New Ice Age Theory

amigoro writes "Most believe that the ice ages are the result of subtle changes in Earth's orbit, known as the Milankovitch cycles. According to one scientist, that is not the case. Robert Ehrlich of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, has developed a model which hypothesizes a dimmer switch inside the sun that causes its brightness to rise and fall on timescales of around 100,000 or 41,000 years, exactly the same period as between ice ages on Earth. The main problem with Milankovitch cycles is that they can't explain how the ice ages go from 100,000 year cycle to 41,000 year cycle. The cycles predicted by Ehlrich's model line up with the observations."

Comments

Socrates would be disappointed

[Volfied]

sophism [sof-iz-uhm] -noun
              a specious argument for displaying ingenuity in reasoning or for deceiving someone, e.g. beginning with a conclusion and finding reasons to justify it, regardless of where the evidence points.

Re:Socrates would be disappointed

[YttriumOxide]

No it isn't. Of COURSE there are many other factors involved in global climate change, but only the truly stubborn or drastically deluded (note: I also include "deluded by others") would think that global climate change isn't being affected by the behaviour of humans over the last century or so. Having ice ages before there were humans around to affect the environment has no bearing on whether or not our actions can ALSO cause climate change.

Misleading grammar

[p0ss]

Ice ages are not caused by planet Earth's orbital variations as once thought, but by the dimmer switch inside the sun that causes its brightness to rise and fall on timescales of around 100,000 years which is exactly the same period as between ice ages on Earth, according to a radical new theory proposed by renowned astrophysicist Robert Ehrlich of George Mason University.

shouldn't that be:

According to a radical new theory proposed by renowned astrophysicist Robert Ehrlich of George Mason University, Ice ages are not caused by planet Earth's orbital variations as once thought, but by the dimmer switch inside the sun that causes its brightness to rise and fall on timescales of around 100,000 years which is exactly the same period as between ice ages on Earth.

that's like writing
THE EARTH IS FLAT!!!! according to some guy somewhere.
instead of
some guy somewhere thinks the earth is flat!!

Models, Theories & Proof

[BoRegardless]

I thank God the scientists keep looking for patterns and physics to try to explain what we see in the geologic and solar record & current observations of the sun, as that is the ONLY WAY we will ever have a chance of really knowing what long term cycles are caused by. There may be 50 models and theories, but it will likely be a stew of dozens of researchers that finally get a theory that is solid enough to be verified and called a Proof, or tentative Proof.

Fact is, no one can yet show a proof of why, but we do know that Ice ages occurred dozens of times and when, but we can not yet prove what the underlieing factor is that causes the repetition (excluding the major "accidental" supermassive volcano or mega-asteroid).

That is what true science is for, which is to keep digging, sometimes literally, until you uncover the data and principals that can be independently verified and eventually acknowledged as fact.

But that is not convenient for politicians who want power, and bureaucrats who can manage whole new divisions of government if they get funding to try to act on something with the citizens money, when there is only speculation as to what is going on and to what degree, let alone whether we can actually do anything about it.