Resilience of Snowball Earth to Stochastic Events
Abstract Earth went through at least two periods of global glaciation (i.e., “Snowball Earth” states) during the Neoproterozoic, the shortest of which (the Marinoan) may not have lasted sufficiently long for its termination to be explained by the gradual volcanic build‐up of greenhouse gases in the...
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Wiley
2024-07-01
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| Series: | Geophysical Research Letters |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1029/2024GL109512 |
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| _version_ | 1849725646886928384 |
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| author | Guillaume Chaverot Andrea Zorzi Xuesong Ding Jonathan Itcovitz Bowen Fan Siddharth Bhatnagar Aoshuang Ji Robert J. Graham Tushar Mittal |
| author_facet | Guillaume Chaverot Andrea Zorzi Xuesong Ding Jonathan Itcovitz Bowen Fan Siddharth Bhatnagar Aoshuang Ji Robert J. Graham Tushar Mittal |
| author_sort | Guillaume Chaverot |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract Earth went through at least two periods of global glaciation (i.e., “Snowball Earth” states) during the Neoproterozoic, the shortest of which (the Marinoan) may not have lasted sufficiently long for its termination to be explained by the gradual volcanic build‐up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Large asteroid impacts and supervolcanic eruptions have been suggested as stochastic geological events that could cause a sudden end to global glaciation via a runaway melting process. Here, we employ an energy balance climate model to simulate the evolution of Snowball Earth's surface temperature after such events. We find that even a large impactor (diameters of d ∼ 100 km) and the supervolcanic Toba eruption (74 Kyr ago), are insufficient to terminate a Snowball state unless background CO2 has already been driven to high levels by long‐term outgassing. We suggest, according to our modeling framework, that Earth's Snowball states would have been resilient to termination by stochastic events. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-9364a1c95b3b4aed824ef53d2c7553f5 |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 0094-8276 1944-8007 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2024-07-01 |
| publisher | Wiley |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Geophysical Research Letters |
| spelling | doaj-art-9364a1c95b3b4aed824ef53d2c7553f52025-08-20T03:10:25ZengWileyGeophysical Research Letters0094-82761944-80072024-07-015114n/an/a10.1029/2024GL109512Resilience of Snowball Earth to Stochastic EventsGuillaume Chaverot0Andrea Zorzi1Xuesong Ding2Jonathan Itcovitz3Bowen Fan4Siddharth Bhatnagar5Aoshuang Ji6Robert J. Graham7Tushar Mittal8Observatoire Astronomique de l'Université de Genève Versoix SwitzerlandDepartment of Earth and Planetary Sciences Stanford University Stanford CA USADepartment of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences University of California Los Angeles CA USAInstitute of Astronomy University of Cambridge Cambridge UKDepartment of the Geophysical Sciences University of Chicago Chicago IL USAObservatoire Astronomique de l'Université de Genève Versoix SwitzerlandDepartment of Geosciences Pennsylvania State University University Park PA USADepartment of the Geophysical Sciences University of Chicago Chicago IL USADepartment of Geosciences Pennsylvania State University University Park PA USAAbstract Earth went through at least two periods of global glaciation (i.e., “Snowball Earth” states) during the Neoproterozoic, the shortest of which (the Marinoan) may not have lasted sufficiently long for its termination to be explained by the gradual volcanic build‐up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Large asteroid impacts and supervolcanic eruptions have been suggested as stochastic geological events that could cause a sudden end to global glaciation via a runaway melting process. Here, we employ an energy balance climate model to simulate the evolution of Snowball Earth's surface temperature after such events. We find that even a large impactor (diameters of d ∼ 100 km) and the supervolcanic Toba eruption (74 Kyr ago), are insufficient to terminate a Snowball state unless background CO2 has already been driven to high levels by long‐term outgassing. We suggest, according to our modeling framework, that Earth's Snowball states would have been resilient to termination by stochastic events.https://doi.org/10.1029/2024GL109512 |
| spellingShingle | Guillaume Chaverot Andrea Zorzi Xuesong Ding Jonathan Itcovitz Bowen Fan Siddharth Bhatnagar Aoshuang Ji Robert J. Graham Tushar Mittal Resilience of Snowball Earth to Stochastic Events Geophysical Research Letters |
| title | Resilience of Snowball Earth to Stochastic Events |
| title_full | Resilience of Snowball Earth to Stochastic Events |
| title_fullStr | Resilience of Snowball Earth to Stochastic Events |
| title_full_unstemmed | Resilience of Snowball Earth to Stochastic Events |
| title_short | Resilience of Snowball Earth to Stochastic Events |
| title_sort | resilience of snowball earth to stochastic events |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1029/2024GL109512 |
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