David N. Thomas, G.E. (Tony) Fogg, Peter Convey, Christian H. Fritsen, Josep-Maria Gili, Rolf Gradinger, Johanna Laybourn-Parry, Keith Reid, and David W.H. Walton
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199298112
- eISBN:
- 9780191711640
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199298112.003.0010
- Subject:
- Biology, Ecology
The polar regions have undergone major changes in configuration of land masses and climate over millions of years. However, it is the geologically brief period beginning around 120,000 years before ...
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The polar regions have undergone major changes in configuration of land masses and climate over millions of years. However, it is the geologically brief period beginning around 120,000 years before present (BP), including a warm interglacial followed by the Würm glaciation and then the interglacial in which we now live, which is most relevant. This chapter discusses changes during geological time: the ice ages; biological responses to long-term changes; and present-day global climate change and polar regions.Less
The polar regions have undergone major changes in configuration of land masses and climate over millions of years. However, it is the geologically brief period beginning around 120,000 years before present (BP), including a warm interglacial followed by the Würm glaciation and then the interglacial in which we now live, which is most relevant. This chapter discusses changes during geological time: the ice ages; biological responses to long-term changes; and present-day global climate change and polar regions.
Toby Tyrrell
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691121581
- eISBN:
- 9781400847914
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691121581.003.0005
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Environmental Studies
This chapter compares the life that evolution produced during the past cold and warm climates of long duration. The dominant climatic state of the last several million years has been ice ages. James ...
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This chapter compares the life that evolution produced during the past cold and warm climates of long duration. The dominant climatic state of the last several million years has been ice ages. James Lovelock has argued that these are a more favorable state for life on Earth than the present interglacials. This does not, however, sit well with various observations. During ice ages: (i) there was less land free of ice; (ii) much of the most productive parts of the ocean, the shelf seas, were turned into dry land by lower sea level; and (iii) the total mass of carbon locked up in vegetation and soils was only about half as much as today. Not only were ice ages unfortunate episodes for life on Earth, but also, conversely, the Earth during the Cretaceous was possibly even more congenial than it is today, although the evidence is not conclusive on this point.Less
This chapter compares the life that evolution produced during the past cold and warm climates of long duration. The dominant climatic state of the last several million years has been ice ages. James Lovelock has argued that these are a more favorable state for life on Earth than the present interglacials. This does not, however, sit well with various observations. During ice ages: (i) there was less land free of ice; (ii) much of the most productive parts of the ocean, the shelf seas, were turned into dry land by lower sea level; and (iii) the total mass of carbon locked up in vegetation and soils was only about half as much as today. Not only were ice ages unfortunate episodes for life on Earth, but also, conversely, the Earth during the Cretaceous was possibly even more congenial than it is today, although the evidence is not conclusive on this point.
Wolf H. Berger
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520247789
- eISBN:
- 9780520942547
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520247789.003.0014
- Subject:
- Biology, Aquatic Biology
This chapter discusses the discovery of the Great Ice Age, focusing on the ice-age memories of the ocean and ice-age fluctuations. It first introduces fundamental concepts regarding ...
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This chapter discusses the discovery of the Great Ice Age, focusing on the ice-age memories of the ocean and ice-age fluctuations. It first introduces fundamental concepts regarding glacial–interglacial fluctuations in oceanic and climatic conditions, and then discusses the Great Ice Age and fossil preservation. The chapter analyzes microfossils, which provided clues about the changes in the conditions of surface waters in response to climate change and changes in the isotopic composition of seawater. It also discusses ice-age cycles, including the last ice age and how it ended.Less
This chapter discusses the discovery of the Great Ice Age, focusing on the ice-age memories of the ocean and ice-age fluctuations. It first introduces fundamental concepts regarding glacial–interglacial fluctuations in oceanic and climatic conditions, and then discusses the Great Ice Age and fossil preservation. The chapter analyzes microfossils, which provided clues about the changes in the conditions of surface waters in response to climate change and changes in the isotopic composition of seawater. It also discusses ice-age cycles, including the last ice age and how it ended.
Sam White
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199768677
- eISBN:
- 9780199979608
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199768677.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
After centuries of conquest and expansion, the Ottoman Empire descended into crisis in the 1590s as a widespread uprising known as the Celali Rebellion ushered in decades of economic dislocation, ...
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After centuries of conquest and expansion, the Ottoman Empire descended into crisis in the 1590s as a widespread uprising known as the Celali Rebellion ushered in decades of economic dislocation, military setbacks, and flight and chaos in the countryside. This chapter offers a fundamental reinterpretation of this social unrest, combining original archival research with new data and perspectives from climatology to present the crisis as a critical conjuncture of ecological pressures and deteriorating climate brought on by the Little Ice Age. Already by the 1580s, rapid population growth had placed the empire's elaborate provisioning systems under stress. As the Ottomans fell into a grueling war with the Habsburgs in 1593, the Eastern Mediterranean also descended into its worst drought in six centuries, punctuated by the coldest winters in memory. A widespread epizootic proved fatal to imperial stability, as unbearable wartime requisitions combined with famine and desperation to foment rebellion. The depopulation of the countryside and the nomadic invasions that followed unraveled centuries of settlement and demographic expansion. This chapter thus illustrates some of the major environmental forces at work in the Ottoman Middle East and the power of environmental history to reinterpret the region's past.Less
After centuries of conquest and expansion, the Ottoman Empire descended into crisis in the 1590s as a widespread uprising known as the Celali Rebellion ushered in decades of economic dislocation, military setbacks, and flight and chaos in the countryside. This chapter offers a fundamental reinterpretation of this social unrest, combining original archival research with new data and perspectives from climatology to present the crisis as a critical conjuncture of ecological pressures and deteriorating climate brought on by the Little Ice Age. Already by the 1580s, rapid population growth had placed the empire's elaborate provisioning systems under stress. As the Ottomans fell into a grueling war with the Habsburgs in 1593, the Eastern Mediterranean also descended into its worst drought in six centuries, punctuated by the coldest winters in memory. A widespread epizootic proved fatal to imperial stability, as unbearable wartime requisitions combined with famine and desperation to foment rebellion. The depopulation of the countryside and the nomadic invasions that followed unraveled centuries of settlement and demographic expansion. This chapter thus illustrates some of the major environmental forces at work in the Ottoman Middle East and the power of environmental history to reinterpret the region's past.
Jorge Daniel Taillant
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- December 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780190080327
- eISBN:
- 9780197578049
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190080327.003.0002
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Climate
This chapter introduces the basic definitions of a glacier and of the glaciosystem (a term coined by the author which refers to the glacier ecosystem). It describes glaciers, and through interactive ...
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This chapter introduces the basic definitions of a glacier and of the glaciosystem (a term coined by the author which refers to the glacier ecosystem). It describes glaciers, and through interactive links, shows the reader glaciers that can be viewed on a smart phone or computer. The chapter also describes the origin and formation of glaciers and their various functions. It introduces the life cycle of a glacier and also explains past and likely future ice ages (or glacial periods) as well as dynamics that may deepen global warming and impede the natural glacial age cycles, including the orbit of the Earth around the sun and its tilt and its relative influence on ice ages.Less
This chapter introduces the basic definitions of a glacier and of the glaciosystem (a term coined by the author which refers to the glacier ecosystem). It describes glaciers, and through interactive links, shows the reader glaciers that can be viewed on a smart phone or computer. The chapter also describes the origin and formation of glaciers and their various functions. It introduces the life cycle of a glacier and also explains past and likely future ice ages (or glacial periods) as well as dynamics that may deepen global warming and impede the natural glacial age cycles, including the orbit of the Earth around the sun and its tilt and its relative influence on ice ages.
Denis J. Murphy
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199207145
- eISBN:
- 9780191708893
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199207145.003.0013
- Subject:
- Biology, Plant Sciences and Forestry
The classical and medieval periods of 1800 BCE to 1500 CE were characterized by some limited technical innovation in agriculture, but little progress was made in crop improvement as global ...
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The classical and medieval periods of 1800 BCE to 1500 CE were characterized by some limited technical innovation in agriculture, but little progress was made in crop improvement as global populations ceased their expansion, which had been occurring since the early Holocene. Babylonian and Assyrian imperial rulers established a much-copied precedent of introducing new crops from conquered regions and in producing manuals for agricultural management. From 500 to 50 BCE, Greek naturalists began systematically to study plant biology and publish their findings, but this first blooming of scientific methodology proved short lived. Later cultures tended to reinterpret old knowledge rather than create it anew. From 700 CE, the expanding Muslim empires introduced many improvements into Mediterranean farming from the Near East, most notably in their Iberian realm of Al Andalus. Medieval farming in Europe was relatively stagnant and declined further after 1320 CE during the Little Ice Age.Less
The classical and medieval periods of 1800 BCE to 1500 CE were characterized by some limited technical innovation in agriculture, but little progress was made in crop improvement as global populations ceased their expansion, which had been occurring since the early Holocene. Babylonian and Assyrian imperial rulers established a much-copied precedent of introducing new crops from conquered regions and in producing manuals for agricultural management. From 500 to 50 BCE, Greek naturalists began systematically to study plant biology and publish their findings, but this first blooming of scientific methodology proved short lived. Later cultures tended to reinterpret old knowledge rather than create it anew. From 700 CE, the expanding Muslim empires introduced many improvements into Mediterranean farming from the Near East, most notably in their Iberian realm of Al Andalus. Medieval farming in Europe was relatively stagnant and declined further after 1320 CE during the Little Ice Age.
Jorge Daniel Taillant
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- December 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780190080327
- eISBN:
- 9780197578049
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190080327.003.0003
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Climate
This chapter focuses on the impacts of glacier melt on our oceans and related sea level rise. It discusses past and present sea levels and the relative influence of the ice age cycles. The chapter ...
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This chapter focuses on the impacts of glacier melt on our oceans and related sea level rise. It discusses past and present sea levels and the relative influence of the ice age cycles. The chapter also reviews risks posed now to life on Earth due to glacier melt and related sea level rise, considering these in relation to ongoing and new flooding impacting coastal areas. It goes on to discuss the theories of Hot House Earth and Snowball Earth, the likelihood of these scenarios being realized, and the impact of high levels of CO2 concentrations on the likelihood of either eventuality.Less
This chapter focuses on the impacts of glacier melt on our oceans and related sea level rise. It discusses past and present sea levels and the relative influence of the ice age cycles. The chapter also reviews risks posed now to life on Earth due to glacier melt and related sea level rise, considering these in relation to ongoing and new flooding impacting coastal areas. It goes on to discuss the theories of Hot House Earth and Snowball Earth, the likelihood of these scenarios being realized, and the impact of high levels of CO2 concentrations on the likelihood of either eventuality.
Jorge Daniel Taillant
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- December 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780190080327
- eISBN:
- 9780197578049
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190080327.003.0005
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Climate
This chapter discusses the critical role glaciers play in reflecting solar heat back into space and how the melting of glaciers reveals darker land and water surfaces that leads to surface heat ...
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This chapter discusses the critical role glaciers play in reflecting solar heat back into space and how the melting of glaciers reveals darker land and water surfaces that leads to surface heat absorption and global warming. The chapter gets into the dynamics of albedo and surface heat, explaining the causes of color change on glaciers, such as soot and volcanic ash deposits. It reviews the significant albedo contributions of glacier and sea-ice covered surfaces of the Arctic, Greenland, and Antarctica and discusses the urban heat island effect in cities as an analogy to glacier surface warming due to darkening. The chapter also examines geological history and anthropogenic causes of glacier surface albedo changes, such as the industrial revolution.Less
This chapter discusses the critical role glaciers play in reflecting solar heat back into space and how the melting of glaciers reveals darker land and water surfaces that leads to surface heat absorption and global warming. The chapter gets into the dynamics of albedo and surface heat, explaining the causes of color change on glaciers, such as soot and volcanic ash deposits. It reviews the significant albedo contributions of glacier and sea-ice covered surfaces of the Arctic, Greenland, and Antarctica and discusses the urban heat island effect in cities as an analogy to glacier surface warming due to darkening. The chapter also examines geological history and anthropogenic causes of glacier surface albedo changes, such as the industrial revolution.
David J. Meltzer
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226293226
- eISBN:
- 9780226293363
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226293363.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
By the early 1800s Georges Cuvier had proven animal extinction and Louis Agassiz a onetime Ice Age, putting in place key elements for telling past time. A new dimension of archaeology opened in ...
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By the early 1800s Georges Cuvier had proven animal extinction and Louis Agassiz a onetime Ice Age, putting in place key elements for telling past time. A new dimension of archaeology opened in mid-century with discoveries in Europe of stone artifacts associated with extinct animals in glacial deposits. The earliest traces of humanity abruptly plunged deep into the Pleistocene. The Smithsonian's Joseph Henry introduced those discoveries to America, and spurred him to send out a circular in 1862 to the institutions network of correspondents explaining what sorts of evidence to seek that might reveal a deep human antiquity on this continent. There had been occasional finds hinting at such, and so too did the great diversity of Native American languages and culture. Over the next decade the archaeological collections of the Smithsonian grew rapidly, but while some of the artifacts appeared to match “Stone Age” artifacts of Europe, similar artifacts were still being made by Native Americans, rendering their antiquity uncertain without geological evidence. By the late 1870s Henry was skeptical any would be found. Yet, just as he was abandoning hope a onetime physician was finding what appeared to be traces of Paleolithic artifacts in the Delaware Valley.Less
By the early 1800s Georges Cuvier had proven animal extinction and Louis Agassiz a onetime Ice Age, putting in place key elements for telling past time. A new dimension of archaeology opened in mid-century with discoveries in Europe of stone artifacts associated with extinct animals in glacial deposits. The earliest traces of humanity abruptly plunged deep into the Pleistocene. The Smithsonian's Joseph Henry introduced those discoveries to America, and spurred him to send out a circular in 1862 to the institutions network of correspondents explaining what sorts of evidence to seek that might reveal a deep human antiquity on this continent. There had been occasional finds hinting at such, and so too did the great diversity of Native American languages and culture. Over the next decade the archaeological collections of the Smithsonian grew rapidly, but while some of the artifacts appeared to match “Stone Age” artifacts of Europe, similar artifacts were still being made by Native Americans, rendering their antiquity uncertain without geological evidence. By the late 1870s Henry was skeptical any would be found. Yet, just as he was abandoning hope a onetime physician was finding what appeared to be traces of Paleolithic artifacts in the Delaware Valley.
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226731285
- eISBN:
- 9780226731308
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226731308.003.0036
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
The explanatory problems raised by erratics and scratched bedrock remained at the heart of debates about geohistory as a whole, because they impinged crucially on the problems of reconstructing the ...
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The explanatory problems raised by erratics and scratched bedrock remained at the heart of debates about geohistory as a whole, because they impinged crucially on the problems of reconstructing the part of geohistory closest to the present world. This chapter describes how these problems came much closer to being resolved. The three rival explanations of erratic blocks and scratched bedrock surfaces—that they were traces of a “diluvial” mega-tsunami, or of submergence in a sea with drifting and melting icebergs, or of vast glaciers extending from a newly elevated mountain range—were joined in the later 1830s by a fourth and even more sensational possibility. Louis Jean Rodolphe Agassiz proposed that the whole earth—or, at least, the northern hemisphere as far south as north Africa—had been covered by a static sheet of ice during an “Ice Age,” before the sudden and geologically recent upheaval of the Alps; the latter had merely produced a tilted surface of ice, down which the erratics could slide from Alps to Jura. Only after this had a warming climate melted the static ice-sheet and turned its remnants into slowly retreating valley glaciers. Agassiz integrated this “glacial theory” into his larger picture of geohistory, by suggesting that the Ice Age had been just the most recent in a succession of catastrophic climatic crises in the history of life.Less
The explanatory problems raised by erratics and scratched bedrock remained at the heart of debates about geohistory as a whole, because they impinged crucially on the problems of reconstructing the part of geohistory closest to the present world. This chapter describes how these problems came much closer to being resolved. The three rival explanations of erratic blocks and scratched bedrock surfaces—that they were traces of a “diluvial” mega-tsunami, or of submergence in a sea with drifting and melting icebergs, or of vast glaciers extending from a newly elevated mountain range—were joined in the later 1830s by a fourth and even more sensational possibility. Louis Jean Rodolphe Agassiz proposed that the whole earth—or, at least, the northern hemisphere as far south as north Africa—had been covered by a static sheet of ice during an “Ice Age,” before the sudden and geologically recent upheaval of the Alps; the latter had merely produced a tilted surface of ice, down which the erratics could slide from Alps to Jura. Only after this had a warming climate melted the static ice-sheet and turned its remnants into slowly retreating valley glaciers. Agassiz integrated this “glacial theory” into his larger picture of geohistory, by suggesting that the Ice Age had been just the most recent in a succession of catastrophic climatic crises in the history of life.
Sharon Levy
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780195370126
- eISBN:
- 9780190267766
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780195370126.001.0001
- Subject:
- Biology, Biodiversity / Conservation Biology
Until about 13,000 years ago, Europe and North America were home to a menagerie of massive mammals. Mammoths, camels, and lions walked the ground that has become our cities and streets. Then, just as ...
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Until about 13,000 years ago, Europe and North America were home to a menagerie of massive mammals. Mammoths, camels, and lions walked the ground that has become our cities and streets. Then, just as the first humans reached the Americas, these Ice Age giants vanished forever. In this book the author digs through the evidence surrounding Pleistocene large animal (“megafauna”) extinction events worldwide, showing that understanding this history—and our part in it—is crucial for protecting the elephants, polar bears, and other great creatures at risk today. These surviving relatives of the Ice Age beasts now face an intensified replay of that great die-off, as our species usurps the planet's last wild places while driving a warming trend more extreme than any in mammalian history. Inspired by a passion for the lost Pleistocene giants, some scientists advocate bringing wolves back to Scotland, and elephants to America's Great Plains as stand-ins for their extinct native brethren. By reintroducing big browsers and carnivores to colder climes, they argue, we could rescue some of the planet's most endangered animals while restoring healthy prairie ecosystems. Critics, including biologists enmeshed in the struggle to restore native species see the proposal as a dangerous distraction from more realistic and legitimate conservation efforts. Navigating competing theories and emerging evidence, the book examines the extent of human influence on megafauna extinctions past and present, and explores innovative conservation efforts around the globe. The key to modern-day conservation, the author suggests, may lie fossilized right under our feet.Less
Until about 13,000 years ago, Europe and North America were home to a menagerie of massive mammals. Mammoths, camels, and lions walked the ground that has become our cities and streets. Then, just as the first humans reached the Americas, these Ice Age giants vanished forever. In this book the author digs through the evidence surrounding Pleistocene large animal (“megafauna”) extinction events worldwide, showing that understanding this history—and our part in it—is crucial for protecting the elephants, polar bears, and other great creatures at risk today. These surviving relatives of the Ice Age beasts now face an intensified replay of that great die-off, as our species usurps the planet's last wild places while driving a warming trend more extreme than any in mammalian history. Inspired by a passion for the lost Pleistocene giants, some scientists advocate bringing wolves back to Scotland, and elephants to America's Great Plains as stand-ins for their extinct native brethren. By reintroducing big browsers and carnivores to colder climes, they argue, we could rescue some of the planet's most endangered animals while restoring healthy prairie ecosystems. Critics, including biologists enmeshed in the struggle to restore native species see the proposal as a dangerous distraction from more realistic and legitimate conservation efforts. Navigating competing theories and emerging evidence, the book examines the extent of human influence on megafauna extinctions past and present, and explores innovative conservation efforts around the globe. The key to modern-day conservation, the author suggests, may lie fossilized right under our feet.
Mark A. S. McMenamin
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262194983
- eISBN:
- 9780262283182
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262194983.003.0012
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Climate
The Lipalian or Vendian Period, which occurred 600–541 million years ago, begins and ends with global environmental perturbations. It begins as the worst glaciation on record draws to a close. It ...
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The Lipalian or Vendian Period, which occurred 600–541 million years ago, begins and ends with global environmental perturbations. It begins as the worst glaciation on record draws to a close. It ends with a sudden appearance of abundant skeletonized animals that mark the beginning of Cambrian ecology. Several key events in Earth history occur during the Lipalian, bracketed between severe glaciation and the initiation of modern marine ecosystems. The most notable of these events is the appearance of an unusual and conspicuous marine biota, the “Garden of Ediacara.” This biota appears to have characteristics inherited from its sojourn beneath the ice. This chapter examines the role the cryophilic biota, consisting largely of cyanobacteria and chryosphyte and chlorophyte algae, may have played in ending the great ice age. It is hypothesized here that these microbes induced albedo reductions and other changes that rapidly improved global climate.Less
The Lipalian or Vendian Period, which occurred 600–541 million years ago, begins and ends with global environmental perturbations. It begins as the worst glaciation on record draws to a close. It ends with a sudden appearance of abundant skeletonized animals that mark the beginning of Cambrian ecology. Several key events in Earth history occur during the Lipalian, bracketed between severe glaciation and the initiation of modern marine ecosystems. The most notable of these events is the appearance of an unusual and conspicuous marine biota, the “Garden of Ediacara.” This biota appears to have characteristics inherited from its sojourn beneath the ice. This chapter examines the role the cryophilic biota, consisting largely of cyanobacteria and chryosphyte and chlorophyte algae, may have played in ending the great ice age. It is hypothesized here that these microbes induced albedo reductions and other changes that rapidly improved global climate.
Tobias Menely
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- January 2022
- ISBN:
- 9780226776149
- eISBN:
- 9780226776316
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226776316.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
In a reading of Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667), Chapter 1 proposes that the historiographic problem of recognizing climate as a causal force in society can be productively compared to the critical ...
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In a reading of Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667), Chapter 1 proposes that the historiographic problem of recognizing climate as a causal force in society can be productively compared to the critical problem of interpreting allegory, as a mode unable to stabilize the relation between its levels of meaning. Drawing on Benjamin’s identification of the discordant naturalism of baroque allegory, this chapter shows how mimetic strata within Paradise Lost—the epic plot, the naturalistic similes, the personification of the Earth, the theological antinomy between free-flowing light and combustible minerals, and the representation of the Fall as a dangerous climate shift—give expression to the incommensurable forces of planetary vicissitude and human world making during the harshest phase of the Little Ice Age.Less
In a reading of Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667), Chapter 1 proposes that the historiographic problem of recognizing climate as a causal force in society can be productively compared to the critical problem of interpreting allegory, as a mode unable to stabilize the relation between its levels of meaning. Drawing on Benjamin’s identification of the discordant naturalism of baroque allegory, this chapter shows how mimetic strata within Paradise Lost—the epic plot, the naturalistic similes, the personification of the Earth, the theological antinomy between free-flowing light and combustible minerals, and the representation of the Fall as a dangerous climate shift—give expression to the incommensurable forces of planetary vicissitude and human world making during the harshest phase of the Little Ice Age.
David E. Anderson, Andrew S. Goudie, and Adrian G. Parker
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199697267
- eISBN:
- 9780191810169
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199697267.003.0001
- Subject:
- Biology, Biodiversity / Conservation Biology
This chapter presents ideas that have evolved around the environmental changes in the world in the Quaternary period, or the last 2.6 million years. It recounts the discovery of the Ice Age and the ...
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This chapter presents ideas that have evolved around the environmental changes in the world in the Quaternary period, or the last 2.6 million years. It recounts the discovery of the Ice Age and the establishment of climatic and sea level fluctuations in the Pleistocene and the Holocene. It also includes an outline of the history of the Earth's climate and the fundamental concepts in the way the past environments are reconstructed and interpreted.Less
This chapter presents ideas that have evolved around the environmental changes in the world in the Quaternary period, or the last 2.6 million years. It recounts the discovery of the Ice Age and the establishment of climatic and sea level fluctuations in the Pleistocene and the Holocene. It also includes an outline of the history of the Earth's climate and the fundamental concepts in the way the past environments are reconstructed and interpreted.
Tim Lenton and Andrew Watson
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- December 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199587049
- eISBN:
- 9780191775031
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199587049.003.0018
- Subject:
- Physics, Geophysics, Atmospheric and Environmental Physics
This chapter shows how planetary cooling has culminated in a series of periodic glaciations of the Northern hemisphere – the recent ‘ice ages’ – which have become progressively longer and deeper. ...
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This chapter shows how planetary cooling has culminated in a series of periodic glaciations of the Northern hemisphere – the recent ‘ice ages’ – which have become progressively longer and deeper. Although they are paced by variations in the Earth's orbit, they are increasingly dominated by internal oscillations and amplifying feedbacks. The ice ages illustrate the tightly coupled behaviour of the Earth system, indicating that the climate system which we have evolved in is unusually sensitive. At these time scales, oscillations of climate that are paced by the orbital wobbles of the Earth, known as the Milankovitch cycles, become very apparent. The wobbles occur because the Earth's orbit around the sun does not repeat exactly each year but is subject to variations, due ultimately to the presence of other bodies in the solar system.Less
This chapter shows how planetary cooling has culminated in a series of periodic glaciations of the Northern hemisphere – the recent ‘ice ages’ – which have become progressively longer and deeper. Although they are paced by variations in the Earth's orbit, they are increasingly dominated by internal oscillations and amplifying feedbacks. The ice ages illustrate the tightly coupled behaviour of the Earth system, indicating that the climate system which we have evolved in is unusually sensitive. At these time scales, oscillations of climate that are paced by the orbital wobbles of the Earth, known as the Milankovitch cycles, become very apparent. The wobbles occur because the Earth's orbit around the sun does not repeat exactly each year but is subject to variations, due ultimately to the presence of other bodies in the solar system.
E. C. Pielou
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801477409
- eISBN:
- 9780801463037
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801477409.003.0001
- Subject:
- Biology, Plant Sciences and Forestry
This chapter addresses two questions that have engaged the interests of ecologists and motivated years of research: Where has the forest come from? And why are the great majority of its trees ...
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This chapter addresses two questions that have engaged the interests of ecologists and motivated years of research: Where has the forest come from? And why are the great majority of its trees conifers rather than deciduous, broadleafed trees? With regards to the first question, the only certain answer is that the trees in the area under study, the area that was ice-covered at the end of the last ice age, must have descended from ancestors that lived elsewhere. For the second question, the success of evergreen conifers vis-à-vis broadleafs in the north probably has less to do with the effect of cold on the trees, and more to do with its effects on the soil.Less
This chapter addresses two questions that have engaged the interests of ecologists and motivated years of research: Where has the forest come from? And why are the great majority of its trees conifers rather than deciduous, broadleafed trees? With regards to the first question, the only certain answer is that the trees in the area under study, the area that was ice-covered at the end of the last ice age, must have descended from ancestors that lived elsewhere. For the second question, the success of evergreen conifers vis-à-vis broadleafs in the north probably has less to do with the effect of cold on the trees, and more to do with its effects on the soil.
Michèle Hayeur Smith
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780813066622
- eISBN:
- 9780813058771
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813066622.001.0001
- Subject:
- Archaeology, Historical Archaeology
In The Valkyries’ Loom, Michèle Hayeur Smith examines Viking textiles as evidence of the little-known work of women in the Norse colonies that expanded from Scandinavia across the North Atlantic in ...
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In The Valkyries’ Loom, Michèle Hayeur Smith examines Viking textiles as evidence of the little-known work of women in the Norse colonies that expanded from Scandinavia across the North Atlantic in the ninth century AD. While previous researchers have overlooked textiles as insignificant artifacts, Hayeur Smith is the first to use them to understand gender and economy in Norse societies of the North Atlantic.This groundbreaking study is based on the author’s systematic comparative analysis of the vast textile collections in Iceland, Greenland, Denmark, Scotland, and the Faroe Islands, materials that are largely unknown even to archaeologists and span 1,000 years. Through these garments and fragments, Hayeur Smith provides new insights into how the women of these island nations influenced international trade by producing cloth (vaðmál); how they shaped the development of national identities by creating clothing; and how they helped their communities survive climate change by reengineering clothes during the Little Ice Age. She supplements her analysis by revealing societal attitudes about weaving through the poem “Darraðarljoð” from Njál’s Saga, in which the Valkyries—Óðin’s female warrior spirits—produce the cloth of history and decide the fates of men and nations.Bringing Norse women and their labor to the forefront of research, Hayeur Smith establishes the foundation for a gendered archaeology of the North Atlantic that has never been attempted before. This monumental and innovative work contributes to global discussions about the hidden roles of women in past societies in preserving tradition and guiding change.Less
In The Valkyries’ Loom, Michèle Hayeur Smith examines Viking textiles as evidence of the little-known work of women in the Norse colonies that expanded from Scandinavia across the North Atlantic in the ninth century AD. While previous researchers have overlooked textiles as insignificant artifacts, Hayeur Smith is the first to use them to understand gender and economy in Norse societies of the North Atlantic.This groundbreaking study is based on the author’s systematic comparative analysis of the vast textile collections in Iceland, Greenland, Denmark, Scotland, and the Faroe Islands, materials that are largely unknown even to archaeologists and span 1,000 years. Through these garments and fragments, Hayeur Smith provides new insights into how the women of these island nations influenced international trade by producing cloth (vaðmál); how they shaped the development of national identities by creating clothing; and how they helped their communities survive climate change by reengineering clothes during the Little Ice Age. She supplements her analysis by revealing societal attitudes about weaving through the poem “Darraðarljoð” from Njál’s Saga, in which the Valkyries—Óðin’s female warrior spirits—produce the cloth of history and decide the fates of men and nations.Bringing Norse women and their labor to the forefront of research, Hayeur Smith establishes the foundation for a gendered archaeology of the North Atlantic that has never been attempted before. This monumental and innovative work contributes to global discussions about the hidden roles of women in past societies in preserving tradition and guiding change.
Tobias Menely
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- January 2022
- ISBN:
- 9780226776149
- eISBN:
- 9780226776316
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226776316.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
Climate and the Making of Worlds develops a materialist ecocriticism, tracking the imprint of the planetary across a long history of poetic rewritings and critical readings in which what is at stake ...
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Climate and the Making of Worlds develops a materialist ecocriticism, tracking the imprint of the planetary across a long history of poetic rewritings and critical readings in which what is at stake is the climate as a condition of human world making. It offers a geohistorical interpretation of the shifts associated with three phases in the history of English poetry: baroque allegory, Augustan description, and romantic lyric. Modal change indexes key stages in the epochal transition as Britain developed from an agrarian society, embedded in the climate system and subject to its shocks, to an industrial-imperial state that had begun to decouple from the concrete space-time of the Earth system. The central archive is English poetry written between Milton’s Paradise Lost and Smith’s "Beachy Head." Incorporating new sciences into ancient literary genres, these ambitious poems aspired to encompass what Thomson in The Seasons calls the “system . . . entire.” Even as they take from Lucretius’s De rerum natura an attention to nature’s limits, however, these poems also develop strategies for disavowing planetary vicissitude: in eschatological expectation, in projects of improvement and expansion, and in the personal solace found in untouched nature. Literary criticism recapitulates such disavowal when it fails to recognize the climatic real that provokes these fantasies of transcendence. This book argues that the “social”—the symbolic categories with which we know ourselves, our labor, and our world, as well the institutions and infrastructures that organize the reproduction of life—is constitutively open to the planetary.Less
Climate and the Making of Worlds develops a materialist ecocriticism, tracking the imprint of the planetary across a long history of poetic rewritings and critical readings in which what is at stake is the climate as a condition of human world making. It offers a geohistorical interpretation of the shifts associated with three phases in the history of English poetry: baroque allegory, Augustan description, and romantic lyric. Modal change indexes key stages in the epochal transition as Britain developed from an agrarian society, embedded in the climate system and subject to its shocks, to an industrial-imperial state that had begun to decouple from the concrete space-time of the Earth system. The central archive is English poetry written between Milton’s Paradise Lost and Smith’s "Beachy Head." Incorporating new sciences into ancient literary genres, these ambitious poems aspired to encompass what Thomson in The Seasons calls the “system . . . entire.” Even as they take from Lucretius’s De rerum natura an attention to nature’s limits, however, these poems also develop strategies for disavowing planetary vicissitude: in eschatological expectation, in projects of improvement and expansion, and in the personal solace found in untouched nature. Literary criticism recapitulates such disavowal when it fails to recognize the climatic real that provokes these fantasies of transcendence. This book argues that the “social”—the symbolic categories with which we know ourselves, our labor, and our world, as well the institutions and infrastructures that organize the reproduction of life—is constitutively open to the planetary.
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226731285
- eISBN:
- 9780226731308
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226731308.003.0037
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
The narrative in this book has been brought to an end in the mid-1840s, with the arguments over glacial extension and the putative Ice Age still in full swing, as they would continue to be for many ...
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The narrative in this book has been brought to an end in the mid-1840s, with the arguments over glacial extension and the putative Ice Age still in full swing, as they would continue to be for many years to come. But the glacial debate was traced far enough to illustrate its decisive role in the broader story of the transformation of the earth sciences by the penetration of geohistorical ways of practicing them. The most important point about the controversy over the Ice Age was that any such episode in the geologically recent past was totally unexpected by leading geologists of all stripes. Equally unexpected was the complex story of the history of life that had been pieced together during the quarter-century covered by the present volume. Based initially on Smithian stratigraphy, vastly enlarged and deepened by the geohistorical perspective inspired by Cuvier, and brought to maturity by geologists such as Smith's nephew Phillips, this research disclosed a history of life that, while certainly directional and even “progressive,” could not have been predicted in any detail from such grand theoretical schemes as Lamarck's transformism.Less
The narrative in this book has been brought to an end in the mid-1840s, with the arguments over glacial extension and the putative Ice Age still in full swing, as they would continue to be for many years to come. But the glacial debate was traced far enough to illustrate its decisive role in the broader story of the transformation of the earth sciences by the penetration of geohistorical ways of practicing them. The most important point about the controversy over the Ice Age was that any such episode in the geologically recent past was totally unexpected by leading geologists of all stripes. Equally unexpected was the complex story of the history of life that had been pieced together during the quarter-century covered by the present volume. Based initially on Smithian stratigraphy, vastly enlarged and deepened by the geohistorical perspective inspired by Cuvier, and brought to maturity by geologists such as Smith's nephew Phillips, this research disclosed a history of life that, while certainly directional and even “progressive,” could not have been predicted in any detail from such grand theoretical schemes as Lamarck's transformism.
Lesley Newson and Peter J. Richerson
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- September 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780190883201
- eISBN:
- 9780197554821
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190883201.003.0006
- Subject:
- Biology, Evolutionary Biology / Genetics
Starting about 35,000 years ago, humans seem to have made a great leap forward culturally. The authors argue that this wasn’t because of genetic changes that caused the human brain to have increased ...
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Starting about 35,000 years ago, humans seem to have made a great leap forward culturally. The authors argue that this wasn’t because of genetic changes that caused the human brain to have increased capacity. It was because some groups culturally evolved the “social tools” that allowed them to maintain connections and share information over long distances. The groups with the most effective social tools managed to stay connected and to survive, and their descendants inherited this culture of connectedness. It’s likely that forming greater connectedness and more complex culture was necessary in order to survive the periods of high climate variability that were a feature of the last ice age.Less
Starting about 35,000 years ago, humans seem to have made a great leap forward culturally. The authors argue that this wasn’t because of genetic changes that caused the human brain to have increased capacity. It was because some groups culturally evolved the “social tools” that allowed them to maintain connections and share information over long distances. The groups with the most effective social tools managed to stay connected and to survive, and their descendants inherited this culture of connectedness. It’s likely that forming greater connectedness and more complex culture was necessary in order to survive the periods of high climate variability that were a feature of the last ice age.
