Ice Age by 2020 : The Sea Salt Conspiracy

That was chilling. That cooling is the flipside to global warming and the feedbacks that feed and regulate climate change. We sure are getting dumped on in NE this year.

What a great read - kudos gulfstreamsalt

I'm in Australia and I can verify this is the worst drought in living memory. The local news services weather people must be so confused with whats happening down here. Time and time again they forecast rain, it doesn't rain. They forecast showers, they dont happen. They get it wrong time and time again. Whats even more spooky is you see the storm clouds forming during the day, ALL indicators are it is going to rain. Then like magic, right before your eyes, the clouds break up and disappear. I dont know anything about weather, only what I see with my own eyes. And in 38 years I've never seen cloud formations vanish on the scale I've witnessed these last few years.

I have a question - if this ice age is to happen around 2010 and freeze the northern hemisphere, will the rains return to Australia? Sorry if its a dumb question, but I know practically nothing about this subject.

I believe there is a debate about what would happen if the gulf stream did shut down. I've heard some say that there wouldn't be an ice age or major cooling, it would just be a disruption in the weather. However I think the disruption would be pretty big and cause a lot of major problems at a minimum.

As far as to whether or not Australia will get rain if the weather shifts suddenly to a colder northern climate, someone might need to have a computer simulation and feed a lot of guesses into the data in my opinion. I'm not a meteorologist even though I once considered that field.

This is the most likely scenario to play out but I don't think it is going to occur as soon as 2010. Everyone is always saying "gobal warming" but it is the flip side of that spike in the temperature charts that we really have to worry about. I will hope for a drop in gold prices before then.

Is anyone here familiar with El Nino and La Nina? Those currents wreak havoc with the US weather every couple of years. Sometimes drought, sometimes excessive moisture. With this combination of a weaker gulf stream and either of those conditions could destroy 3/4 of North America. The El Nino and La Nina cycle also applies to weather systems in the Western Pacific and Australia. Here is a good link on that.
en.wikipedia.org...
Here is another link to a picture of all the ocean currents - not just the more famous Gulf Stream (thank you Day After Tomorrow).
upload.wikimedia.org...
If any of these should be disrupted, we would have weather chaos all over the world. If the East Australian Current (as seen in Finding Nemo) were to fail, Australia would be in the same predicament as Europe. There is the same issue with Saline dumping with all of the warmer currents that move toward the poles.

Is it just me, or am I just crazy?

Why, when everybody says there is going to be a world wide catastrophe (like an ice-age), they only mention that it will happen in the northern hemisphere of the planet... People should stop watching movies. The day after tomorrow was a cool movie, I have to admit. But everything seems to be happening in the northern hemisphere. Worldwide catastrophe means its going to happen in both hemispheres.

Does mother nature hate 1st world countries? Does mother nature love the southern hemisphere more than the northern hemisphere? I don't get it.

Can someone show some (credible) evidence that it will ONLY happen to the northern hemisphere. And if the southern hemisphere is so safe... then the whole southern hemisphere can tell everybody in the north to kiss their asses when an ice-age arrives, and everybody in the north asks for help.

reply to post by The_unraveller


That was the jist of my above post. Look at all the Warmer (red) currents that move south and keep a majority of the worlds population warm. If any fail (Northern or Southern Hemisphere) trouble. Plus, what happens if one fails - do the others fail? Are the others disrupted? So if a Southern Hemisphere current fails does it affect the North as well? And vice-versa? That is the problem. No one knows, Computer models are only as accurate as the data you plug in (miss a value or a field - it's all wrong).

Originally posted by gulfstreamsalt
Drunvalo Melchizedek made a very interesting post concerning the start of an ice age by 2010 due to the rapid melting of the polar ice caps causing the stopping of the gulf stream due to the dilution and changes in sea salt levels.

3 problems:-

An ice age takes tens of thousands of years to get underway.

The last time the gulf stream (or, rather, NAD) is thought to have shut down was 8,200 years ago - although it got 2c cooler in Europe for about 200 years, there was no ice age and, given currently higher average temps, it's likely that a repeat event would at worse result in conditions about 1c cooler than those typical of 20th century; nothing catastrophic and certainly no ice age.

In the past it's taken a sudden, massive, influx of fresh water to sufficiently dilute the N Atlantic to stop the NAD. Such an event cannot happen now because there is no sufficient source of such fresh water: just slow, gradual, glacial melt.

He referenced a DND Pentagon Release paper

A theoretical 'what if' scenario. There was never any suggestion such events actual will happen and certainly not to the extend, or within the time frame, described in the report.


The myth that an NAD shutdown would trigger a new ice age derives from a popular misunderstanding of the Younger Dryas - a sudden cold event that occurred at the end of the last full ice age. This too is thought by some to have been cuased by a sudden meltwater release causing the NAD to shut down. However, at that time, Earth's orbital parametres were slightly different to today and, most importantly, at the time there was still a huge ice sheet in N America as well as extensive glaciers in NW Europe - including Britain. Such ice sheets and glaciers do not exist today. A repetition of the YD is not possible.

reply to post by Essan


First of all Happy New Year.
Second : Bravo!
Just one failure of the system is not adequate enough to plunge the world into chaos. A 15 Degree Celsius drop in Greenland and had temperatures in England of 5 Degrees Celsius. That is HUGE.
Third : It would take a decade if that wiki reference is right. We wouldn't be able to change it, but maybe adapt (like we have so many times)

If I understand what I read, it would take more than just the current failing, but since it is so misunderstood - maybe it wouldn't cause an Ice Age, but maybe a decrease in temperature just enough to stop wheat growing in Europe and the bread basket of America. Your thoughts on that Essan?

reply to post by Burginthorn


See and my wife and I thought we were going nuts. We live in Green Bay, WI. We'll sit here and watch the radar when a storm or large rain system is moving in and I swear, the system will dissipate as it hits the city or it will literally break and circle us. Is doesn't happen every time, but it does happen alot.

On the issue, I have always believed that the climate changes were nothing more than a cycle. That somebody can take something like that, and blame the people for it, and get them to buy into it, just baffles me. I think the only way we as a civilization could destroy the earth would be to launch all of the nukes, and I'm convinced that long after we were gone from the stupidity of even having weapons like that, the earth would bounce back and create something new.

Sometimes I sit and wonder what the earth would be like is the human race never developed. What animals would there be, and how intelligent would they be?

Why is it people always say Volcanos put out more C02 then humans its not the case at all.

volcanoes.usgs.gov...
Near the bottom Volcanos put put out 250 million compared 30 billion by people

reply to post by ShiftTrio

First - Happy New Year.
Second - Can you tell me, with out a doubt and with 100% assurance, that those numbers take into account Undersea volcanic activity. We follow the 20% activity that we know of (land based). We may only take into account a small percentage of the CO2 output from volcanoes.

Happy New Year to you as well =).

It does say "This estimate includes both subaerial and submarine volcanoes" So I am pretty sure they are including this in their numbers the, this is USGS saying this.

I mean even if the numbers are off slightly, its still 130X more then volcano's, So I am not sure where people have gotten the opposite info, just hate to see people base how they live or think about life on false info.

I am in no way a tree hugger or anything, just think what we are being asked to do ( recycle, change a few light bulbs, make sure huge companies are not taking advantage ) is the responsible thing to do, no matter your lifestyle or political affiliation, and I see people basing their whole argument on this above fact.

Have a great New Year, hopefully a good one for everyone.

reply to post by ShiftTrio


Nice Avatar and a tree hugger to boot LOL. We all do need to be good stewards of this planet. Recycling and conservation should be a focus in everyone's lives.
And I ain't no tree huggin hippie.
I must have missed that comment on the USGS site. But in terms of the Earth heating, CO2 is not as bad as Methane or other gasses that are released. I am not saying that this explains it all, but CO2 is out of the atmosphere in about a decade, Methane over 50 years. That is a more potent green house gas and lasts longer in the sky. Do I blame cows and beef for it? No. I like my hamburgers. But the extra being released from permafrost thawing out may have something to do wtih it.
And what about increased solar output? That may have alot to do with the Earth heating up, which melts more glaciers and desalinates the ocean.

thanks.. No No I am not a tree hugger, unless that tree looks like Angelina, then Im a tree lover. I do not doubt there are multiple causes to all this. if you look a couple posts up, I was just saying that a lot of people base their arguments on the a fact that isn't true. They say volcanoes put out more then humans when humans put out 130X more C02 I have a link to the USGS in that comment with the info. I am sure there are many compounded reasons for global warming. But we can certainly help it seems. Thanks for the info on C02 only having a 10 year span I didnt know that, but it seems like if its a constant growing number per day we never really see it go away. I guess thats why they say we can make a difference, if we lower our output to say what the volcanoes put and or even double, things will get better because the C02 doesn't have such a long lifespan.

Question, where does much of the methane come from? I heard someone say the beef industry before. But like you said I like my hamburgers as well. Wonder where else you can reduce or is reduction of this gas needed? I do not know enough about that.

reply to post by ShiftTrio


I will link the EPA for a source here. I have found other sites that say Methane is in the atmosphere WAY longer than the 10 years (thats the EPA quote). For all intents and purposes lets stick to 10 for now.
www.epa.gov...


Also from wikipedia :
en.wikipedia.org...


From the same article about Methane and the sources (atmospheric) :


I will admit I goofed on the numbers above. I mixed them up and I am sorry - thanks for helping me deny my own ignorance.

But these are the right numbers that I remember reading and seeing...

And one quick thing about carbon sequestering. Older, grown trees are not growing and taking in CO2 to use as it grows. Younger trees are more efficient at it. Cutting down older trees for lumber and planting new trees is a good thing in this case as long as you don't clear cut a forest. Effective forest management can do this.
Now back to the Sea Salt Conspiracy.

reply to post by harddrive21


It's possible we could see conditions similar to the 'Little Ice Age' - which certainly would affect growing conditions and cause many problems in Europe and N America. However, against that we have to balanced the increased warming of recent decades - a shut down of the Gulf Stream/NAD would have to result in colder conditions than we have evidence such an event would cause in order to make things significantly colder.

There is also doubt that the NAD has much effect at all on European temperatures - so a shut down might even have ni real impact at all!

www.americanscientist.org...

reply to post by Essan

Now that was a long and very informative site. So Europe's warm climate is thanks to the Rockies and the coastal climate...makes perfect sense. And stopping the NAD would lower temps minimally (not enough for a little ice age). Can't disagree with that.
The reference to the Kuroshio current was a great comparison for the people of the US. Boston gets snow and Seattle gets rain.
My only question to this article is this : What caused the Little Ice Age a few hundred year ago? The Rockies were there and we can't say there was any change in the Gulf Stream/NAD?
My father in law would argue it's from a large volcanic event in the South Pacific....I think it was Tambora (not Krakatoa).
A decrease in Solar Output to describe the LIA would be nuts (right?.
If the NAD stopped/slowed, could it do it? The article says no, but it all depends on the variables you click into the computer.

reply to post by harddrive21


Main cause is thought to be reduce solar activity - the Maunder Minimum

However I think what we call the Little Ice Age was a natural long term climatic oscillation (cause unknown*), which primarily affects the N Atlantic and which was further amplified by the Maunder Minimum and events such as the Tambora eruption - which produced the "year without summer". But then I never like a simple explanation for anything

* ocean currents may be involved. As may be other solar activity. Or maybe something else entirely. I honesty don't know, though I believe it to be linked with similar warm/cold oscillations that occurred during the last Ice Age.