On the basis of Milankovitch forcing factors, the next Ice Age is not expected to commence for about 50,000 years.
There are of course many unanswered problems with the Milankovich forcing factors, most of which are related to the fact that those factors are out of phase with actual ice ages, with insufficient variation in radiant flux to account for ice ages and only have a frequency similar to more significant orbital parameters which are in appropriate phase as well as being much closer in cyclical period to the observed ~100k deep ice age cycle.
It is not suprizing at all that Milankovitch factors are not expected to initate another ice age, they are simply based a wrong assumption that eccentricity and variation in distance from the sun is the driver to begin with.
You and the UN/IPCC modelers really should start paying attention to what the astro and geophysics are trying to tell you. Unfortunately the "not invented here" syndrome seem to be operating overtime while climate change hypothesis are concerned.
A little review of the problems involved with the Milankovich forcing factors and a long over due but very necessary relook at the basics.
Spectrum of 100-kyr glacial cycle: Orbital inclination, not eccentricity
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http://www.newscientistspace.com/article/dn9228-mysterious-glowing-clouds-targeted-by-nasa.html
Mysterious glowing clouds targeted by NASA
26 May, 2006
High-altitude noctilucent clouds have been mysteriously spreading around the world in recent years (Image: NASA/JSC/ES and IA)
http://newton.ex.ac.uk/aip/physnews.252.html#1
INTERPLANETARY DUST PARTICLES (IDPs) are deposited on the Earth at the rate of about 10,000 tons per year. Does this have any effect on climate? Scientists at Caltech have found that ancient samples of helium-3 (coming mostly from IDPs) in oceanic sediments exhibit a 100,000-year periodicity. The researchers assert that their data, taken along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, support a recently enunciated idea that Earth's orbital inclination varies with a 100-kyr period; this notion in turn had been broached as an explanation for a similar periodicity in the succession of ice ages. (K.A. Farley and D.B. Patterson, Nature, 7 December 1995.)
Farley & Patterson 1998, http://www.elsevier.com/gej-ng/10/20/36/33/37/32/abstract.html
Farley http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~farley/
Farley http://www.elsevier.nl/gej-ng/10/18/23/54/21/49/abstract.html
http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/pr96/dec96/noaa96-78.html
ABRUPT CLIMATE CHANGE DURING LAST GLACIAL PERIOD COULD BE TIED TO DUST-INDUCED REGIONAL WARMING
Preliminary new evidence suggests that periodic increases in atmospheric dust concentrations during the glacial periods of the last 100,000 years may have resulted in significant regional warming, and that this warming may have triggered the abrupt climatic changes observed in paleoclimate records, according to a scientist at the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Current scientific thinking is that the dust concentrations contributed to global cooling.
Increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations are expected to enhance/prolong the interglacial conditions.
LOL, and you call attempting to reverse that trend the least risky in your view? That certainly is not my assessment of the situation.
Because our nation's (and the Western world's) fossil fuel energy dependence is critical to the economy and national security, my choice of preferred action is one that shifts us to alternate sources of energy with a correspondingly reduced climate impact. I believe that this is the best course of action, and will yield the most benefits for the economy, national security, and the environment. I believe that there is sufficient justification (on multiple fronts) to pursue this course of action while climate change science addresses the current uncertainties.
Hyping global warming and very ill understood and ill based non-science is hardly conducive to achieving such goals, infact can be quite counter productive in terms of actually turning good science and good policy away for lack of credibility in the "Global Warming" alarmists camp.
If your concerns are actually "our nation's (and the Western world's) fossil fuel energy dependence is critical to the economy and national security," that concern I can share and work toward correcting such through utilization of real energy alternatives such as nuclear power taking the place of fossil fuel energy dependence. In fact such can be supported without any hype from the global warming, world crisis folks of the UN.
I wholly subscribe to the idea that nuclear energy should have been implemented yesterday, and lacking such having been done, it is all the more important to do so now to relieve our dependancing on foreign sources of fossil fuels which impact both our economy and security in our dependance of foreign souces. In the mean time, until broad implementation of nuclear power can be brought on line, we should be turning to alternatives to or current sources of fuel for maintaining and growing our economy in shale oil, oil sand technologies as well as developing our Alaskan and offshore resouces of oil and gas. Going domestic should be the primary goal for the economy as well as national security.
Global Warming hype through the UN/IPCC however is not the way to achieve either of the above for the reasons stated as well as many others involving national sovereignty and independance from foreign entanglements and global government generally.
Our assessments differ. I think that analysis of Milankovitch forcing by Berger and Loutre is valid, and therefore there isn't any reason to be concerned about a glacial period that is in the distant future.
Hyping global warming and very ill understood and ill based non-science is hardly conducive to achieving such goals, infact can be quite counter productive in terms of actually turning good science and good policy away for lack of credibility in the "Global Warming" alarmists camp.
Well, our viewpoints on the credibility of the science have always been quite different. But I think that the environmental arguments are less weighty than the energy and security concerns vis-a-vis the nation's energy infrastructure.
that concern I can share and work toward correcting such through utilization of real energy alternatives such as nuclear power taking the place of fossil fuel energy dependence. ... I wholly subscribe to the idea that nuclear energy should have been implemented yesterday, and lacking such having been done, it is all the more important to do so now to relieve our dependancing on foreign sources of fossil fuels which impact both our economy and security in our dependance of foreign souces."
Total agreement here. As you might guess, I also favor development of biofuels -- but to get to a more stable energy system, utilzing tar sands, oil shales, and other sources may be necessary.
Global Warming hype through the UN/IPCC however is not the way to achieve either of the above for the reasons stated
Within a decade -- I hope we'll still be discussing this -- we'll know with considerably more certainty if it's hype or not.