The coming ice age?

[professor_frink]

Thought Id google this chap, yep as I thought, on the US gov payroll, aka the worlds greatest Climate Change denyers.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Chapman

Hey I said by this afternoon! You're ahead of schedule

 

[professor_frink]

The facts seem incontrovertible however. The planet's temp has been stable or cooling for a decade.

I'm going long on long underwear.

I do believe the preferred phrase to cooling is "warming isn't increasing at the same rate"

Gotta be PC about these things Wayne

That's enough of me being a smart ar$e. I'll go and find something else to make fun of.

 

[wayneL]

I do believe the preferred phrase to cooling is "warming isn't increasing at the same rate"

Gotta be PC about these things Wayne

That's enough of me being a smart ar$e. I'll go and find something else to make fun of.

Ah yes... I must remember to adjust my vernacular to the current propag.... err, paradigm. (waffle waffle)

 

[numbercruncher]

I remember reading somewhere that the Antarctic melting causes something in the currents to make it colder in places like Europe, so maybe we need this guys theory to be true ?

Anyways seems to me this new theory could be dangerous if governments take it literally. (is open the floodgates to continue emitting etc)

CLIMATOLOGISTS may insist the world is getting warmer and that climate change is here to stay.

But the meteorological phenomenon called La Niña, in which the central and eastern Pacific Ocean is getting cooler, means global temperatures will drop slightly this year.

But this year's temperatures would still be way above the average - and weADVERTISEMENTwould soon exceed the record year of 1998 because of global warming induced by greenhouse gases

http://news.scotsman.com/scitech/World--cooling--but.3951196.jp

POLAR ice is melting faster than previously believed and could have reached a "tipping point" beyond which it may not be able to recover, a report warns today.

http://news.scotsman.com/scitech/Climate-fears--as-Arctic.4014483.jp

 

[derty]

"New solar cycles always begin with a high-latitude, reversed polarity sunspot," explains Hathaway. "Reversed polarity" means a sunspot with opposite magnetic polarity compared to sunspots from the previous solar cycle. "High-latitude" refers to the sun's grid of latitude and longitude. Old cycle spots congregate near the sun's equator. New cycle spots appear higher, around 25 or 30 degrees latitude.

The sunspot that appeared on January 4th fits both these criteria.

It appears Spooly that more recent data shows that that sunspot is infact an old cycle one and has not heralded the commencement of cycle 24.

Sunspot 992 poses no threat for strong solar flares. The magnetic field of this sunspot is now well characterized; the N-S pattern identifies it as an old-cycle rather than a new-cycle sunspot. Solar Cycle 23 remains active. Credit: SOHO/MDI

There are many phenomena and cycles that effect the Earth's temperature and weather. Some have a very short periodicity and others a very long periodicity. The El nino - La nina cycle is one of the shortest of these (other than the seasons). The ice age cycle is in the order of 100,000 years and there are others in between and some of these are directly related to the sun's behaviour and others are related to the Earth's precession and orbital behaviour. There would also be cycles that occur over millions of years and 100's of millions of years.

Our position within these cycles and the magnitude relative positive and negative effects of the cycles at this time dictates the climate on Earth. We cannot look at data over one or two years and call a trend, just like you cannot call a bull or bear market from a couple of weeks activity.

The Sun, being our main source of energy, has an overriding effect on our climate and it takes only very small changes in the Sun to effect us. The sun will essentially overpower and produce reversals in the dominant trend of temperature at the time. The cycles of the sun that we know of are the short term 11 year sunspot cycle (22years for full cycle) and the longer term minima maxima (such as the Maunder Minimum) that appears to have a cycle of a few 100 years. Either way both of these are very short term cycles when compared to the main ice age cycle and cause only local reversals.

CO2 is an extremely effective green house gas. It's presence in the atmosphere one of the main differences between the Earth being a snowball or supporting life. Adding to the CO2 in the atmosphere must have an effect, I cannot see how it cannot. That effect will be moderated or amplified by other factors occurring at the time.

As we are dealing with a system of such long time frames and a system with so many parameters of varying periodicity and strength it amuses me to see proponents for and against GW and AGW calling WINNER based on one article or a small collection of evidence.

We are coming off an ice age, the world has been warming. The question is Is the CO2 we have been adding to the atmosphere increasing that warming rate? (As I said before I do not see how it won't.) And if so is that warming rate going to be deleterious to our existence on Earth? If we are heading into an extended solar minimum that is probably a very good thing. If the models are correct it will counter the predicted warming and will allow the world to continue using the abundant coal to fuel progress.

The presence of a minimum does not discount AGW or GW it simply negates it or dampens the effect. I believe it is still too early to call a solar minimum anyway, the sunspots are only a few months late anyway.

This whole argument can only be answered in the long term.

 

[doctorj]

It's nigh on impossible to prove something scientifically. You can prove it's highly likely, but you can never say that it's a dead certainty.

The client change movement is scary in that it's taken a theory and turned it into a religion. Thou shalt not speak ill of global warming.

That said, there are plenty of good reasons to be aware of our effect on the environment beyond just global warning (such as health) so cleaner industry isn't a bad thing but we should always be ready, willing and able to challenge ideas.

Remember at one stage it was a 'fact' that the world was flat. Science has progressed a lot since then but human nature apparently hasn't.

 

[adamim1]

Maybe John Howard was right - Global warming is a load a bull****.

I agree though, weather global warming is an issue or not, we should still do it for our own health.

 

[Superfly]

Maybe John Howard was right - Global warming is a load a bull****.

I agree though, weather global warming is an issue or not, we should still do it for our own health.

If John Howard was right ( which he was ), that would mean that St Kevin was wrong to sign Koyoto...

St Kevin wrong.. is that possible...

Surely this must be the work of the CIA with President Bush and Vice Chaney potting all our ends from the white house oval office.. the same oval office that Clinton had sex in and denied it on camera.... but Bush is bad .. Bush is bad.. global warming .. global warming... rah rah rah..

 

[Superfly]

Thou shalt not speak ill of global warming.

So true DocJ...


This thread is outrageous... it should be removed from the forum, quickly before people read another side of the story...

If anyone has seen it tell them it was an American plot to kill more innocent people... gobal warming global warming... Bush is bad... Rudd is good ...

 

[jonojpsg]

Bush is bad...

Bush is bad though - DUH, who doesn't know that

 

[disarray]

i think it just goes to show how little we still know. recent advances in climatology are throwing more and more input into the (chaotic) system and we are visibly struggling to interpret it all as evidenced by the huge disparity of views on the subject. we're either going to melt and flood or freeze to the equators - thats a pretty extreme range we are arguing over.

recent advances include more indepth understanding of solar cycles thanks to SOHO over the last 13 years, icecore drilling projects, research on the cooling of the north atlantic current, fluctuating co2 levels, the thawing of siberian permafrost, ocean co2 levels etc. etc.

so when it comes to climate we are like noobs with a moving average trying to figure out elliot wave (or anything motorway is talking about). regardless of the outcome the public research process is really interesting.

 

[wayneL]

so when it comes to climate we are like noobs with a moving average trying to figure out elliot wave. regardless of the outcome the public research process is really interesting.

Haha!

That's a great metaphor... true ... true.

 

[explod]

Well I'm completely mixed up and confused now. All day I have been checking on this thread, and becoming convinced that our problems are over and I might be able to start a year round ski run here at Mount Martha, and bu..er me on ABC News tonight they show a NZ Glacier dying, and they said no hope for it because the temperatures are continuing to get too hot. They sounded pretty convincing too.

Anyway just like Wall Street cant take Notice of the press any more. Stick to these intelligent threadS on ASF and as the great Sir Les Paterson says, "NO WORRIES"

 

[2020hindsight]

.. on ABC News tonight they show a NZ Glacier dying, and they said no hope for it because the temperatures are continuing to get too hot. They sounded pretty convincing too.

http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/news...shrinking-fast-says-scientist-91466-20812019/
explod
I think they said it would start to grow again if / when we have another ice age. (mini-ice age whatever).

The sight of a lake 7km long and 250m deep - which they inferred used to glacier - and several boats on it

Tasman glacier shrinking fast, says scientist
Apr 24 2008 icWales

A glacier scientist says New Zealand’s biggest glacier is melting faster than at any time in recent history and could be reduced to a few miles of ice within 20 years.... etc

 

[2020hindsight]

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Earth/Are_we_heading_to_ice_age/articleshow/2975016.cms

CANBERRA: Scientists have warned that the world might once again be heading towards an Ice Age, with global warming approaching a possible end.

Evidence in support of this theory has come from pictures obtained from the US Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, which showed no spots on the sun, thus determining that sunspot activity has not resumed after hitting an 11-year low in March last year.

A sunspot is a region on the sun that is cooler than the rest and appears dark.

so
1. this report makes the startling "breaking news" discovery that sun spot activity goes in an 11 year cycle

o boy - Galileo discovered that

2. wikipedia :-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunspot

A minimum in the eleven-year sunspot cycle may have taken place in late 2007 [1] and while the observation of a reverse polarity sunspot [1] on 4 January 2008 officially began Cycle 24, no additional sunspots have yet been seen in this cycle

3. so let me get this straight
the sun has somehow (allegedly) not acted predictably
and therefore the scientists who predicted global warming ( and no doubt continue to do so) are fools

 

[wayneL]

http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/news...shrinking-fast-says-scientist-91466-20812019/
explod
I think they said it would start to grow again if / when we have another ice age. (mini-ice age whatever).

The sight of a lake 7km long and 250m deep - which they inferred used to glacier - and several boats on it

The world's climate must be taken as a whole to discuss global warming/cooling. Single incidences may have other local factors at play... deforestation, heat sink effect, el niño/la niña, whatever.

On a whole the world has been getting cooler over the last decade... and that's from the likes of NASA etc.

 

[explod]

The world's climate must be taken as a whole to discuss global warming/cooling. Single incidences may have other local factors at play... deforestation, heat sink effect, el niño/la niña, whatever.

On a whole the world has been getting cooler over the last decade... and that's from the likes of NASA etc.

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 4, 2006; Page A03

Heat waves like those that have scorched Europe and the United States in recent weeks are becoming more frequent because of global warming, say scientists who have studied decades of weather records and computer models of past, present and future climate.

While it is impossible to attribute any one weather event to climate change, several recent studies suggest that human-generated emissions of heat-trapping gases have produced both higher overall temperatures and greater weather variability, which raise the odds of longer, more intense heat waves.

[unquote]

Waynel it would be good if you could quote the NASA reports

 

[explod]

I found one Waynel, from the same article above;

Drew Shindell, an atmospheric physicist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies who attended Della-Marta's presentation, said the European findings are especially significant because they draw on long-term surface temperature records.

"The European records, being so long, make a convincing case that we're already seeing changes" in the climate, Shindell said. "This is not like 'Centuries from now the ice sheets will melt.' This is 'In a few decades it will be dramatically different.' To me, that's alarming."

[unquote]

 

[wayneL]

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 4, 2006; Page A03

Heat waves like those that have scorched Europe and the United States in recent weeks are becoming more frequent because of global warming, say scientists who have studied decades of weather records and computer models of past, present and future climate.

While it is impossible to attribute any one weather event to climate change, several recent studies suggest that human-generated emissions of heat-trapping gases have produced both higher overall temperatures and greater weather variability, which raise the odds of longer, more intense heat waves.

Waynel it would be good if you could quote the NASA reports

I'm sure it is already quoted somewhere in the other thread, but will see if I can find it.

 

[2020hindsight]

from NASA website

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2007/
Global Temperature Trends: 2007 Summation

The year 2007 tied for second warmest in the period of instrumental data, behind the record warmth of 2005, in the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) analysis. 2007 tied 1998, which had leapt a remarkable 0.2°C above the prior record with the help of the "El Niño of the century". The unusual warmth in 2007 is noteworthy because it occurs at a time when solar irradiance is at a minimum and the equatorial Pacific Ocean is in the cool phase of its natural El Niño-La Niña cycle.

Figure 1 shows 2007 temperature anomalies relative to the 1951-1980 base period mean. The global mean temperature anomaly, 0.57°C (about 1°F) warmer than the 1951-1980 mean, continues the strong warming trend of the past thirty years that has been confidently attributed to the effect of increasing human-made greenhouse gases (GHGs) (Hansen et al. 2007). The eight warmest years in the GISS record have all occurred since 1998, and the 14 warmest years in the record have all occurred since 1990.