Tournament: Jack Howe | Round: 1 | Opponent: DFVA | Judge:
Ice age coming NOW, carbon is key to prevent extinction — they attempt to reduce warming
Jackson 14 (Steven T. Jackson, PhD Ecology, Professor Emeritus of Paleoecology at the University of Wyoming, "climate change" Encyclopedia Britannica Academic) http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/121632/climate-change/275791/Glacial-and-interglacial-cycles-of-the-Pleistocene     NC                                                                                                     The cycling of the Earth system between glacial and interglacial modes has been ultimately driven by orbital variations. However, orbital forcing is by itself insufficient to explain all of this variation, and Earth system scientists are focusing their attention on the interactions and feedbacks between the myriad components of the Earth system. For example, the initial development of a continental ice sheet increases albedo over a portion of Earth, reducing surface absorption of sunlight and leading to further cooling. Similarly, changes in terrestrial vegetation, such as the replacement of forests by tundra, feed back into the atmosphere via changes in both albedo and latent heat flux from evapotranspiration. Forests—particularly those of tropical and temperate areas, with their large leaf area—release great amounts of water vapour and latent heat through transpiration. Tundra plants, which are much smaller, possess tiny leaves designed to slow water loss; they release only a small fraction of the water vapour that forests do. The discovery in ice core records that atmospheric concentrations of two potent greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and methane, have decreased during past glacial periods and peaked during interglacials indicates important feedback processes in the Earth system. Reduction of greenhouse gas concentrations during the transition to a glacial phase would reinforce and amplify cooling already under way. The reverse is true for transition to interglacial periods. The glacial carbon sink remains a topic of considerable research activity. A full understanding of glacial-interglacial carbon dynamics requires knowledge of the complex interplay among ocean chemistry and circulation, ecology of marine and terrestrial organisms, ice sheet dynamics, and atmospheric chemistry and circulation