Climate Record From Bottom of Russian Lake Shows Arctic Was (8°C) Warmer Millions of Years Ago

[Yo_Mama]

10. But the land masses don't move much over 5 million years

Changes in the temps in the Arctic and Antarctic during the last 5 million years is not an appearance created by shifting land masses.

We know that, because land masses just haven't moved much during that time. The most significant developments over the last 30 million years have probably been uplifts/mountain range developments and maybe Central America region.

Here's a serious of maps from this site:
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~rcb7/global_history.html





60 million years ago the world looked quite different:


Compare that to the radical changes involved with the heating/cooling cycle's influence on ocean levels over the last 18 THOUSAND years:

much larger version here:

Look at the Gulf of Mexico

And now


There is some body of theory that states that relatively small geographical changes may have influenced the temperatures so that orbital variations (the primary explanation for the series of glacial and interglacial periods during the ice age) could cause ice expansion:
http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/onset.html
http://www.sdnhm.org/archive/exhibits/mystery/fg_timeline.html

However that is somewhat guesswork. However, what is not guesswork is that the land masses we see now were very close to current positions 2 and 5 million years ago.

The previous interglacial (Eemian) was supposed to have been significantly warmer than it is now. Early Holocene (this interglacial) temps were warmer than they are now, at least in most of the north. However, recent studies of the Eemian have turned up strong evidence for some pretty cold periods during that interglacial itself, so we still don't understand a lot.
http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/transit.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_climatic_optimum

The northern part of the Greenland ice (Hans Tausen Iskappe) melted all the way away during the early Holocene, and since has reiced, apparently due to colder temps.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Tausen_Iskappe

The popular idea of stable temperatures for long periods seems to be less and less true the more research is done. Instead, redistributions of heat appear to produce pretty large variations in temps and moisture distribution even over rather short periods.