Research
The science of Paleoclimatology attempts to understand the history of greenhouse and icehouse conditions over geological time. Through the study of ice cores, dendrochronology, ocean and lake sediments (Varve), Palynology (fossilized pollen) and isotope analysis (such as Radiometric dating), scientists can create models of past climate. From such models, scientists have determined that the atmospheric carbon dioxide of the earth could have been up at least 350 times higher than our modern day levels. One study has shown that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels during the Permian age rocked back and forth between 250 parts per million (which is close to present-day levels) up to 2,000 parts per million. Studies on lake sediments suggest that the "Hothouse" or "super-Greenhouse" Eocene was in a "permanent El Nino state" after the 10°C warming of the deep ocean and high latitude surface temperatures shut down the Pacific Ocean's El Nino-Southern Oscillation. A theory was conducted for the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum on the sudden decrease of carbon isotopic composition of global inorganic carbon pool by 2.5 parts per million. A hypothesis noted for this negative drop of isotopes could be the increase of methane hydrates, the trigger for which remains a mystery. This increase of methane in the atmosphere, which happens to be a potent, but short-lived greenhouse gas, increased the global temperatures by 6°C with the assistance of the less potent carbon dioxide.
Read more about this topic: Greenhouse And Icehouse Earth
Famous quotes containing the word research:
“Our science has become terrible, our research dangerous, our findings deadly. We physicists have to make peace with reality. Reality is not as strong as we are. We will ruin reality.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)
“It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young.”
—Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989)
“... research is never completed ... Around the corner lurks another possibility of interview, another book to read, a courthouse to explore, a document to verify.”
—Catherine Drinker Bowen (1897–1973)