The Coming Ice Age

American Thinker ^ | May 13, 2009 | David Deming

[neverdem]

Those who ignore the geologic perspective do so at great risk.  In fall of 1985, geologists warned that a Columbian volcano, Nevado del Ruiz, was getting ready to erupt.  But the volcano had been dormant for 150 years.  So government officials and inhabitants of nearby towns did not take the warnings seriously.  On the evening of November 13, Nevado del Ruiz erupted, triggering catastrophic mudslides.  In the town of Armero, 23,000 people were buried alive in a matter of seconds.

For ninety percent of the last million years, the normal state of the Earth's climate has been an ice age.  Ice ages last about 100,000 years, and are punctuated by short periods of warm climate, or interglacials.  The last ice age started about 114,000 years ago.  It began instantaneously.  For a hundred-thousand years, temperatures fell and sheets of ice a mile thick grew to envelop much of North America, Europe and Asia.  The ice age ended nearly as abruptly as it began.  Between about 12,000 and 10,000 years ago, the temperature in Greenland rose more than 50 °F.

We don't know what causes ice ages to begin or end.  In 1875, a janitor turned geologist, James Croll, proposed that small variations in Earth's orbit around the Sun were responsible for climate change.  This idea enjoyed its greatest heyday during the 1970s, when ocean sediment cores appeared to confirm the theory.  But in 1992, Ike Winograd and his colleagues at the US Geological Survey falsified the theory by demonstrating that its predictions were inconsistent with new, high-quality data.

The climate of the ice ages is documented in the ice layers of Greenland and Antarctica.  We have cored these layers, extracted them, and studied them in the laboratory.  Not only were ice ages colder than today, but the climates were considerably more variable.  Compared to the norm of the last million years, our climate is remarkably warm, stable and benign.  During the last ice age in Greenland abrupt climatic swings of 30 °F were common.  Since the ice age ended, variations of 3 °F are uncommon.

For thousands of years, people have learned from experience that cold temperatures are detrimental for human welfare and warm temperatures are beneficial.  From about 1300 to 1800 AD, the climate cooled slightly during a period known as the Little Ice Age.  In Greenland, the temperature fell by about 4 °F.  Although trivial, compared to an ice age cooling of 50 °F, this was nevertheless sufficient to wipe out the Viking colony there.

In northern Europe, the Little Ice Age kicked off with the Great Famine of 1315.  Crops failed due to cold temperatures and incessant rain.  Desperate and starving, parents ate their children, and people dug up corpses from graves for food.  In jails, inmates instantly set upon new prisoners and ate them alive.

The Great Famine was followed by the Black Death, the greatest disaster ever to hit the human race.  One-third of the human race died; terror and anarchy prevailed. Human civilization as we know it is only possible in a warm interglacial climate.  Short of a catastrophic asteroid impact, the greatest threat to the human race is the onset of another ice age.

The oscillation between ice ages and interglacial periods is the dominant feature of Earth's climate for the last million years.  But the computer models that predict significant global warming from carbon dioxide cannot reproduce these temperature changes.  This failure to reproduce the most significant aspect of terrestrial climate reveals an incomplete understanding of the climate system, if not a nearly complete ignorance.

Global warming predictions by meteorologists are based on speculative, untested, and poorly constrained computer models.  But our knowledge of ice ages is based on a wide variety of reliable data, including cores from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.  In this case, it would be perspicacious to listen to the geologists, not the meteorologists.  By reducing our production of carbon dioxide, we risk hastening the advent of the next ice age.  Even more foolhardy and dangerous is the Obama administration's announcement that they may try to cool the planet through geoengineering.  Such a move in the middle of a cooling trend could provoke the irreversible onset of an ice age.  It is not hyperbole to state that such a climatic change would mean the end of human civilization as we know it.

Earth's climate is controlled by the Sun.  In comparison, every other factor is trivial.  The coldest part of the Little Ice Age during the latter half of the seventeenth century was marked by the nearly complete absence of sunspots.  And the Sun now appears to be entering a new period of quiescence.  August of 2008 was the first month since the year 1913 that no sunspots were observed.  As I write, the sun remains quiet.  We are in a cooling trend.  The areal extent of global sea ice is above the twenty-year mean.

We have heard much of the dangers of global warming due to carbon dioxide.  But the potential danger of any potential anthropogenic warming is trivial compared to the risk of entering a new ice age.  Public policy decisions should be based on a realistic appraisal that takes both climate scenarios into consideration.

David Deming is a geophysicist and associate professor of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma.

[BIGLOOK]

Thanks and keep.

[BBell]

ping?

[Irishguy]

amazing, really shows the arrogance of man...to think that we can ‘control’ the planet...the childlike simplicity of it is amazing...of course its co2...how could it be, you know, THE SUN...great article...

[Steve Van Doorn]

This guy even know I agree with most of what he says uses the same argument as the global alarmist. That man has a significant effect on the planet.

[spodefly]

When I was growing up in the 70’s, the coming ice age was all the talk. But there wasn't any money in the hype then, other than a few books.

But there is serious money and global economic control in the man made global warming “science”.

[gr8eman]

Earth’s climate is controlled by the Sun.

[Nathan Zachary]

"The last ice age started about 114,000 years ago. It began instantaneously."

That doesn't jive with the perfectly preserved elephants rhino's emerging from the ice in the arctic with "fresh meat still on them.

It suggests that the ice ice started suddenly, but far more recently, around the biblical flood age.

[count-your-change]

Hey Mr. Professor, quit watching The History Channel. You’ll feel better in the morning.

That is unless Yellowstone Park explodes or the big asteroid hits or the plague comes back in super tough form or cosmic rays fry everything crisper than corn chips.

When you’re buried in boiling lava and your cell phone won’t work, are you gonna worry about cold weather? Well, are you, Professor? Huh? Didn’t think so.

Have a good night!

[FormerACLUmember]

One of the best articles in ages posted on Free Republic.

Unlike the corrupt morons who run this country, I pray that Global Warming exists.

[PureSolace]

It’s Bush’s Fault!

[lentulusgracchus]

The interglacials have lasted about 10-12,000 years or so.

The current one has lasted about 10,000 years so far.

Time's about up. We've got anything from 600 to 1800 years, my best guess, then it hits the fan.

The really bad thing about the interglacials isn't the temperature change -- which is dire enough -- but the fact that locking all that moisture up in massive ice sheets seriously dehumidifies the atmosphere, cutting rainfall everywhere. During the Wisconsinian glaciation, most of the Midwest was ice-free, but it was a cold desert, and the Brazilian Mato Grosso didn't exist -- the Amazon basin was an open parkland, not a rain forest. Probably pleasant enough to live in, but how would you support six billion people?

Conversely, the warmest period of the current interglacial, the Climatic Optimum (about 6500 years ago) was considerably warmer than now, and wind patterns were different, with seasonal rainfalls on many of the present-day deserts. The Sahara and Arabia were grasslands.

[steelyourfaith]

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !

[Hardastarboard]

the Black Death, the greatest disaster ever to hit the human race

I may have hit upon a new nickname for Zero!

[TurtleUp]

This idea enjoyed its greatest heyday during the 1970s, when ocean sediment cores appeared to confirm the theory. But in 1992, Ike Winograd and his colleagues at the US Geological Survey falsified the theory by demonstrating that its predictions were inconsistent with new, high-quality data.

I remember those days. I used to respect science and scientists "back in the day" when scientists believed that contrary data disproved a theory.

[PeaceBeWithYou]

ping

[rmlew]

the Black Death, the greatest disaster ever to hit the human race
Not even close. It is only the worst in recorded human history. The worst was the aftermath of the explosion of the Toba Caldera, which led to the near extinction of man 75,000 years ago. Between 50% and 90% of people died off.

[Hardastarboard]

I was of course joking about 0bama by calling him the Black Death (of Freedom). I was quoting the author of the article, and was a bit surprised to hear that the Black Death was the greatest disaster to ever hit humanity, but I had never heard of the Toba Caldera. I’ll have to look that up. Thanks for the information.

[SunkenCiv]

Thought we'd had this before, but I guess not. :') Thanks BBell.

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[SunkenCiv]

U. of OK Decertifies Teacher Over His Global Warming Skepticism?
publiusforum.com | 10/29/08 | Warner Todd Huston
Posted on 10/29/2008 7:43:40 AM PDT by Mobile Vulgus
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2118503/posts

> Dr. David Deming, a teacher for the U of OK for over a decade...