Earth on brink of ice age...?!? « Thread Started on Jan 15, 2009, 9:52pm »
"The earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age, according to a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science. Many sources of data which provide our knowledge base of long-term climate change indicate that the warm, twelve thousand year-long Holocene period will rather soon be coming to an end, and then the earth will return to Ice Age conditions for the next 100,000 years.
Ice cores, ocean sediment cores, the geologic record, and studies of ancient plant and animal populations all demonstrate a regular cyclic pattern of Ice Age glacial maximums which each last about 100,000 years, separated by intervening warm interglacials, each lasting about 12,000 years.
Most of the long-term climate data collected from various sources also shows a strong correlation with the three astronomical cycles which are together known as the Milankovich cycles. The three Milankovich cycles include the tilt of the earth, which varies over a 41,000 year period; the shape of the earth’s orbit, which changes over a period of 100,000 years; and the Precession of the Equinoxes, also known as the earth’s ‘wobble’, which gradually rotates the direction of the earth’s axis over a period of 26,000 years. According to the Milankovich theory of Ice Age causation, these three astronomical cycles, each of which effects the amount of solar radiation which reaches the earth, act together to produce the cycle of cold Ice Age maximums and warm interglacials.
Elements of the astronomical theory of Ice Age causation were first presented by the French mathematician Joseph Adhemar in 1842, it was developed further by the English prodigy Joseph Croll in 1875, and the theory was established in its present form by the Serbian mathematician Milutin Milankovich in the 1920s and 30s. In 1976 the prestigious journal “Science” published a landmark paper by John Imbrie, James Hays, and Nicholas Shackleton entitled “Variations in the Earth's orbit: Pacemaker of the Ice Ages,” which described the correlation which the trio of scientist/authors had found between the climate data obtained from ocean sediment cores and the patterns of the astronomical Milankovich cycles. Since the late 1970s, the Milankovich theory has remained the predominant theory to account for Ice Age causation among climate scientists, and hence the Milankovich theory is always described in textbooks of climatology and in encyclopaedia articles about the Ice Ages.
In their 1976 paper Imbrie, Hays, and Shackleton wrote that their own climate forecasts, which were based on sea-sediment cores and the Milankovich cycles, "… must be qualified in two ways. First, they apply only to the natural component of future climatic trends - and not to anthropogenic effects such as those due to the burning of fossil fuels. Second, they describe only the long-term trends, because they are linked to orbital variations with periods of 20,000 years and longer. Climatic oscillations at higher frequencies are not predicted... the results indicate that the long-term trend over the next 20,000 years is towards extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation and cooler climate."
During the 1970s the famous American astronomer Carl Sagan and other scientists began promoting the theory that ‘greenhouse gasses’ such as carbon dioxide, or CO2, produced by human industries could lead to catastrophic global warming. Since the 1970s the theory of ‘anthropogenic global warming’ (AGW) has gradually become accepted as fact by most of the academic establishment, and their acceptance of AGW has inspired a global movement to encourage governments to make pivotal changes to prevent the worsening of AGW.
The central piece of evidence that is cited in support of the AGW theory is the famous ‘hockey stick’ graph which was presented by Al Gore in his 2006 film “An Inconvenient Truth.” The ‘hockey stick’ graph shows an acute upward spike in global temperatures which began during the 1970s and continued through the winter of 2006/07. However, this warming trend was interrupted when the winter of 2007/8 delivered the deepest snow cover to the Northern Hemisphere since 1966 and the coldest temperatures since 2001. It now appears that the current Northern Hemisphere winter of 2008/09 will probably equal or surpass the winter of 2007/08 for both snow depth and cold temperatures.
The main flaw in the AGW theory is that its proponents focus on evidence from only the past one thousand years at most, while ignoring the evidence from the past million years -- evidence which is essential for a true understanding of climatology. The data from paleoclimatology provides us with an alternative and more credible explanation for the recent global temperature spike, based on the natural cycle of Ice Age maximums and interglacials.
In 1999 the British journal “Nature” published the results of data derived from glacial ice cores collected at the Russia’s Vostok station in Antarctica during the 1990s. The Vostok ice core data includes a record of global atmospheric temperatures, atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases, and airborne particulates starting from 420,000 years ago and continuing through history up to our present time.
The graph of the Vostok ice core data shows that the Ice Age maximums and the warm interglacials occur within a regular cyclic pattern, the graph-line of which is similar to the rhythm of a heartbeat on an electrocardiogram tracing. The Vostok data graph also shows that changes in global CO2 levels lag behind global temperature changes by about eight hundred years. What that indicates is that global temperatures precede or cause global CO2 changes, and not the reverse. In other words, increasing atmospheric CO2 is not causing global temperature to rise; instead the natural cyclic increase in global temperature is causing global CO2 to rise.
The reason that global CO2 levels rise and fall in response to the global temperature is because cold water is capable of retaining more CO2 than warm water. That is why carbonated beverages loose their carbonation, or CO2, when stored in a warm environment. We store our carbonated soft drinks, wine, and beer in a cool place to prevent them from loosing their ‘fizz’, which is a feature of their carbonation, or CO2 content. The earth is currently warming as a result of the natural Ice Age cycle, and as the oceans get warmer, they release increasing amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Because the release of CO2 by the warming oceans lags behind the changes in the earth’s temperature, we should expect to see global CO2 levels continue to rise for another eight hundred years after the end of the earth’s current Interglacial warm period. We should already be eight hundred years into the coming Ice Age before global CO2 levels begin to drop in response to the increased chilling of the world’s oceans.
The Vostok ice core data graph reveals that global CO2 levels regularly rose and fell in a direct response to the natural cycle of Ice Age minimums and maximums during the past four hundred and twenty thousand years. Within that natural cycle, about every 110,000 years global temperatures, followed by global CO2 levels, have peaked at approximately the same levels which they are at today.
Today we are again at the peak, and near to the end, of a warm interglacial, and the earth is now due to enter the next Ice Age. If we are lucky, we may have a few years to prepare for it. The Ice Age will return, as it always has, in its regular and natural cycle, with or without any influence from the effects of AGW.
The AGW theory is based on data that is drawn from a ridiculously narrow span of time and it demonstrates a wanton disregard for the ‘big picture’ of long-term climate change. The data from paleoclimatology, including ice cores, sea sediments, geology, paleobotany and zoology, indicate that we are on the verge of entering another Ice Age, and the data also shows that severe and lasting climate change can occur within only a few years. While concern over the dubious threat of Anthropogenic Global Warming continues to distract the attention of people throughout the world, the very real threat of the approaching and inevitable Ice Age, which will render large parts of the Northern Hemisphere uninhabitable, is being foolishly ignored. "
Re: Earth on brink of ice age...?!? « Reply #3 on Jan 16, 2009, 2:54am »
I have no idea who to believe. Each side has their own cadre of scientists. If you want to look at an opposing view, here is Dr. Jeff Masters of the Weather Underground:
Averaging together antarctic and arctic sea ice hides an important truth
Posted by: JeffMasters, 2:37 PM GMT on January 15, 2009
Since my last post designating arctic sea ice loss as the top climate story of 2008, I've heard a lot comments like this one: "Jeff, you just can't seem to understand the that man-made global warming is a fable and complete hoax. In all that blathering about the falsified IPCC reports and the study of the arctic ice sheet, you somehow neglected to mention that the ice recovered not only what it lost last year, but is now larger than the previous known record measured in 1978".
Well, I can understand this point of view, given complexity of the climate change issue, and the large amount of conflicting information one sees in the media. Let's look at the facts about global sea ice. You can look at the data yourself at the excellent University of Illinois Cryosphere Today web site. Reliable sea ice records go back to 1979, when satellite measurements began. Antarctic sea ice reached its greatest extent on record during the winter of 2007. Summertime ice coverage also increased in 2007-2008 compared to 2006 levels. There is high variability in antarctic sea ice from winter to summer, and antarctic sea ice can best be described as having stayed constant since 1979 (as stated in the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The IPCC did find that there had been a significant decline in arctic sea ice, in all seasons, between 1979-2006. Despite this decline, there have been three periods during the past two years when the sum of the arctic and antarctic sea ice was the same or even higher than it was at the start of the satellite era (1979). An article published January 1 on Daily Tech noted that "global sea ice levels now equal those seen 29 years ago". This was pretty close to the truth on December 31, 2008, despite the fact that arctic ice was 1 million km^2 below 1979 levels, since antarctic ice was 0.5 million km^2 above 1979 levels.
Although arctic sea ice extent has steadily declined since 1979, especially in summer, this decline is not as great during the winter months. One can find periods in winter when summing together antarctic and arctic sea ice area makes it appear that arctic sea ice loss is no big deal.
However, this is the wrong way to look at the issue. We don't care much about global sea ice in winter. We care about arctic sea ice in the summer. Sharp declines in summertime arctic ice are likely to cause significant and damaging alterations to Earth's climate.
Cleverly quoting irrelevant facts about global wintertime sea ice data to hide the summertime loss of arctic sea ice is a tremendous disservice. It's like hiding the potential impact of a major hurricane in a one-week forecast by saying, "the average peak wind speed for the next seven days will be 17 mph", and neglecting to mention that the wind will be calm six of those days, but 120 mph on the other day. The loss of arctic sea ice the past two summers, is, in my view, the most important human-caused climate change event yet--even more significant and dangerous than the opening of the antarctic ozone hole in the 1980s.
It's great that we're not seeing loss of sea ice in Antarctica. But, both the Antarctic and the Arctic can be thought of as important internal organs in our living Earth. The fact that the Antarctic has not undergone significant warming and sea ice loss in no way diminishes the urgency with which climate scientists view the diseased state of our Arctic.
Fully 88 presentations on arctic sea ice were made last month at the world's largest scientific climate change conference, the American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in San Francisco. None of these scientists averaged together the arctic and antarctic sea ice together to show that the overall state of Earth's cryosphere was a healthy one.
There was widespread concern for the health of the Arctic among all the scientists I spoke with, and none of the speakers at the talks I attended expressed the idea that the recent melting of arctic sea ice was predominantly natural, with human-caused climate change an insignificant factor. One view (Stroeve et al., 2007) is that human-emitted greenhouse gases are responsible for 47-57% of the arctic sea ice loss since 1979. Heat-absorbing black soot from fires and pollution settling on the white ice is thought to also be a significant contributor.
What is the current state of Antarctic climate? At the December 2008 AGU meeting, scientists gave Antarctica a mixed bill of health. Isabella Velicogna of UC Irvine reported that satellite gravitational variation measurements of Antarctica's ice cap showed significant loss of ice between 2002-2008, but that the large natural variations in melting with the seasons made it difficult to be confident of the results.
A somewhat different result was reported by J. Zwally of NASA. Using data from a higher-resolution satellite-borne laser altimeter, he found that there was no major loss of Antarctica's ice sheet between 2003-2007. Regardless of which data set is correct, Antarctica is in better shape than the Arctic because Antarctica has stayed relatively cool in recent decades.
For example, the surface temperature at the South Pole cooled 0.05° C between 1980 and 1999 (Kwok and Comiso, 2002). The majority of Antarctica has shown no statistically significant warming over the past 50 years (Turner et al., 2005), and cooling has just been dominant between 1982-2004. In the period 2004-2007, much of the Antarctic warmed (Figure 3), but it is too early to say if this is the beginning of a warming trend.
Check out the January 22 issue of Nature when new results about whether or not Antarctica is warming will be published.
Why did Antarctica cool between 1982 and 2004 if there was global warming going on?
The weather of the Antarctic is dominated by a strong band of westerly winds that blow around the pole. This circumpolar vortex extends from the surface to the stratosphere, and can attain very high wind speeds, thanks to the absence of large land masses to slow it down. This vortex tends to isolate Antarctica from the rest of the globe, keeping global warming from influencing Antarctica's weather, and allowing the surface to cool. The Antarctic Peninsula, which sticks out from Antarctica towards South America, frequently lies outside the vortex. This has allowed the peninsula to warm significantly, compared to the rest of Antarctica. The antarctic circumpolar vortex has strengthened in the past 25-30 years, forming an even stronger barrier than usual. Tree ring records (Jones and Widman, 2004) suggest that the circumpolar vortex has shown similar strengthening in the past, so the current cooling trend in Antarctica may be natural.
Another possibility, favored by climate modelers, is that the strengthening of the circumpolar vortex and recent cooling in Antarctica are primarily due to a combination of the recent increase in greenhouse gases and the opening of the Antarctic ozone hole. The ozone hole opened up at about the same time as the recent cooling began. Ozone absorbs UV radiation which heats the atmosphere around it, so the absence of ozone has led to cooling in the stratosphere over Antarctica. This cooling has been about 10° C in October-November since 1985 (Thompson and Solomon, 2002).
This has acted to intensify the circumpolar vortex, leading to surface cooling. If the climate modelers are right, the circumpolar vortex will weaken as the ozone hole diminishes in coming decades. This will allow the Antarctic to begin warming with the rest of the globe, in a decade or two.
Re: Earth on brink of ice age...?!? « Reply #4 on Jan 16, 2009, 2:11pm »
Personally, I feel like global warming could be a scam. Or a huge mistake in someones scientific method lol. What the real question is: If this is true... how long do we have until the Earth switches periods? How long have people been aware? What are they doing to ensure the survival of our race?
"I know that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
The Avenger Global Moderator Award for exceptional contribution member is offline
Chemist, UFO Researcher and Adventurer
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Re: Earth on brink of ice age...?!? « Reply #5 on Jan 16, 2009, 3:03pm »
Anytime someone tells you that they have all of the answers, run like Hell! My opinion leans toward AGW being a farce, but the truth appears to be that our knowledge of science is simply inadequate to understand what our planet is doing or going to do. I doubt that we know 1/10 of one percent about how the Earth functions.
« Last Edit: Jan 16, 2009, 3:13pm by The Avenger »
If they could speak, I'm sure they'd have plenty to say on this subject.
Oregon's Mount Hood
And so on, and so forth...
I tend to use my eyes, ears, nose, and sense of touch in conjunction with gut feelings to tell me what is true and what is not.
My gut tells me that the rapid increase in global temperatures, thus melting glaciers, rising ocean levels, insane storms, etc., are the result of a combination of two things:
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
--Albert Einstein
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Re: Earth on brink of ice age...?!? « Reply #7 on Jan 17, 2009, 11:04am »
ice age may be well starting to form, perhaps current global warming is related to ufo technology recovery and the way is thro massive industrial outputs to overrule what may well be a natural occourance. Pump out as much co2 as we can and nullify the coming ice age.
Joined: Jul 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 253 Karma: 10
Re: Earth on brink of ice age...?!? « Reply #8 on Jan 17, 2009, 3:08pm »
I tend to agree with “theavenger” Though one thing seems to be certain to me, and that is we “mankind” have affected the biosphere.
My question is though we know the earth is in a state of constant flux have we tipped the balance to the point of no return? My understanding is that if we have or will affect the major ocean current to the point they stop running that, that will cause an algal bloom that in turn will poison the atmosphere to the extent it could cause an extinction event.
I do know we have to stop thinking we have a handle on this very complex system and act with the utmost care on the conservative side rather than thinking we can go on raping the system without consequence.
Joined: Aug 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 529 Karma: 15
Re: Earth on brink of ice age...?!? « Reply #11 on Jan 17, 2009, 4:42pm »
I can see how global warming would make summers hotter, but how would record low winter temperatures persist if global warming raises the global temperature? I'm willing to entertain the idea that the earth naturally has a cycle of climate change and that we're going to be headed for an ice age soon; although, the occurance of global warming has slightly (or significantly) altered the degree of change we will experience.
If you take to David Wilcock's perspective, he's claimed that the earth is in it's process of going into an ice age; but, because we're headed into a very energetic part of the universe, the changes are being mitigated to a degree.
Those with eyes to see and hears to hear, etc. You've been exalted.
Thank you!
I forgot to mention that I also employ scientific data as well.
Some here, I think, are confusing weather with climate…
From the World Meteorological Organization: “The head of the World Meteorological Organisation has said that global warming does not mean the end of snow. “
What's the Difference Between Weather and Climate?
“The reason studying climate and a changing climate is important, is that will affect people around the world. Rising global temperatures are expected to raise sea levels, and change precipitation and other local climate conditions. Changing regional climate could alter forests, crop yields, and water supplies. It could also affect human health, animals, and many types of ecosystems. Deserts may expand into existing rangelands, and features of some of our National Parks and National Forests may be permanently altered. “
We've been experiencing unusually cold episodes lately due to repeated Arctic air blasts getting a bit too comfy over various areas, overstaying its welcome...It's the neighbor who wouldn't leave! Soon, however, it will be getting on with its bad self, and we'll be back to business as usual.
Joined: Jul 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 2,257 Location: MINNESOTA, USA Karma: 75
Re: Earth on brink of ice age...?!? « Reply #13 on Jan 17, 2009, 8:33pm »
We should not forget that the Ice Ages began as the buildup of Central America closed off the Circum-Equatorial ocean flows of warm water. This change in Oceanic Circulation allows the Greenland Currents to change and start the Ice Ages.
If we were to reopen this Circum-Equatorial flow, now there is some real Planetary Engineering for you, Ice Ages would end and we'd return to a more temperate climate. Would this be good? Would this help, or hurt, Global Climate Change vis=a-vis the impact of Human Development?
Stealing, well actually its just borrowing, energy from the Solar Cycle seems to me to be the best way to mitigate this impact.
Those with eyes to see and hears to hear, etc. You've been exalted.
Thank you!
I forgot to mention that I also employ scientific data as well.
Some here, I think, are confusing weather with climate…
From the World Meteorological Organization: “The head of the World Meteorological Organisation has said that global warming does not mean the end of snow. “
What's the Difference Between Weather and Climate?
“The reason studying climate and a changing climate is important, is that will affect people around the world. Rising global temperatures are expected to raise sea levels, and change precipitation and other local climate conditions. Changing regional climate could alter forests, crop yields, and water supplies. It could also affect human health, animals, and many types of ecosystems. Deserts may expand into existing rangelands, and features of some of our National Parks and National Forests may be permanently altered. “
We've been experiencing unusually cold episodes lately due to repeated Arctic air blasts getting a bit too comfy over various areas, overstaying its welcome...It's the neighbor who wouldn't leave! Soon, however, it will be getting on with its bad self, and we'll be back to business as usual.
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