The “missing link” that triggered the ice ages

[rangerrebew]

    News, Studies and Resources 31 Jan, 2021

The “missing link” that triggered the ice ages

By Elise Kjørstad

Icebergs broke loose from Antarctica and travelled north.

As it got colder, they journeyed farther and farther north and carried large quantities of fresh water out to sea. This triggered global changes in ocean circulation, a new study published in the journal Nature reports.

Researchers have suspected that the Southern Ocean and Antarctica were crucial to global climate, but this has not been documented in the geological data until now, according to Margit Hildegard Simon, a researcher at Norce, the Norwegian Research Centre.

Simon partcipated in an expedition that collected samples from the seabed, off South Africa.

https://co2coalition.org/2021/01/31/9635/

[Joe Wooten]

The main trigger for the recurring ice ages was the creation of the central American isthsmus as the volcanoes along the plate boundaries grew together roughly 30 million years ago. Before that, there was a current that carried warm water directly from the Pacific into the Atlantic equalizing temperatures mreo closely between the two oceans. Also the rise of the Himalaya mountains as India slammed into Asia changed air circulation patterns making central Asia colder and drier.