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.

Comments

this will be teh bad!

[OwlofCreamCheese]

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

Re:this will be teh bad!

[Valdrax]

You didn't actually RTFA, did you? No, reading before spouting an opinion is apparently forbidden for people who pooh-pooh globabl warming.

The could be bad because a climate shift will cause the most classic reason for war to happen world-wide (i.e. resource starvation). People will squabble and war -- first economically, then militarily -- over control of the world's arable land and fresh water supply if a new Ice Age happens.

However, this time, the hominids have nukes.

Re:Clarification the article makes vague

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny to watch the anti-environment people back pedal. I remember when they said global warming wasn't real and was being faked by scientist with some kind of agenda. It's the same attacks, but only on the cause of global warming. I figure in another five years you'll all be claiming that even though humans cause some global warming there isn't anything that can be done. Why are you so afread to face facts?

Re:Clarification the article makes vague

[ajagci]

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.

They probably don't consider "stressing the difference" important because there is no difference. Human carbon dioxide emissions clearly contribute to climate change and they are growing. The only question is when and how human contributions become catastrophic.

And if humans cause an unavoidable ice age to happen just 50 years earlier through excessive carbon dioxide emissions, that in itself would be huge: at the rate at which technology is changing, 50 extra years might allow us to cope with an ice age much better.

Re:Why fix it?

[presearch]

Why is this modded as troll.
It just states the most common opinion on Global Warming.
Actually, it's the most common opinion on pretty much everything in the U.S.

Part Old Part New

[DynaSoar]

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.