Global Climate Change: Paleoclimate

This episode continues our investigation of current climate change by exploring the climate of the past and the techniques used to do so in present day.
Topics covered in this video:
0:00 - 1:24
Defining paleoclimate
Why study paleoclimate?
Proxies and why they're used
What types of proxies are there?
1:25 - 3:02
Tree rings as proxies
How they are used
3:03 - 7:59
Ice cores as proxies
Isotopes (hydrogen and oxygen), bubbles
Antarctica and Vostok
How ice cores are used
Figure of ice core data
8:00 - 9:36
Sedimentary particles (fossils and pollen) as proxies
9:37 - 12:58
Diagnostic rock types
Coal deposits, salt or gypsum deposits, glaciers
Evidence of past glaciers
Moraine, smoothing striations, erratics
12:59 - 18:28 (end)
Maps showing the extent of ice in North America
Relation to pine trees receding north
Pollen trends
Deglaciation of North America
Lakes near the edge of glaciers
Breakout of fresh water to North Atlantic and its effect on the Great Ocean
Conveyor Belt (Younger-Dryas cooling)
Plot of Greenland temperature during the Younger-Dryas cooling
Created by Prof. Richard Sedlock at San Jose State University.