Earth and Life through time
Winter 2003

Updated: 13 March 2003

Cracking the Ice Age

Questions

When did the last global cooling start?

How much did sea level drop at peak glaciation?

When did the last “glacial” period end?

When did the Collision between India and Asia occur?

When did uplift occur?

How does the Tibetan plateau affect the Jet Stream?

What do computer models tell us about precipitation patterns and changes to those patterns due to the uplift of Tibet?

Do the computer models indicate that Tibet impacted large-scale global cooling?

Main component of climate change: Greenhouse effect. And CO₂ is the main gas to look at. Where does most of the CO₂ come from in the geologic record?

BLAG model. (Berner at Yale). If sea floor speeds up, then what happens to CO₂ and average temperature?

How does erosion in the Himalaya, affect CO₂ in the atmosphere?

Strontium (Sr) from sea floor sediments give an important clue as to how things have changed through time. What are the two isotopes, and where does each isotope come from.

Steady increase in ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr from 35 Ma to the present. What is the easy explanation of this change?

Monsoon was intensified, silicate weathering increased, CO₂ drawdown caused global cooling. Could it really be that simple?

According to this film:

1) Why has the Earth gotten so much colder?

2) What role did the Himalya play in this cooling?

3) What role did the Uplift of Tibet play in this climate change? Why?