Developing A Sense of Time:

Abruptly, about a decade ago, I had my first opportunity to meet and work with an assortment of paleoclimatologists, those wonderful people whose professional lives comprise day-to-day "Aha!s and Oh Yeah!s" They get their inspiration from bits and pieces of dated rocks, corals, muds, tree-rings, glaciers, and other laminated (varved) materials in which information is laid down regarding many periodic processes and events.

The one binding premise that keeps them aligned, so to speak, is the fact that unless these items are perturbed, time is linearly recorded in one direction or the other as one reads from the upper surfaces downward, or from inside to outside of whatever items that are examined. From such records paleo-researchers and evolutionary biologists have been able to compile the historical perspectives necessary to help us all understand the initiation, evolution and patterns of life, and the subsequent consequences of that evolution upon the earth's patterns and life supporting processes. An unusually rich intellectual community studies the Quaternary, or the recent 1.8 Million years, wherein humans flourish.

Through their work these folks each develop a remarkable Sense of Time, both relative, and real. It serves as a useful model for those of us that have yet to develop this other sense.

The one thing that they all agree about, from a review of all the long time series indicators, is that we are about nine thousand years into the next Ice Age, and that sea level will continue to rise, until the polar winters become severe enough to accrete ice, which will depend upon transport of moisture laden air into the high latitudes. This also requires serious atmospheric subsidence (moisture from mid to high latitude ocean low pressure areas feeding to the highest latitudes' high pressure fields, where subsidence - and precipitation - occurs). The winter of 1989-1990 was the first clear example within this century of levels of atmospheric moisture and subsidence driven ice-accretion that compare with those that must regularly occur during an Ice Age.

The other thing that they agree about is that Climate Change is not about only great changes in mean conditions so much as it is about changes in excursions, frequencies, and durations of patterns of summer and/or winter temperatures. These include Dry/Wet alternatives of Warm/Cold regimes, all of which affect human society.

Even during major Ice Ages, or Warm Periods, extremes that characterize the other climate phases can and do occur, as per the 1989-90 winter example, above. During the course of the COADS records, what we do notice is that when you compare climate records from season to season, from North to South, the major differences are first measured in the northern hemisphere winter months, while the other seasons tend to be fairly similar.

Another characteristic of the recent century's records is the fact that most trends that are observed begin first in the northern hemisphere, and slowly dissipate within the southern hemisphere, where the bulk of the Earth's ocean apparently "absorbs" these energies, and stores or dissipates them via currents and atmospheric exchanges. The effect is comparable to the "Sherwin-Williams" paint company's logo, in which the paint (i.e., climate) dribbles southward from the northern polar regions... never quite reaching the South Pole. Of course, during major Ice Age conditions, patterns of energy flow must be quite distinct, as affected by the extension of ice edges from both poles, and because there must be generally lower energy entering Earth's hydroclimatic system.