The Ice Age Cometh?

WeatherBug Meteorologist, ^ | 8AM EDT, September 26, 2003 | By Justin Consor

[Forgiven_Sinner]

Do abrupt climate shifts occur as part of a natural cycle? Despite growing evidence that humans affect climate via urbanization and greenhouse gas emissions, the natural climate cycle may have the final say.

Research from Dr. Stefan Rahmstorf at Germany`s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research suggests that the earth`s climate is characterized by an extraordinarily regular cycle of about 1470 years.

He found that the five most recent cycles had a standard deviation of only 32 years.

Rahmstorf examined ice cores from Greenland. Going back before the 20th century, when weather stations were nonexistent or widely dispersed, ice cores and tree rings provide the most objective and reliable climate record.

Rahmstorf also found that the most recent cold period of the cycle was most likely the "Little Ice Age" of the 16th to 18th Centuries.

These findings suggest that the warming of the past century or so is probably nothing more than the next phase of this repeating pattern of cyclical warming and cooling.

Recent observations and forecast models suggest that the current warming may be the engine to spur rapid global cooling.

Ocean scientists have found that some of the largest rivers in the world are dumping 7% less fresh water into the Arctic Ocean than they did in the 1930s.

According to scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, decreased fresh water flow has the potential to shut down a global water flow pattern called the thermohaline circulation.

In its current state, the thermohaline circulation brings cold, deep, salty water south from the poles, while warm surface water moves from the tropics toward the poles. If the circulation were to shut off, abrupt cooling would likely spread through much of the northern Hemisphere, including Europe and the U.S.

This scenario has caused temperatures to plummet an average of 5 to 10 degrees in 20 years in the past. 11,000 years ago, such global cooling occurred and glaciers were seen in much of the northern U.S.

Photo Credit: NOAA Photo Library. The Ross Ice Shelf looms over the Bay of Whales. It was here that Roald Amundsen staged the first successful assault on the South Pole.

What do you think of this story?

[decimon]

But scientists have found evidence of tropical climates at the poles. When do we get that part of the cycle?

Perhaps during the ice age in the Temperate Zone.

[capt. norm]

Weatherbug introduces spy-ware and ad-ware into your computer, plus it steals machine cycles while running in the system tray and will slow down your computer to some degree.

The television station I work for is one of its sponsors in this area and boy do we ever get complaints.

Think twice before downloading and installing it!

It's way too high a price to pay for no more usefulness than you get from it.

[alloysteel]

So what are we getting, global warming, or global cooling?

Simple thermodynamics indicates it is near impossible to either gain or lose enough heat energy in a very short period of time, as to cause a catastrophic climate change. Because this planet is wrapped in a layer of water, and carries a considerable portion of that water in the atmosphere as water vapor, it is difficulat to engineer much of a change up or down of the latent heat energy in that water. It takes a calorie of energy to raise the temperature of one cubic centimeter (one gram under standard conditions) of water one degree Centigrade, and there are just an awful lot of cubic centimeters of water in all the surface and subsurface waters on this planet. Which means it would take just an awful lot of calories of heat energy to change the average temperature of the earth up or down even a fraction of a degree.

Virtually all this heat energy is received from the sun on the side of the world exposed to the direct light, and radiated away on the side of the world turned away from the sun. Radiation of heat energy away from the earth from the dark side is relatively constant, but the amount of heat energy received from the sun may vary up and down over time by quite a bit.

Again, the heat output of the sun does not vary up or down in abrupt cycles, but gradually, so ordinarily, the fauna and flora that cover earth may adjust the the altered conditions. The only thing that cannot be adjusted over this time frame is the attitude of certain "environmentalists" who lack even rudimentary knowledge of how the planetary system operates.

[aruanan]

I've seen textbooks (recently) that show temperature patterns over time. I'm pretty sure they were based on ice core and/or tree ring readings but don't remember exactly.

You can find a lot of that HERE and at The Science & Environmental Policy Project.

[capt. norm]

See my reply (#22).

Weatherbug is loaded with spy-ware and ad-ware. It causes pop-ups and like "E.T." it "phones home" about your internet activities.

When you remove the spyware with something like "Adaware" or "Spybot Search & Destroy" the Weatherbug software stops working.

You wouldn't believe the number of complaints on it.

[Chu Gary]

I'm sure Tommy Dasshole and Algore are deeply saddened to read this.

[per loin]

The chart you posted shows the frequency dropping. What explanation is given for that?

[camas]

with those speeds how do people think they can pick up a radio
signal from a plant in space that is also probably spinning also? i know this of target but??

[TigersEye]

11,000 years ago, such global cooling occurred and glaciers were seen in much of the northern U.S.

What do you think of this story?

Never mind Mexico. Put a fence up on the Canadian border!

[Justa]

Weatherbug is spyware.

[Forgiven_Sinner]

I stop pop ups with Popup stopper. Look on Google for it. It's free.

I clear my cookies (spy ware) on a regular basis. What other spyware does it do? I also have Zone Alarm.

[ancient_geezer]

The chart you posted shows the frequency dropping. What explanation is given for that?

The frequency is not dropping the interval we are outside of the mean solarsystem plane varies.

The mean plane of solarsystem is offset from the orbit of the earth. We pass through that plane at irregular intervals with a fixed overall periodicity of 100krs

Read the hyperlinked article: Origin of the 100 kyr Glacial Cycle for a graphical representation of what is happening.

The eath's orbit precesses at a 100kry period, in the same way as the earth precesses in its tilt with respect to the sun on a 27kry period. Ear'ts orbit is only outside the mean plane of the solarsystem a small fraction of total time at unequal intervals. When we are in the mean solarsystem debri plane throughout most of the solar year, we experience the deepest portion of ice ages lasting approx 90 kyrs in duration with 10krys in warmer periods.

There are additional periods related to where we are with respect to the Galactic plane and cosmic ray flux.

[King Prout]

...south from the poles...

South... from the poleS??? Morons shouldn't write on science issues.

[capt. norm]

Yea, I've had the Google stopper (which is the best by far) since the first week it came out (thanks to hearing about it here on FR).

I was just warning potential downloaders of what they would be getting into.

It steals machine cycles while it is "idling" in the system tray. On my son's dual processor (hot rod) gaming machine, it's unnoticeable unless you are in a cycl-intensive game, but in lesser machines it's a real drag-down.

All the pop-up stoppers in the world can't stop it from it's spyware mission of sending out reports of your internet activities and it doesn't need cookies to carry out its dirty work.

It performs its evil in the registry and when you pull its little "spy gremlins" out of there, the "Weatherbug" becomes disabled.

[DittoJed2]

Which is it? Do I need to buy a swimsuit or a parka?

[per loin]

One problem with just presenting the graph rather than the data is the difficulty of accurately reading the graph. I read the peaks as occuring at about 408k,320k,237k, and 130k. Thus periods of 88k,83k,93k, and 130k to present.

[rustbucket]

Never mind Mexico. Put a fence up on the Canadian border!

I'd settle for one on the Mason-Dixon line.

[ancient_geezer]

Read the article. Origin of the 100 kyr Glacial Cycle It is much more complete and explains the the irregular interval between warm periods very well.

We are talking about the intersection of two planes with independant precession of a 100kyr period. The earth in not within the mean solarplane all the time as it's orbit is offset from the solarplane precessing in and out of that plane.

As far as periodicity, the 100kyr period is extremely sharp and clean.

Read the paper don't just look at the temp graphs. The temp graphs don't explain how, just that temp varies periodically and spend more time in ice age than warmer periods under current geologic/astronomic conditions.

[Bubba_Leroy]

Well then we'd all better start burning more fossil fuels to slow down the next ice age. I'm going to do my part by driving my SUV over to the gas station to get some gas for my riding lawn mower then go home and cut the heads off of some grass.

[ancient_geezer]

One thing for you to think about, the other planets have a great deal of gravitational influence over the orbital plane of the earth. Ttime we spend within the mean solarplane gathering cometary debris varies even though the periodicity of the orbital precession/wobble is quite stable. The actual track of the earth through space in relation to the mean solarplane and debris in it is not a smooth nor symetrical function of time.