RE: Fastovsky vs Archibald

[John Hunt <john.bass@ntlworld.com>]

I too was wondering whether the North Sea could be analogous to the WIS.
However, lets call it the EIS (European Interior Sea), also consists of the
English channel and the Baltic, making it much more complex.

Also, there is a great disparity between the lands separated by the sea.
The British Isles are likely to be much smaller than the parts of
continental North America divided by the WIS.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu] On Behalf Of
Aidan Karley
Sent: 27 June 2005 11:45
To: dinosaur@usc.edu
Subject: Re: Fastovsky vs Archibald

In article <20050626.161817.-968745.0.bigelowp@juno.com>, Phil Bigelow 
wrote:
> Others
> claim that the WIS was open all the way to the Arctic even into the
> Paleocene.  Take your pick.  But if the Seaway was closed off in southern
> Canada by Scollard time, then the climate would have been harsher than it
> was further to the south.
>
       Hmmm, that's a substantial assertion there. My memory of the 
stratigraphic history of North America is pretty vague, but the WIS 
(Western Inland Sea IIRC?) was meant to be a pretty shallow, narrow body of 
water. As such, one has to wonder just how much effect it could reasonably 
have as a heat-pump. Has anyone crunched numbers on this? 
[ Without wanting to ignite a SUV versus bike flame fest (see 
sci.geo.petroleum <G>), does anyone know of work done to apply modern 
climatological modelling to questions like this? The existence of projects 
like climateprediction.net (a sort of climatological SETI@home) implies 
that a reasonable-quality, reproducible model could be put together that 
would work the numbers on off-the-shelf computers in a workable timescale 
(run a slightly different model on each of your student's machines, plus 
the departmental secretary's ; collate). ] 
       I'm also looking around for a modern analogue to the WIS, a 
mid-latitude sea, north-south oriented, and relatively shallow, to compare 
the climate impact of the seaway. The closest I can think of is the North 
Sea, which isn't very long, and is further north, and has a hole at one 
end. With those caveats though, it doesn't appear to have that much effect 
on the climate of the Netherlands [54N 5E] versus Stavanger [59N 6E] when 
compared to Snowdonia [54N 4W] and Assynt [58N 5W]. My time spent in all of 
the named places would tell me that the effects of latitude are comparable, 
and that there is little evidence of significant heat pumping down the 
North Sea [I know it's a small, subjective example.]
       
       Come to think of it, is there modelling of the ocean currents in the 
area? Particularly around the mouth of the WIS and Western Tethys?
       
-- 
 Aidan Karley,
 Aberdeen, Scotland,
 Location: 57°10' N,  02°09'  W (sub-tropical Aberdeen), 0.021233
 Written at Mon, 27 Jun 2005 10:46 +0100



                
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