Ice Age "news"
Mar. 24th, 2002 08:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
novapsycheRandom Noise Could Have Affected Climate in Ice Age
Under certain conditions, random noise such as electrical static can paradoxically increase a weak signal's detectability, and in general amplify the signal's influence on its surroundings. This phenomenon, called "stochastic resonance" (SR), has been observed in settings as diverse as chaotic lasers and human reflex systems.
Interestingly, researchers originally proposed the concept of SR in 1982 to explain how random climate events may have helped generate a regularly repeating interval of approximately 100,000 years between Ice Ages. However, subsequent evidence did not support this idea.
Now, SR is coming back home to climate: New research suggests that random "noise" could have triggered a climatic rollercoaster during the last Ice Age.
[...] If confirmed, this mechanism may help to explain why the Ice Age climate was so much less stable compared to that of the past 10,000 years, in which human civilization was able to thrive.
Under certain conditions, random noise such as electrical static can paradoxically increase a weak signal's detectability, and in general amplify the signal's influence on its surroundings. This phenomenon, called "stochastic resonance" (SR), has been observed in settings as diverse as chaotic lasers and human reflex systems.
Interestingly, researchers originally proposed the concept of SR in 1982 to explain how random climate events may have helped generate a regularly repeating interval of approximately 100,000 years between Ice Ages. However, subsequent evidence did not support this idea.
Now, SR is coming back home to climate: New research suggests that random "noise" could have triggered a climatic rollercoaster during the last Ice Age.
[...] If confirmed, this mechanism may help to explain why the Ice Age climate was so much less stable compared to that of the past 10,000 years, in which human civilization was able to thrive.