not there are any differences in the chemical composition of those rivers." "Mainly, we're thinking about the effect of glaciers and glaciation on the way our planet works," he said. The goal was to evaluate the dominant chemical reactions associated with glacial weathering and explore the long-term implications. Torres, until recently a postdoctoral researcher at the California Institute of Technology, studied glacier-fed rivers and used existing databases to compare their chemical contents with that of thousands of rivers around the world. Glacial runoff appeared to have an outsize effect on carbon dioxide levels compared with that of rivers in warmer climes. This release of carbon dioxide affects Earth's climate, due to the greenhouse effect." "If you change the chemistry of the ocean, you can release some of that stored carbon into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. "The ocean stores a lot of carbon," Torres said. Over long timescales, they found, glaciers' contribution to the release of carbon dioxide could have acted as a negative feedback loop that may have inhibited runaway glaciation. While this is a significant percentage of the 400 parts per million measured in recent months, present anthropogenic carbon dioxide release is occurring at a much faster rate than it is naturally released by glaciation. The oscillation of glaciers over 10,000 years could have changed atmospheric carbon dioxide by 25 parts per million or more. The researchers determined enhanced oxidation of pyrite, an iron sulfide also known as fool's gold, most likely generated acidity that fed carbon dioxide into the oceans and altered the carbon cycle. The study shows that glaciation, through enhanced erosion, probably increased the rate of carbon dioxide released to the environment. He wanted to know how and when chemicals released by weathering of the land reached the atmosphere and ocean, and what effect they have had. Torres, who joined the Rice faculty in July, is lead author of a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In Medieval Europe, the climes for 15 and 18 hours were used to calculate the changing length of daylight through the year.The modern concept of climate and the related term clime are derived from the historical concept of climata.Mark Torres, an assistant professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences, took a data-driven dive into the mechanics of weathering by glaciation over millions of years to see how glacial cycles affected the oceans and atmosphere and continue to do so. ![]() Claudius Ptolemy was the first ancient scientist known to have devised the so-called system of seven climes (Almagest 2.12) which, due to his authority, became one of the canonical elements of late antique, medieval European and Arab geography. The climes (singular clime also clima, plural climata, from Greek κλίμα klima, plural κλίματα klimata, meaning "inclination" or "slope") in classical Greco-Roman geography and astronomy were the divisions of the inhabited portion of the spherical Earth by geographic latitude.Starting with Aristotle (Meteorology 2.5,362a32), the Earth was divided into five zones, assuming two frigid climes (the arctic and antarctic) around the poles, an uninhabitable torrid clime near the equator, and two temperate climes between the frigid and the torrid ones.ĭifferent lists of climata were in use in Hellenistic and Roman time. Wikipedia Rate this definition: 0.0 / 0 votes
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