Climate cooling

Recent research suggests that ozone depletion has affected Antarctica s climate, cooling the interior and warming the extremities. 

Carboniferous 345 Myr Climate cools, marked latitudinal gradients. Extensive forests of early vascular plants, especially club mosses, horsetails, ferns. Coal beds form. Amphibians diversify first reptiles appear. Radiation of early insect orders... 

Cenozoic Tertiary 66 Myr Climate Cools. Continents nearing modern positions. Drying trend in middle of period. Radiation of birds, mammals, flowering plants, pollinating insects... 

Volk, T. (1989) Rise of angiosperms as a factor in long-term climatic cooling. Geology, 17, 107-110. 

WRI (World Resources Institute) (2006). Hot Climate, Cool Commerce A Service Sector Guide to Greenhouse Gas Management. WRI Report prepared by Putt del Pino, S., Levinson, R. and Larsen, J. Washington D.C. WRI. 

There have been roughly five periods in Earths history where much of the planet was covered in ice. Global climate cooled for millions of years. The sheets of ice at the north and south poles of the planets grew to cover the oceans. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere dropped. These periods are widely known as ice ages. Atmospheric carbon dioxide dropped by about 25% during each major ice age. The drop in atmospheric carbon dioxide happened at the same time that global climate got colder. There just wasn t enough carbon dioxide to trap heat from the Sun and keep the planet s surface warm. 

Abstract The phytoplankton genus Phaeocystis has well-documented, spatially and temporally extensive blooms of gelatinous colonies these are associated with release of copious amounts of dimethyl sulphide (an important climate-cooling aerosol) and alterations of material flows among trophic levels and export from the upper ocean. A potentially salient property of the importance... 

RetaUack G. (2001) Cenozoic expansion of grasslands and climatic cooling. J. Geol. 109, 407-426. 

Hartley and Chong (2002) have argued that the development of hyperaridity was a late Pliocene phenomenon, associated, as in other deserts, with global climate cooling. They recognised, however, that a semi-arid climate persisted from 8 to 3 Ma, punctuated by a phase of increased aridity at around 6Ma. It is clear, however, that the major nitrate deposits of the Atacama are indicators of profound and long-continued aridity. 

Proxy records indicate that the Earth s climate cooled gradually over the Cenozoic. This cooling trend was accompanied by a decrease of atmospheric Pcox- Other striking features of the Cenozoic are the sharp increase of the Sr/ Sr ratio of sea water and... 

Sinking of the isotherms at about 490 Ma was due to climate cooling, which continued up to the Early Carboniferous. The subsequent rise of the isotherms at 490-350 Ma was due to the transition from low-temperature gradients in the basement (high thermal conductivity) to higher temperature gradients in the sedimentary cover (low thermal conductivity). 

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