Weakened atmospheric energy transport feedback in cold glacial climates

Linking glacial and future climates

In this paper we explore the relationships between the modelled climate of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and that for doubled atmospheric carbon dioxide compared to the pre-industrial climate by analysing the output from an ensemble of runs from the MIROC3.2 GCM. 5 Our results lend support to the idea in other recent work that the Antarctic is a useful place to look for historical data which c...

“icehouse” (cold) Climates

“icehouse” (cold) Climates

Earth's climate has changed, within life-sustaining bounds, from warm to cool intervals, on scales from thousands to hundreds of millions of years. In the Phanerozoic Eon there have been three intervals of glaciation (Ordovician, Carboniferous and Cenozoic) lasting tens of millions of years, with ice down to sea level at mid-latitudes (Frakes et al., 1992; Crowell, 1999). These cool " ice-house...

“icehouse” (cold) Climates

Plant adaptation to cold climates

In this short review, I will first summarize criteria by which environments can be considered "cold", with plant stature (size, height above ground) playing a central role for the climate actually experienced. Plants adapted to such environments have to cope with both extremes and with gradual influences of low temperature. The first requires freezing resistance, which is tightly coupled to dev...