“Supposing is good, but finding out is better” Mark Twain
CLIMATE TREK
by Mike Tidwell
A soon to be published report on Earth Systems
CLIMATE TREK
Synopsis
A technologically savvy, although environmentally illiterate, society faces eventual catastrophe when it burns enough fuel to change the climate of the entire planet. This startling realization prompts the author to explore how our planet works; Climate Trek delves into the mysteries of an orchestrated Earth system, heretofore unexplained.
The root of all Earth experience, including climate, lies in the secretive and absurd world of atoms and photons. Because the solar system is many times larger and older than human society, abundant room for argument has existed about how our—Sun, atmosphere, water, molten interior, hydrocarbons, emerging life, great extinctions, and climate—operate. One of the greatest scientific blunders of the twentieth century has been our failure to understand that hydrocarbons aren’t fossil fuels, but primordial materials, whose flow from the deep Earth to its surface has controlled life and climate on our planet for billions of years.
In Climate Trek, these conflicts are investigated using various elements of the periodic table, such as hydrogen, oxygen, sulfur, carbon, iron, calcium, boron, molybdenum, and beryllium, to tell Earth’s story.
Section I reviews matter: its origin, movement, and electrical nature. Important concepts, such as pressure, heat, temperature, and buffers, are covered. Telling “time” and “temperature” in the deep past are discussed. Windows to the past such as ice, leaves, pollen, sediments, and tiny molecules, are explored.
Section II looks at the sun: its output, its influence, and what happens when its photons smash into the upper atmosphere.
Section III looks at the Earth, at its rocks, moving plates, and volcanoes. Tidwell examines the influence of metals, life forms, and water molecules on climate. Sea levels and the amazing ice continent of Antarctica are explored. The powerful non-metals—hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and sulfur—are brought in. Hydrogen’s story ties together acidic oceans, weathering, coral reefs, diatoms, and the Tibetan Plateau. Oxygen’s story concerns its ancient battle with carbon, its importance to emerging life, and its long, slow rise into our atmosphere. Carbon’s story weaves together deep-earth methane, diamond, peat bogs, strange underground life forms, oxygen, extinction, and heating. Sulfur’s story is about its relationships with oxygen, carbon, aerosols, cloud formation, and cooling.
Section IV looks at the air sandwiched between the Sun and the Earth. Atmospheric carbon dioxide, its history, its ability to kill coral reefs, and its capacity to create polar swamps, are covered. Compelling evidence is presented that our activities are returning our climate to the polar swamps.
Section V visits disturbed land and ocean environments. The author looks at dramatic changes in hurricanes, permafrost, heat waves, forests, sea otters, Greenland, and Antarctica. Tidwell builds an earth-like climate on the moon, helping the reader visualize how planetary climate works. He reviews the history of aerosol studies, detailing how sulfur in hydrocarbons hid global warming from us throughout the twentieth century. And worse, that greenhouse warming was first estimated over one hundred years ago, a warning all but ignored in our rush for pleasure.
Weaving all of these Earth stories together reveals the ancient rhythms of our planet, highlighting the dim awareness our hydrocarbon society has of the dangerous game it’s playing with carbon. Climate Trek maintains that our climate is entering territory that no human has ever faced, and indeed, that Earth hasn’t experienced for 55 million years. Taking the message of our planet’s carbon cycle to heart is the key to changing the course of history here and now.
Table of Contents
Some Stuff Before the Nature Stuff
SECTION I: FIRST, BACK TO SCHOOL
Electrical Forces Are Bigger Than We Think
Electrical Forces and Moving Atoms
Magnetic Fields and Moving Atoms
Gravitational Sorting and Moving Atoms
Radioactive Heating and Moving Atoms
Chemical Index of Alteration, or CIA
Pressure, Gases, Liquids, and Henry’s Law
Average Daily Temperature Calculations
CHAPTER 5: TELLING TEMPERATURE
Magnesium Calcium Thermometers
Oxygen Isotope Ratios, Ocean Water, and Temperature
Oxygen Isotope Ratios, Ice, and Temperature
CHAPTER 6: IMPORTANT CLUMPS OF ATOMS
Stratigraphy, or Looking at Sedimentary Rocks
Biomarkers or Molecular Fossils
Leaf Surfaces and Stomatal Indexes
CHAPTER 7: WHO ARE THE CLIMATE PLAYERS?
SECTION II: THE SUN SIDE OF THE SANDWICH
CHAPTER 8: THE SUN AND SOLAR PHOTONS
The Solar Cycles or Milankovitch Theory
SECTION III: THE EARTH SIDE OF THE SANDWICH
CHAPTER 9: THE EARTH AND MOVING ATOMS
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Moving Atoms and Arc Volcanoes
Volcanic Eruptions, Climate Cooling, and El Nino
Large Igneous Provinces or Superplumes
A Thirty-Second Tour of Plant Evolution
The Elastic Nature of Genetic Solutions
Some Problems with Knowing Something about the Ocean
Thermohaline Ocean Currents or Salt Transport System
The Reinforcing Nature of Ice Sheets
Silicon, Carbon, Diatoms, and Continental Weathering
The Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau
Sulfur, Marine Aerosols, and Cloud Formation
Sulfur, Terrestrial Aerosols, and Cloud Formation
The Carbon Cycle, Old School Versus New School
Unoxidized Carbon and the Deep Earth
Methane and Its Relationship to Oil and Coal:
Anaerobic Methane Oxidation and Sulfur Molecules
The Loaded Gun of Methane Hydrates
Moving Carbon and Carbon Isotopes
Carbon Isotope Surface Reservoir
Carbon Sources, Carbon Isotopes, and Calcium Carbonate:
The Broad Pattern of Carbon Isotope Excursions
An Important Marine Rock Sequence
Cap Carbonates, Methane, and Glaci
Rising Oxygen and Banded Iron Formations
Sulfur, Molybdenum Isotopes, and Anoxic Oceans
CHAPTER 14: EXTINCTION AND MOVING ATOMS
Death and the Geologic Time Scale
The 65 MYA Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) Boundary Extinction Event and Iridium
The 251.4 MYA Permian-Triassic Extinction Event and Lead
The 55.5 MYA Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum Extinction Event
The Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP)
The 200 MYA Triassic-Jurassic Extinction Event
The 90.4 MYA Cenomanian-Turonian Boundary Extinction Event
The 364 MYA Devonian Mass Extinction
The 440 MYA Ordovician Mass Extinction
SECTION IV: THE THIN-FILM INSIDE THE EARTH-SUN SANDWICH
CHAPTER 15: PHOTONS, ATOMS, AND TEMPERATURE
Carbon Dioxide and its Relationship to Water Vapor
Chapter 16: DOME C, ANTARCTICA
CO2, Calcium Carbonate, and Acidic Oceans
CO2, Climate Change, and Warm Water Corals
The Reinforcing Nature of Atmospheric CO2
Boron, Acidic Oceans, and Atmospheric CO2 Concentrations
CHAPTER 17: THE MAUNA LOA OBSERVATORY
CHAPTER 18: CHANGES IN THE SEA
Temperature and Precipitation Trends in North America
CHAPTER 21: PREDICTING ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURES
The Hydrocarbon Lifestyle and Georg Steller
