Origin of The Arctic Climate
It is possible that this is the first time in the Earth's history that both poles have been simultaneously ice-bound. This unusual climate was created in the Azolla event when fresh surface water in the Arctic Ocean caused a long term abundance of Azolla, a type of aquatic fern. Huge quantities of dead Azolla built up and formed sedimentary rock, much of which contains fossil fuels as a result of the carbon contained in the Azolla. This process caused global cooling as a result of a reduction in the greenhouse effect. Release of stored carbon into the atmosphere as a result of current fossil fuel use is thought by most of the climate scientists to be causing global warming, which threatens to destroy the climatic conditions necessary for the current Arctic climate.It should be noted, however, that Earth is a dynamic system, wherein global warming and cooling occurs periodically based on multiple interacting stimuli.
Read more about this topic: Climate Of The Arctic
Famous quotes containing the words origin of, origin, arctic and/or climate:
“The origin of storms is not in clouds,
our lightning strikes when the earth rises,
spillways free authentic power:
dead John Brown’s body walking from a tunnel
to break the armored and concluded mind.”
—Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)
“Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed,—a, to me, equally mysterious origin for it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The chisel work of an enormous Glacier
That braced his feet against the Arctic Pole.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“When we consider how much climate contributes to the happiness of our condition, by the fine sensation it excites, and the productions it is the parent of, we have reason to value highly the accident of birth in such a one as that of Virginia.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)