At http://phys.org/print295101717.html … mainstream say that Ice Ages and warm interglacials have alternated regularly, almost like clockwork, for millions of years. Earth's climate, the theory alleges, cools roughly every 100,000 years – with vast areas of N America, Europe and Asia buried under very thick ice sheets. At the end of the Ice Age it gets warmer and ice melts – which lasts roughly 10,000 years – before descending into another cooling. In other words, for roughly one tenth of time that has elapsed in the Pleistocene the world is an agreeable place to live. For nine tenths of the time it is not so – or over an enormous piece of the world.
Geologists and climate scientists, they say, found solid evidence of this 100,000 year cycle in glacial moraines, marine sediments, and ice cores – but they were unable to find a plausible explanation for it. Well, that is letting the cat out to mess around. Textbooks and consensus scientists have been only too willing to tell everyone it was all down to orbital effects and the Milankovitch cycle. Suddenly, like a bucket dropping minus its handle (still held vigorously as if it was what mattered most) they are saying 'we don't have any real proof' to support our hypothesis – but it is still right. Funny that it is an update that brings out the admission that it is a bit wonky after all – and has been running on hot air for all those years, a series of assumptions stretched to fit the uniformitarian model.
The new stitches discovered to sow the thing together are derived from computer simulation – moving blocks of ice around on a screen and lowering ocean levels, and raising them back up again (or something to that effect). The new theory, or add-on to the old theory, is an international effort (Japan, Switzerland, and US) including Heinz Blatter (quoted in the press release). The explanation involves albedo efect and changing topography (as a result of the weight of the ice bearing down or easing) which in turn is thought to cause changes to air circulation in the atmosphere – and by default, temperatures at the surface. Likewise, glaciation freezes water and lowers sea levels and therefore this has a bearing on ocean currents. The paper, in the journal Nature, claims such feedbacks between the Earth and the climate occur on top of the other, too weak, mechanisms – such as orbital changes, and insolation (as the Earth rotates around the Sun). However, the insolation afffect is weak, they admit, which means it is unsatisfactory as an explanation for the Ice Ages. It is now suggested, seriously, that feedback affects strengthen the weak insolation idea. In other words, rather than abandoning the 100,000 year orbital cycle as not fit for purpose they seek to supply more ammunition to the mainstream bubble – as uniformitarianism must be protected from unwarranted attacks by junk science, pseudo this and that, and unreasonable people who believe in out of date things that involve miracles and tall stories and all manner of strange things.