Connection Between Temperature and Climate
The 18O/16O ratio provides a record of ancient water temperature. Water 10 to 15 °C (18 to 27 °F) cooler than present represents glaciation. As colder temperatures spread toward the equator, water vapor rich in 18O preferentially rains out at lower latitudes. The remaining water vapor that condenses over higher latitudes is subsequently rich in 16O. Precipitation and therefore glacial ice contain water with a low 18O content. Since large amounts of 16O water are being stored as glacial ice, the 18O content of oceanic water is high. Water up to 5 °C (9 °F) warmer than today represents an interglacial, when the 18O content of oceanic water is lower. A plot of ancient water temperature over time indicates that climate has varied cyclically, with large cycles and harmonics, or smaller cycles, superimposed on the large ones. This technique has been especially valuable for identifying glacial maxima and minima in the Pleistocene.
Read more about this topic: Oxygen Isotope Ratio Cycle
Famous quotes containing the words connection between, connection, temperature and/or climate:
“The connection between dress and war is not far to seek; your finest clothes are those you wear as soldiers.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“This pond never breaks up so soon as the others in this neighborhood, on account both of its greater depth and its having no stream passing through it to melt or wear away the ice.... It indicates better than any water hereabouts the absolute progress of the season, being least affected by transient changes of temperature. A severe cold of a few days’ duration in March may very much retard the opening of the former ponds, while the temperature of Walden increases almost uninterruptedly.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The climate has been described as “ten months winter and two months mighty late in the fall.””
—Administration in the State of Colo, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)