Dust flux, Vostok ice core

Dust flux, Vostok ice core
Two dimensional phase space reconstruction of dust flux from the Vostok core over the period 186-4 ka using the time derivative method. Dust flux on the x-axis, rate of change is on the y-axis. From Gipp (2001).

Saturday, September 22, 2018

Arctic sea ice minimum 2018

We are near the Arctic sea-ice minimum for 2018, which is projected to be 4.6 million square km


This gives us another point on our 2-d phase space projection. There is actually very little change from last year. I still only see two main areas of Lyapunov stability, although its possible there was a separate solution prior to the mid-1980s, when the system was confined to a much smaller region of phase space.

If the hypothesis of human activity on climate is correct, then we might interpret the first significant change as having happened around 1980, when the system expanded into a greater area of phase space. In colloquial terms, we would say that the variability of the system increased markedly.


Increased variability is potentially one of the markers of human influence on climate. If so, then the first irreversible change we see in our data occurred around 1980. The next one happened shortly after 2000 when the system migrated from one area of Lyapunov stability to another.

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