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Global Warming May Trigger Mini-Ice Age
Further information on the consequences of global warming have arisen from a surprising source. Fortune is running an article on how global warming could trigger a massive climate shift in the Northern Hemisphere. According to the article: 'Global warming, rather than causing gradual, centuries-spanning change, may be pushing the climate to a tipping point.' and that 'abrupt climate change may well occur in the not-too-distant future'. One of the consequences of this climate shift might be an ice age, ranging from the severe "Younger Dryas" to the lesser "Little Ice Age", depending on how the North Atlantic "great conveyor" is affected. Such an ice-age would produce huge political upheavals, which are also discussed in the article.
Hey, who gives a shit when there's a quick buck to be made?
the climate has changed 7 or 8 times since hominids have existed, it has changed over a thousand times since the dawn of life.... but surely because this one is caused by humans it will be the end of the world
-You're wasting your time. Alfador only likes me.
The authors are terrorists and should be immediately locked in an unnamed prison without any rights.
I have misplaced my pants.
The article does an interesting job of mixing what "climate researchers" are predicting and what the Pentagon is doing. The climate researchers they use as sources, ie- environmentalists, are predicting that we are causing global warming. That's nothing new.
The pentagon, on the other hand, is not predicting such a thing. They have simply been assigned the task of brain-storming different scenarios, weather related, terrorist related, etc., where the US might be at risk. They aren't necessarily saying that we are causing it. In fact, they are saying it's a natural cyclical occurance and they want to be prepared for it. I thought it was important to stress the difference because yesterday I've seen posts on other boards where people were assuming the pentagon is predicting that we are causing global warming, and therefore, our demise.
but surely because this one is caused by humans it will be the end of the world
It will not be the end of the world, but it could be the end of civilization, and possibly the end of human life.
I have misplaced my pants.
The thesis is that to have an ice age you need increaced moisture transport to the polls. with out this it could get cold but it would be dry and no ice age. Once enough ice accumulates the reflectivity of the earth shifts and global warming becomes global cooling. this last for ~90,000 years.
during this time glaciers grind rocks up and create mineral rich soils. When trees return they thrive on this till the nutirents run low which takes about 10,000 years. then plant death starts the cycle.
by the way were about 13000 years since the last ice age.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Here is a nice page from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Ice Ages, that briefly touches upon the cyclicity of Ice Ages. I think they are a little like the business cycles, just a little bit longer.
From the website:
If the artists and designers want a heads-up, in case we do end up back in an ice age rather abruptly , here (ice age art) is a good site to brush up on.
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
This is not really news, as it has occured previously.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Is there anything it can't do?
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FWIW, this hypothesis has bee around for years. I've mentioned in in previous Slashdot discussions of global warming.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
This is clearly a valid argument. The original poster basically said ice ages are natural, therefore OK. The response turns it on to the original poster in a personal way, showing how destructive that point of view is. Please think before moderating!
I'm not a meteorologist or any kind of scientist, but I do know that our planet's weather is a huge system for balancing the heat in the oceans and the atmosphere.
I know that I don't know a lot and there's much I'm glossing over, but that's why the oceans and atmosphere have currents -- cold masses are migrating towards the equator, which receives more direct sunlight, and warm masses generally migrate towards the poles.
At the same time, a lot of heat energy is simply reflected back into space.
Whatever our weather is doing is the result of these processes.
If -- for whatever reason -- less of the heat energy coming from sunlight were reflected into space, our weather system would have to cope with it somehow. To me, it would be obvious that this would make the weather behave unpredictably as the warm and cold masses jockeyed about.
What I read from the article is that the Pentagon isn't so much deciding what's causing climate shift, but rather what might happen politically and how to deal with it. Somebody's taking a longer view and that's not a bad thing.
Finally, I'm really surprised at how callous some posters can be. Suggesting that only the poor people of the world would die off, ruling them expendable and pointing out that then the survivors could expand into their areas? What a horrible perspective.
I can appreciate that this would be a normal result of our global political system, which acts on its own forces as inexorable as the weather, but it's still pretty chilling and even more reason to try to create strategies for coping.
Hey, I completed it, I'll be fine.
The theory of possible climate reversal from warming to ice age is over 30 years old. What's new, and worth emphasizing, is the possibility of abrupt change. We don't know at what point warming can become a runaway self-enforcing process, but we know it can. We'd probably prefer not to find out by experience.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Ok, let's say global warming triggers another ice age or mini-ice age. Then what? Do we try and pump huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere? Drop carbon black on the ice caps? Try to warm our toasty little planets toes?
This sounds very much like the scenario in S.M. Stirling's The Peshawar Lancers. Long story short, the British Raj takes on a completely different tone as the ruling classes of England move to India en masse, where it's no longer "beastly hot", while merry old England becomes an Arctic waste zone.
Everyone can remeber watching the weather forecast right? How often are they correct more than a two or three days out? Now how often are they correct more than 10 days out? I bet if you were to ask 10,000 people whether they believe their local weather forecast, you'd get a majority of people that say not past two or three days out. So, I ask.... why should I believe any forecast that attempts to predict what will happen years in the future on a global scale? I shouldn't and no one should.
Democrats and Republicans are like AIDS and Cancer, I want neither!
... "a panel" refers to science by consensus. The logic seems to be that truth is brought about in some sort of democratic fashion. Ergo the correct theory is the one with the majority vote. Science by politics. Well heck, where there's a bandwagon there's funding. Sign me up.
Winston Churchill: Madam, would you sleep with me for a million pounds?
Unnamed Woman: Certainly!
WC: Madam, would you sleep with me for a hundred pounds?
UW: Of course not! What kind of woman do you take me for?
WC: We've already settled that, we're just negotiating the price.
Apocrypha and stereotypes aside, there are people of principle and whores in probably every society on Earth bigger than a small town. Also, people tend to see others as they see themselves.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
You're comparing a chaotic system (the weather) with what appears to be a reasonably stable system, albeit with oscillations like El Nino (the climate). Climate is the "average" of weather, so the fact that you cannot predict exactly when the next warm front is going to dump a bunch of freezing rain on you does not mean that you can't project when the ground is going to be up to planting temperature or when your first killing frost will be. The former is an issue for daily conversation, the latter is of vital importance to agriculture in the temperate zone.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
On the otherhand rock eating microbes are now sterilized from farmland soil due to the ammonia fertilizers and pesticides used. So that source of mineralization is gone as well. and this is affecting forest and streams as well.
I would be a little skeptical we could finely balance the large offsetting rate terms in global warming differntial equation: polar reflection verus water/co2 green house absorption, versus evaporative transport verus conveciton currents from differnetial heating. Suppose you spread ajust a wee bit too much soot. how would you know and how would you undo it?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
I'm sick and fuckin tired on everyone pointing to the US when it comes to global warming. May I remind you that it's the burning for forrest and shitty regulations in other parts of the world such as Africa and South America? Hell, just spending money on retrofitting factories in those areas will do much better then fighting to clean up just 1% of the pollution here in the US. In other words, you Enviro Wackos are barking up the wrong tree. You already did your job forcing US industries to adhere strick enviromental laws.
And everyone want's to know why it's cheaper to build in China. Maybe it's because the don't have any regulations to begin with!! But it doesn't matter, the US will still get blamed for consuming the goods China makes...even though China has a major pollution issue.
Life is not for the lazy.
What makes you think only 95 percent rather than 99.odd percent will die? As Valdrax pointed out, we have nuclear weapons now.
that an ice-age is imminent?
Has anyone noticed that there is a movie comming out this year which deals with topic. It is called "The day after tommorow" and will be released around May.
... i'll ask the people following me.
This is similar to the when the Core came out last year and suddenly reports started appearing which dealt with the movies subject matter.
Or maybe I'm just paranoid
In the scenario described, Europe is hit very hard, as is Southeast Asia. China, India, and Pakistan would be on the brink of collapse, and would be at each other's throats competing for resources, and in an effort to feed their own populations, and control the migration of huge displaced refugee populations.
Can you think of a better way to thwart a rising Asian threat (Political threat, and Economic threat) than to have it plunged into chaos by a dramatic climate shift?
By pitting them all against each other, they will have little time or energy to worry about us.
I'm not saying that the US is trying to bring about such events... I'm just saying that from the US perspective, allowing such events to unfold might not be an entirely unattractive proposition.
It diffuses a number of issues in such a way that "no fault" can be assigned, and the US could maintain it's advantage.
...I did do two work terms with some in '97 and this scenario was old news/conventional wisdom even then.
What really gets me is the number of people who I would normally assume to be right-wing "I only care about me" types who brush global warming off as being none of their problem.
I personally kind of like pandas and parrots and cute little animals but even if I preferred my wildlife fried-up rather than free-roam I'd still care a great deal about global warming.
Environmentalists whine "We are ruining the environment with our nasty pollution" so the people who don't give a shit about the survival of some endangered marmot tend to ignore what that means to them. Well when it comes right down to it Mankind couldn't do longterm lasting damage to the "environment" if we tried. Even if we cried havok and let slip the nukes of war things would settle back down in a few million years and diversity would return as broad and beautiful as before. As we all know it's happened several times over the course of geologic history. I'm much more concerned about People. We've come to depend rather heavily on the nicely moderate little climate we enjoy now. Back when the climate last changed dramatically we were still nomadic anyways so it was no biggie to pack up and move where the weather dictated. These days our options are more limited. Regardless of our culpability in the matter of global warming if our ocean circulation ticks over from one metastable state to another we'll all feel it. The article says that NA will get off relatively lightly due to our wealth but that doesn't mean there won't be massive disruptions. To suggest that we ignore the possibility of this happening just because we don't think it would be our fault is just plain foolish
-Pinkoir
There is a miniscule chance of Gulf Stream changes, and it is the Rocky Mountains which keep England warm.
Me: So, global warming means that the Earth will eventually wind up like Venus, because the increasing amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will tend to keep heat in?
Him: Well, not exactly. The increase in greenhouse gases (not only CO2 but methane [CH4]) in the atmosphere means that the climate will become more unstable: hotter summers, colder winters, more powerful hurricanes. In fact, based on historical data, it's even possible that we may suddenly (within about 500 years, a mere eyeblink in geologic terms) be precipitated into an ice age.
Me: An ice age!?! How can that be? [At this point he went into a somewhat technical discussion as to how the the rise in temperature would lead to the melting of the polar icecaps, thus reducing the earth's albedo [reflection of radiant energy from the sun] and how this would eventually lead to a net drop in temperature, and thus a new ice age. I don't recall all the details, but this was the first time I had heard the theory that an ice age might be a side effect of global warming.]
He also showed me a graph of the rise in global temperature to date and said, covering the future part with his hand, "Here's what climatologists are predicting for the future. Which way is the graph going to go?" Naturally, I said "Up." He uncovered the future part, and there were about 20 lines diverging from that point: Some went up, some went flat, and some went down. He then said, "Nobody really knows, of course, and every one of these climatologists can point to some bit of evidence that indicates that they might be right."
I should point out that he is one of the few people in the world to have a doctorate in Agriclimatology (i.e. the study of the relationship between climate and agriculture), so he knows whereof he speaks. (That's why the DOE recruited him to write that report.)
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
Yes, anyone who's a genuine pastry chef, even one from Poland or Japan, _will_ know how to make a crepe, whether they work for Greenpeace or the Walforf Astoria. This is what really pisses me off about you idiots. Greenpeace is ON YOUR SIDE, moron! You're just trying to rip off the rest of us for money, and you're trying to do nothing about a very serious problem that affects the entire fucking human race.
O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
The poster's comments about ideologues is dead-on. The scientific consensus is that much of the effect of global warming is due to man's civilization. That does not mean there are no dissenters, or that various scientistics do not dispute various details. That's the way science works. Note the "increasingly strong evidence" phrase.
As for your comment "not been proven mathematically" - proof is a word that is most apt to describe the mathematical chain of reasoning used. Does it follow accepted mathematical rules? But when math is used in science, its job is to model reality-based processes. To do this evidence must be used. If the input facts are incorrect or incomplete, or even inappropriate (not relevant to the process that a researcher is trying to model), and/or the process being studied is incorrectly modeled, conclusions based on that model are garbage (not to say a great deal can't be learned from them, which is ideally going in to making a new and improved model). Out of pure physics, there are very nice mathematical models of the "standard model" of particle physics, and also now of string theory. Which is right? Who knows? There isn't enough confirming evidence yet.
In other words, whether it has been "mathematically proven" is both irrelevant and an argument meant to obfuscate. (Whether it has been mathematically modeled, on the other hand, is very much to the point.) Scientists in various disciplines are in basic agreement on lots of their discipline's evidence and that it is 'true', pending further evidence, but may not be able to contain said evidence in an adequate mathematical model. But most actual working climatologists have already decided what the evidence represents. That is not what they are debating, but rather the 'how', 'how much', and 'when'. I'm sorry you disagree, but it means you either have not been reading the actual scientists' work, or are deliberately ignoring it.
It is always amazing to me how little so many people understand the process of science, or what the concepts of "theory" and "model" do, especially when those people are engineers or otherwise technically sophisticated.