New Ice Age Ahead ???

There is new evidence that ice melting can affect climate change:

Talk about a climate change: A University of Illinois at Chicago professor says he has found new evidence that a massive meltdown of polar ice 8,200 years ago put North America into a deep freeze for a century.
The "most dramatic climate change in the last 10,000 years" followed a flood of fresh water from a glacial reservoir into the salty water of the Gulf Stream, which controls our continent's weather. That led to a 43-degree temperature drop, said UIC's Torbjorn Tornqvist.

CHICAGO SUN TIMES

Polar ice is melting faster and faster lately:

National Geographic

Scientists have determined that the ice in Greenland and the Arctic is melting so rapidly that much of it could be gone by the end of the century. (See photos from the Arctic.)

The results could be catastrophic for polar people and animals, while low-lying lands as far away as Florida could be inundated by rising sea levels. (Read a story, see a map of how warming may toast Florida's coast).

The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment was released yesterday. It will be discussed by the Arctic Council (the governments of Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, the Russian Federation, Sweden, and the U.S., as well as six indigenous-peoples organizations) at a meeting in Iceland today.

The four-year study of the Arctic climate involved an international team of more than 300 scientists. They used a number of climate models and made a "moderate estimate" of future emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are widely believed to be contributing to the recent warming trend of the Earth's climate.

The study concluded that in Alaska, western Canada, and eastern Russia, average temperatures have increased as much as 4 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit (3 to 4 degrees Celsius) in the past 50 years, nearly twice the global average. Temperatures are projected to rise 7 to 13 degrees Fahrenheit (4 to 7 degrees Celsius) over the next hundred years.

2+2 =

Another ice age is probably inevitable. How quickly it will come is the question.

When is comes, there will quite likely be some "readustment" of the world's ecology, of which Humans are a major part of.

There are definately some weird things going on. Hard to say what exactly the signs mean. I'd bet Japan is keeping an eye on things after the year they had.

the ice age will come in 2012 when the earth spins on its own axis

Originally posted by the dustman
the ice age will come in 2012 when the earth spins on its own axis

Come again?????


The Earth already spins on its �own� axis.

(and not anyone else�s either )

Hrmmmm.. global warming leading to global cooling.. if I didn't know better I would say it sounds like a self-regulating system... oh wait it is..

Rather than everyone running around worrying about everything, we need to better UNDERSTAND everything. We still don't have a really good handle on the large global climate system as a whole.

Osiris

Solusion??

US opportunity

There are some alternatives on the horizon, including coal gasification technology that produces a concentrated effluent of CO2 that is easier to capture and store underground.

But whatever technology is used, the developed world must work with the developing world to prevent the release of CO2 from coal combustion into the atmosphere if the goal of CO2 stabilisation is to be achieved.

This analysis identifies a new opportunity for the US to play a leadership role in reducing our exposure to future climate change.

One could envision bilateral agreements between the US and China, for example, in which the US provides financial assistance to US companies who produce energy in China without emitting CO2, while China provides access to its rapidly growing energy market.

How to reduce future climat risk

We're already in an ice age, but currently live in an interglacial period of temporary warming within that mega ice age.

There have been hundreds of these warmer periods within the current ice age and each one lasts between about 3,000 and 20,000 years.

The current interglacial period started about 11,000 years ago so it is inevitable that we will again enter a glacial period within the next few thousand years. The likelihood is that it will happen quite quickly in geological terms, i.e, over a couple of hundred years.

A number of factors have a significant impact on GMST (global mean surface temperature) and therefore the move between glacial and interglacial periods within ice ages, The main factors are:

The luminosity of the sun

The orbit of the earth around the sun (which slightly changes cyclically over long periods of time) and the axis of the earth's rotation which, again, changes slightly over a long period of time.

The position of the continents due to plate tectonics - the current mega ice age is thought to have started when the north american and south american continents joined, severely altering global currents. The position of Antarctica over the south pole is also important as such a large landmass is able to hold on to huge quantities of ice which, in turn, cools down the planet.

The albedo effect - the amount of solar radiation which is reflected back from the planet. This changes due to cloud cover, amount of ice and snow, etc, on the planet.

And there are about 1001 other, smaller variables, too.

One thing that is uncertain is how big an effect the industrial and polluting activities of mankind has had.

otlg27

posted on 13-12-2004 at 01:28 PM
Hrmmmm.. global warming leading to global cooling.. if I didn't know better I would say it sounds like a self-regulating system... oh wait it is..

Rather than everyone running around worrying about everything, we need to better UNDERSTAND everything. We still don't have a really good handle on the large global climate system as a whole.

I agree with your comment wholeheartedly......we run around spending trillions on an international space station that may never get finished......yet we dont bother spending the money and time it takes to understand the world around us.......maybe its our own fault for being to self absorbed for the past few hundred years to care what we do to the world around us......but I feel a great deal of change is coming fast........we can either sink or swim....its up2 us

Originally posted by radiant_obsidian

we run around spending trillions on an international space station that may never get finished......yet we dont bother spending the money and time it takes to understand the world around us

I agree too! And that's one reason why we can't expect any big stuff fromt he US as someone mentioned earlier.

If you so wish, may I suggest a read: The Coming Global Superstorm by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber. This book describes the coming of a new ice age, and some theory behind it. I will also be the first to admit it has many faults behind it, but it has good points, so I urge you to read it, and I hope someday I can organise a reasearching team...it's something I've always wished to do.

If you so wish, may I suggest a read: The Coming Global Superstorm by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber.

Good book and well worth a read - in fact, I believe that The Day After Tomorrow was based loosely on this novel.

nope no ice age...i think the world will be like the world in mad max, destroyed and non existant like it is already portrayed in films based in the future