Sorry to ruin the fun, but an ice age cometh

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Snidely Whiplash
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Sorry to ruin the fun, but an ice age cometh

Post by Snidely Whiplash »

Titled: Sorry to ruin the fun, but an ice age cometh

by Phil Chapman | April 23, 2008

THE scariest photo I have seen on the internet is www.spaceweather.com, where you will find a real-time image of the sun from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, located in deep space at the equilibrium point between solar and terrestrial gravity.

What is scary about the picture is that there is only one tiny sunspot.

Disconcerting as it may be to true believers in global warming, the average temperature on Earth has remained steady or slowly declined during the past decade, despite the continued increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, and now the global temperature is falling precipitously.

All four agencies that track Earth's temperature (the Hadley Climate Research Unit in Britain, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, the Christy group at the University of Alabama, and Remote Sensing Systems Inc in California) report that it cooled by about 0.7C in 2007. This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record and it puts us back where we were in 1930. If the temperature does not soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over.

There is also plenty of anecdotal evidence that 2007 was exceptionally cold. It snowed in Baghdad for the first time in centuries, the winter in China was simply terrible and the extent of Antarctic sea ice in the austral winter was the greatest on record since James Cook discovered the place in 1770.

It is generally not possible to draw conclusions about climatic trends from events in a single year, so I would normally dismiss this cold snap as transient, pending what happens in the next few years.

This is where SOHO comes in. The sunspot number follows a cycle of somewhat variable length, averaging 11 years. The most recent minimum was in March last year. The new cycle, No.24, was supposed to start soon after that, with a gradual build-up in sunspot numbers.

It didn't happen. The first sunspot appeared in January this year and lasted only two days. A tiny spot appeared last Monday but vanished within 24 hours. Another little spot appeared this Monday. Pray that there will be many more, and soon.

The reason this matters is that there is a close correlation between variations in the sunspot cycle and Earth's climate. The previous time a cycle was delayed like this was in the Dalton Minimum, an especially cold period that lasted several decades from 1790.

Northern winters became ferocious: in particular, the rout of Napoleon's Grand Army during the retreat from Moscow in 1812 was at least partly due to the lack of sunspots.

That the rapid temperature decline in 2007 coincided with the failure of cycle No.24 to begin on schedule is not proof of a causal connection but it is cause for concern.

It is time to put aside the global warming dogma, at least to begin contingency planning about what to do if we are moving into another little ice age, similar to the one that lasted from 1100 to 1850.

There is no doubt that the next little ice age would be much worse than the previous one and much more harmful than anything warming may do. There are many more people now and we have become dependent on a few temperate agricultural areas, especially in the US and Canada. Global warming would increase agricultural output, but global cooling will decrease it.

Millions will starve if we do nothing to prepare for it (such as planning changes in agriculture to compensate), and millions more will die from cold-related diseases.

There is also another possibility, remote but much more serious. The Greenland and Antarctic ice cores and other evidence show that for the past several million years, severe glaciation has almost always afflicted our planet.

The bleak truth is that, under normal conditions, most of North America and Europe are buried under about 1.5km of ice. This bitterly frigid climate is interrupted occasionally by brief warm interglacials, typically lasting less than 10,000 years.

The interglacial we have enjoyed throughout recorded human history, called the Holocene, began 11,000 years ago, so the ice is overdue. We also know that glaciation can occur quickly: the required decline in global temperature is about 12C and it can happen in 20 years.

The next descent into an ice age is inevitable but may not happen for another 1000 years. On the other hand, it must be noted that the cooling in 2007 was even faster than in typical glacial transitions. If it continued for 20 years, the temperature would be 14C cooler in 2027.

By then, most of the advanced nations would have ceased to exist, vanishing under the ice, and the rest of the world would be faced with a catastrophe beyond imagining.

Australia may escape total annihilation but would surely be overrun by millions of refugees. Once the glaciation starts, it will last 1000 centuries, an incomprehensible stretch of time.

If the ice age is coming, there is a small chance that we could prevent or at least delay the transition, if we are prepared to take action soon enough and on a large enough scale.

For example: We could gather all the bulldozers in the world and use them to dirty the snow in Canada and Siberia in the hope of reducing the reflectance so as to absorb more warmth from the sun.

We also may be able to release enormous floods of methane (a potent greenhouse gas) from the hydrates under the Arctic permafrost and on the continental shelves, perhaps using nuclear weapons to destabilise the deposits.

We cannot really know, but my guess is that the odds are at least 50-50 that we will see significant cooling rather than warming in coming decades.

The probability that we are witnessing the onset of a real ice age is much less, perhaps one in 500, but not totally negligible.

All those urging action to curb global warming need to take off the blinkers and give some thought to what we should do if we are facing global cooling instead.

It will be difficult for people to face the truth when their reputations, careers, government grants or hopes for social change depend on global warming, but the fate of civilisation may be at stake.

In the famous words of Oliver Cromwell, "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken."

Phil Chapman is a geophysicist and astronautical engineer who lives in San Francisco. He was the first Australian to become a NASA astronaut.
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Galbally
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Sorry to ruin the fun, but an ice age cometh

Post by Galbally »

So is this the latest tactic by exxon, pretend that the melting ice cap is being caused by a mini ice age? Quite. This thing about "we can't know what's going to happen" and all that nonsense, we know quite well what's going to happen, the planet is going to heat up by between 2 and 6 degrees over the next century, the ice caps and glaciers are going to melt, and sea levels are going to rise dramatically, climate patterns and everything that depends upon them are going to change abruptly and dramatically, what the specific consequences of those changes are will only become apparent once they happen. The climate is not going to be uniformly hotter or colder across the planet, its "destabilizing" which means its going to be more extreme, unpredictable, and will be prone to sudden changes. Unfortunately the latest round of non-scientific babble from the flat-earth brigade is not going to change that one jot.
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Clodhopper
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Sorry to ruin the fun, but an ice age cometh

Post by Clodhopper »

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
The crowd: "Yes! We are all individuals!"

Lone voice: "I'm not."
Clodhopper
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Post by Clodhopper »

Ok. If this report is correct, then the man made effects leading to climate change are simply swamped by a higher order event. It does not invalidate any of the reseach done and or collated by the IPCC, and it would be every bit as disastrous for current life on the planet.
The crowd: "Yes! We are all individuals!"

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Clodhopper
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Post by Clodhopper »

To put it another way: It's as if a large meteor hit Earth, causing a dust cloud to cover the planet with effects similar to a nuclear winter and you were to say, "See! I told you global warming was rubbish."
The crowd: "Yes! We are all individuals!"

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Accountable
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Sorry to ruin the fun, but an ice age cometh

Post by Accountable »

I guess we're doomed if we do, doomed if we don't. Personally, I'm going small-picture with this. I'll do what's cheapest for me in the long run. Sunlight & wind are free, at least for now, so when prices for solar collectors come within reach, I'll invest.
Clodhopper
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Post by Clodhopper »

Fuzzy: Yes.
The crowd: "Yes! We are all individuals!"

Lone voice: "I'm not."
Clodhopper
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Post by Clodhopper »

fuzzy butt;852572 wrote: It's the Brits .....blame them ..it's always worked for us.:wah::wah::wah::wah:


OI!

Blame the English if you please! Can't have those hairy celts taking blame that is rightfully ours. Right. I can't hang around here - I've got more garden heaters to fire up and some serious farting to do.:p
The crowd: "Yes! We are all individuals!"

Lone voice: "I'm not."
Clodhopper
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Sorry to ruin the fun, but an ice age cometh

Post by Clodhopper »

fuzzy butt;852608 wrote: OOOHhhh my apologies

it's the Sassenachs!!!!! it's the Sassenachs!!!!!



Note: how to begin a war and not be involved:wah::wah::wah::wah:


(In the poshest, most patronising accent I can muster ;)) Honestly, those ignorant, uncultured antipodean colonists - have you never heard of the Triple Crown?

We are permanently at war, and this year the Welsh won. (curses, curses)

We should build more castles. Hah! That'll stop Shane Williams.
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Pheasy
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Sorry to ruin the fun, but an ice age cometh

Post by Pheasy »

fuzzy butt;852638 wrote: sport again, oh dear....how relatively dreary!!!!

oH if I must ....

good on the barstards:wah::wah::wah:

My name is megan the great!!! it's a welsh name meaning 'Pearl' I believe.


Hey Pom-Pom Pearly what you blaming us for? and did we have fun doing it? :D
Clodhopper
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Post by Clodhopper »

sport again, oh dear....how relatively dreary!!!!


(suspiciously) You can't be a real ocker Aussie. No real aussie would say that...on the other hand, only an Aussie could possibly drink Fosters...
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Clodhopper
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Sorry to ruin the fun, but an ice age cometh

Post by Clodhopper »

Australia: Poisoning the world by Canadian proxy. :wah::wah:
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Lone voice: "I'm not."
Snidely Whiplash
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Sorry to ruin the fun, but an ice age cometh

Post by Snidely Whiplash »

Lol.... :wah:

You guys are fun... :) It's great reading your replies...! :wah:

I didn't think too much of this report at first either, but the facts enclosed in it seemed revealing in ways.... The undeniable fact that the climate has not warmed in the past decade, but instead has either remained the same each year, or cooled, even with higher CO2 levels, and in the past 12 months cooled at record breaking levels, stated not by me, but by (the Hadley Climate Research Unit in Britain, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, the Christy group at the University of Alabama, and Remote Sensing Systems Inc in California) the scientists who record the planets temps, just says alot.......... It says that there has been NO global warming in the past decade..... It must make a person wonder why CO2 hasn't been warming the planet in the last decade, like some try and tell us it is..?? I guess thats the fact I got out of this report.... Just like back in the late 70's and 80's, when scientists thought from cooling temps that we again were headed for another ice age....??? Again, it seemed nothing to do with human activity, but just another natural cycle that we all need to deal with..?

I hope some got that, even though the global warming hysteria has now almost become a politically correct way to think and talk, no matter what is really happening in the world.... :)

Keep posting, you guys are great...!!!!! :D
Clodhopper
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Post by Clodhopper »

I do hope you are right, but we keep getting our hottest months since records began and iirc they have all been in the last decade. Certainly fits with what Galbally says about the climate destabilising. I'm still inclined to go with what the IPCC says: too much weight of reputable evidence.
The crowd: "Yes! We are all individuals!"

Lone voice: "I'm not."
Snidely Whiplash
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Sorry to ruin the fun, but an ice age cometh

Post by Snidely Whiplash »

Clodhopper;853016 wrote: I'm still inclined to go with what the IPCC says: too much weight of reputable evidence.


Thanks for the reply...!

Check this out..... Don't get bored, please read it all, and see what you think.....???

http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2007/0 ... m-uns.html

:)
Clodhopper
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Sorry to ruin the fun, but an ice age cometh

Post by Clodhopper »

I trust no-one I don't know called "Doug". Stupid name. In fact I don't trust anyone I DO know called Doug. I remember the Larson cartoon "Beware of Doug" And there's Doug, hiding behind a tree eyeing the postman's shin.

Why would I pay any attention to this? Who is Doug Ross that I should pay any attention to him, compared to the IPCC? Or Galbally, who works in this field?

In ANY field of science you will be able to find scientists holding any view you care to mention. Who do you trust? Best thing is to go with the consensus - this will change as new things are discovered and today's hero is tomorrow's has-been, like Kelvin and Rutherford on the age of the earth, for example - but you'll be far more likely to be close to the truth.

I certainly don't buy this argument that the IPCC is just jobs for the boys.
The crowd: "Yes! We are all individuals!"

Lone voice: "I'm not."
Snidely Whiplash
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Sorry to ruin the fun, but an ice age cometh

Post by Snidely Whiplash »

Clodhopper;853104 wrote: I trust no-one I don't know called "Doug". Stupid name. In fact I don't trust anyone I DO know called Doug.


:wah: LOL, that's cool... I don't trust anyone named Al on these issues...! Especially ex- vice presidents... :D :D
Clodhopper
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Sorry to ruin the fun, but an ice age cometh

Post by Clodhopper »

Snidely Whiplash;853504 wrote: :wah: LOL, that's cool... I don't trust anyone named Al on these issues...! Especially ex- vice presidents... :D :D


I've neither heard nor read him. I just vaguely approve of him getting these issues into the public consciousness. It's already in mine.
The crowd: "Yes! We are all individuals!"

Lone voice: "I'm not."
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