Effects of Ice Age on the Oceans

Effects of an Ice Age on the Oceans

The Earth , the third planet from the Sun capable of sustaining life has several components on its surface . More than 70 of the Earth is covered by water and most of them is concentrated on the oceans . These oceans serve not only as huge bodies of water in between the land masses but also a large habitat for most of the marine life on the planet Furthermore , it is in the oceans that some of the most important phenomena that keep the atmospheric conditions stable

occur . Indeed oceans are the lifeblood of the planet . What effects does an Ice Age have on these bodies of water

Ice ages are usually known as a period of gradual reduction in the temperature of the planetary climate which causes massive expansion of continental ice sheets , polar ice sheets and mountain glaciers . In glaciological terms , an ice age means that ice sheets are present in the northern and southern hemispheres (which means technically we are still in an ice age , given the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctic (Imbrie and Imbrie , 1986

A study of ice sheets and other sources reveal that the Earth 's climate is characterized by a cycle between warm periods or interglacial conditions and glacial conditions . Many theories have emerged to explain the occurrence of these ice ages . One well-known theory was devised by Milutin Milankovitch in 1938 . It predicts that the shifts from glacial to interglacial and vice versa are affected by the changes in the tilt of the Earth 's rotational axis every 41 ,000 years , differences in the orientation of the planet 's elliptical orbit around the Sun known as the precession of the equinoxes occurring every 23 ,000 years and changes in the shape of the orbit happening almost every 100 ,000 years (Joyce and Keigwin , 2007

Another theory that explains the origins of the ice ages is the changes in the planetary atmosphere . The rise and fall of greenhouse gases have been linked to the retreat and advance of the ice sheets . It is possible that the changes in the greenhouse gases may have been caused by other factors contributing to the start of the ice age such as continent motion and volcanism . One hypothesis , known as the Snowball Earth hypothesis , claims that the late Proterozoic era saw a severe ice age that began with a reduction of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and ended with an increase of these levels in the atmosphere . The early anthropocene hypothesis of William Ruddiman claims that during this era where human activities started to cause a significant global impact on the climate and ecosystems more than 8 ,000 years ago , atmospheric gas levels began to not follow the pattern of the Milankovitch cycles (Macdougall , 2004

Geological events confirm that the position of continents may cause ice ages if they block or decrease the flow of warm water to the poles allowing the formation of ice sheets . These ice sheets...