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Using Generative Art to Convey Past and Future Climate Transitions
Published on: March 31, 2023
Pervasive tropical-forced millennial monsoon variability over the past 3.5 million years
Yan Zhao1,2, Feng Qin3, Quan Li3
1Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. zhaoyan@igsnrr.ac.cn.
Abstract:
Earth's climate has experienced abrupt millennial-scale climate variability (MCV) at least since the early Pleistocene, yet their evolution and drivers remain elusive. A 3.5-million-year decadal-to-centennial-resolved lake sediment sequence from the monsoonal Tibetan Plateau reveals a stepped evolution of MCV that differs in detail from that of North Atlantic records. Lithological and pollen changes show precursor millennial events during the interval ~ 3.5-2.7 million years ago (Ma), with the onset of multiple events at ~ 2.8 Ma. From ~ 2.7 Ma, MCV became a permanent feature of glacial periods, intensifying after ~ 1.5 Ma and extending over both glacial and interglacial periods. The embedded astronomical frequencies of MCV and their persistent linkage with precession indicate a tropical insolation origin, driven by changes in the latitudinal temperature gradient and propagated to the Tibetan Plateau via monsoonal circulation. These findings highlight that both tropical forcing and high-latitude ice-dynamic mechanisms should be considered as "dual engines" of MCV.
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Variation of Atmospheric Pressure
Assuming the air temperature is constant at a given altitude and that the ideal gas law of thermodynamics describes the atmosphere to a good approximation, one can find the variation of atmospheric pressure with height.
Let p(y) be the atmospheric pressure at...