Saturday, January 16, 2010

Brrrr!

clipped from math.ucr.edu
This shows the Earth's temperature since the extinction of the
dinosaurs about 65 million years ago - the end of the
Mesozoic
and beginning of the
Cenozoic.
At first the Earth warmed up, reaching its warmest
50 million years ago: the "Eocene Optimum".
The spike before that labelled "PETM" is a fascinating
event called the

Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.
At the end of the
Eocene
the Earth cooled rapidly and the Antarctic acquired year-round ice.
After a warming spell near the end of the
Oligocene,
further cooling and an increasingly jittery climate led
ultimately to the current age of rapid glacial cycles -
"ice ages".
The amount of ice is estimated by the amount of oxygen-18.
In these charts up means "cold"!
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