Earth in for another "ice age" in mid-century - scientist

[sasha031]

ST. PETERSBURG, February 6 (RIA Novosti) - Low solar activity could trigger a global freeze in the middle of the 21st century, a Russian astronomer said Monday.

Khabibullo Abdusamatov of the Pulkovo Astronomic Observatory said temperatures would begin falling six or seven years from now, when global warming caused by increased solar activity in the 20th century reached its peak, and that the coldest period would occur 15-20 years after a major solar output decline in 2035-2045.

Abdusamatov said dramatic changes in the earth's surface temperatures were an ordinary phenomenon, not an anomaly, and resulted from variations in the Sun's energy output and ultraviolet radiation.

The Northern Hemisphere's most recent cool-down period of 1645-1705, known as the Little Ice Age, left canals in Holland frozen solid and forced people in Greenland to abandon their houses to glaciers, the scientist said.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060206/43371626.html

this is where I get confused, the contradiction of ice age and global warming. Does anyone understand which is correct..

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Global warming can lead to an ice age. Here's an explanation

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0130-11.htm

[joefree1]

5. Or watch the Day after Tomorrow

This movie really freaks out the freepers. Worse then their Apocalypse nightmare because it might come true.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0319262/

[GreenPartyVoter]

10. Except that it is a horrible movie all the way around and the science was

questionable in some respects. However, it still makes the point and is worth watching, even if only for the chills and thrills.

[sasha031]

13. amazing, Art Bell and Whitely Streiber wrote the book

[sasha031]

6. thank you GreenPartyVoter

what does Thomas Hartman not know about, the man is truly amazing.:)

[GreenPartyVoter]

9. Any time. :^) Common Dreams is my favorite site for news and analysis

[GreenPartyVoter]

12. Here's another article. weirdly enough.. about the decline of the

ski industry due to warmer weather. But if the theory of a new ice age is correct.. it makes for some irony!

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0206-03.htm

[sasha031]

14. I see it happening

New England has been ridiculously mild and dry, as there are changes all over the planet. It makes me so sad, the boys in Washington are so focused on their sicko war games, which will be the end of us and our precious planet and we have this.

[GreenPartyVoter]

15. My husband is really bummed that we haven't had any snow to speak of. And

here it is Feb and I am tempted to go out and start prepping my flower beds!

[sasha031]

18. it's going to be a tough yr for flowers and vegetation

we needed the snow for it's moisture. And of course my heart bleeds for the drowning polar bears and wildlife affected.

I started reading Al Gore's book "The Earth in Balance" I am amazed at his depth and insight for an politician.

[GreenPartyVoter]

19. We've been getting a lot of rain in place of the snow so we might be

ok in terms of water levels, but I may a lot of trees and bushes that get their leaf buds blackened. I am waiting to see if my tulips show up in March instead of May!

[HereSince1628]

2. Abdusamatov is arguing there will be a decrease in solar activity

I have no idea what if any cycles there are in solar output that might be large enough to reduce temperatures in that way. I have no idea if this is junk or credible...

But, I don't believe any of the three main global warming models have components that vary solar output.

[phantom power]

3. Well, there are various sources of "paradox"

There's the "day after tomorrow" scenario, where global warming melts polar ice, which screws up the thermo-haline circulation. That shuts down the north atlantic current, and so Europe's mean temperature drops 10 degrees. That could trigger an ice-age.

The scenario in your link is different. This guy is claiming that the sun's output changes over time. There's no reason that both couldn't be true.

There are other effects, such as nutation of earth's axis, which happens over a period of tens of thousands of years.

The inconvenient fact is that all of these effects, and many more, are going on all the time, although each at a different time-scale. So, teasing them all apart and understanding what's "really going on" is, well, hard.

[RaleighNCDUer]

17. It is concievable that the combination of greenhouse induced warming

causing a breakdown of the thermal currents, combined with solar fluctuation is what kicks of the major ice ages -- when the first happens by itself, it self-corrects as the resultant cold reestablishes the ice sheets; when the second happens by itself, it ends when the period of lowered solar output ends. But combine the two, and the lowered output prevents the thermals from restarting, even after the polar ice would normally create the heat transfer capabilites of the thermal currents.

Result: 50,000 years of ice.

[Odin2005]

23. IIRC, glacial periods are triggered by...

...the Milankovitch cycles, the cycles of tilt, precession, and orbit shape that affects how light reaches any particular location on earth. Precession affects what time of the year the equanoxes and solstices occur; today the northen summer starts in June, 12,000 years ago it started in December. Precession does not affect the degree of tilt itself, however. Obliquity is the degree of earth's tilt, whicg goes back and forth from 21 to 24 degrees every 41,000 years. Eccentricity is how far from a perfect circle the orbit is. For glacialtion to start you need low tilt, high eccentricity, and for the Northern winter to start in Decenber, when the Earth is closest to the sun. Under this situation you have warm winters and cool summers in the subarctic regions, which means there is more snowfall in the winter and less melting in the summer, allowing the snow to pile up and become ice sheets.

[phantom power]

24. It may not be the only mechanism.

The thermo-haline "switch" may be sufficient to turn on a glaciation after a period of sufficient warming.

[On the Road]

4. There's Not Mutually Exclusive

Greenhouse gases are trapping heat from the sun, causing global warming now. A few decades from now, the sun may give off less energy and provide less heat. Ideally, the two would work against each other, and the net effect would be milder than either one by itself.

But who knows? There are a lot of projections that never pan out.

[shoelace414]

7. Global Warming is a misnomer, Global Climate Change is more descriptive

and talking about the little ice age, there is a "conveyor belt" of warm water running on the surface up from the carribean past iceland and greenland where it gets cold and drops below the warm water and runs along the bottom of the ocean back to the carribean where it warms up and rises to the surface again.

25% of the heat energy in europe comes from the conveyor belt of water, if that shuts down for any reason (like too much fresh water from melting glaciers) then europe would be a lot colder.

[DUgosh]

8. There is no contradiction

The cold water from the melting ice caps sink causing the jet stream to shift from usual path. Bigger hurricanes and cyclones, colder wetter winters, colder drier winters, warmer wetter winters, warmer dryer winters, hotter summers, drier summers all in different places than expected.

[GreenPartyVoter]

11. Yes, I have noticed that here in Maine this winter our weather got

exported to Russia and Europe. It's Feb and here on the coast there's barely a snowflake left to speak of.

[Sialia]

16. Solar forcing

There are some people who believe that solar input is the main driving force in the climate. Many of them are not actually climatologists (note that this guy is an astronomer). Obviously, solar energy is the ultimate source of virtually all the energy that goes into the climate. However, the short-term (meaning less than thousands of years) variations in what is called the insolation (the amount of energy received per unit area per unit time) over the course of normal solar cycles are quite small compared to the baseline, and how much this influences climate is still very controversial.

What is being claimed here is quite different from any effects on the thermohaline conveyor belt. He's just saying that the insolation will drop so the climate will get colder, as a straightforward cause and effect relationship. This generally ignores the large number of feedback mechanisms that operate in the full system. Also, last I heard, it was controversial whether the Little Ice Age was even a global effect -- if it was really due to the Maunder minimum (an interval of low sunspot activity observed from about 1645-1715) one would expect to see at least some small effects outside of the Northern Hemisphere.

There's a link here that has some information that may be useful.

Berkeley news report

[GreenPartyVoter]

20. There are so many variables to track.. the conveyor belt.. the

level of deforestation by man, the killing of the oceans as one of our carbon sinks, the melting of the polar caps which adds fresh water to the oceans possibly cooling us down but the lack of all that whiteness on the caps of the earth means more dark area to absorb heat from the sun and thus warming us up!

I am so glad I am not a scientist who has to construct a model for future climates..I really am.

[happyslug]

21. Another "madhouse Century" like what happened 120,000 years ago?

120,000 years ago you had a sudden warming of the earth, then a raise of 20 feet in Sea levels (Probably because the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Collapses) following within 50 years but a DROP in world wide Sea levels as more and more water became tied in with the then EXPANDING Ice Sheets as the last advance of the Ice age started.

Please note the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) does NOT seem to have been affected by the above. The EAIS is a very stable Ice Sheet and is believes to have existed for Millions of years. The problem is the much smaller West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) which is inherently unstable and believed to be only 120,000 years old (i.e. from the start of the last Ice Age).

As to sea Levels, no one is worried about the Arctic Ocean, for the Arctic is an Ice Shelf (i.e. it is floating on top of sea water). As a Shelf the Arctic is displacing the same water its ice would be if the ice melted. While you will have other problems if the Ar-tic would melt (For example how will Polar Bears survive in the winter, right now they stay and live on the Arctic ice shelf but if the ice shelf disappears what will the Polar Bears do? Thus the melting of the Arctic Ocean will cause huge problem RAISING OCEAN LEVELS IS NOT ONE OF THEM.

Ocean levels are affected by the melting of ice SHEETS. Glaciers are Ice Sheets but the three big Ice Sheets are the EAIS (70 % of the Fresh water on the plant), the WAIS (about 10-12 % of the Fresh Water on the Plant) and the Greenland Ice Sheet (about 10% of the World's Fresh water). The remaining Fresh water are in the various lakes, rivers, Glaciers and other Fresh water sources (Remember we are talking about FRESH water, most water on the plant is Salt water in the Oceans).

The EAIS is on the highest part of the highest Continental in the world (Antarctica on average is higher than any other Continent). As the highest Continent the EAIS is while above Sea levels so is Not affected by Sea level temperatures (except in the fact warming air will carry more moisture to Antarctica which will come down as Snow and make the EAIS with even MORE ice, making it even BIGGER with more and more ice do to global warming). Antarctica is also completely within the Antarctic Circle making it the COLDEST Continent. Between these three factors NO ONE IS SUGGESTING THE EAIS WILL COLLAPSE within the next 100 years if ever.

On the other hand the other two ice sheets are viewed as "Unstable". The Greenland Ice Sheet is mostly within the Arctic Circle (thus is almost as cold as EAIS) but part of it extends to below the Arctic Circle (making it warmer than the EAIS). Greenland is also hit by warm water from the Gulf Stream (Through this comes down mostly as snow and builds up the Ice Sheet). Furthermore Greenland Ice Sheet is completely above Sea level so the Ice Sheet is NOT affected by World wide Sea Temperatures. While not as stable as the EAIS, the Greenland Ice Sheet is capable of slowing melting and raising world wide sea levels about 20 feet. Parts of the Greenland ICe Sheet has broke off into the Ocean in the past and slowed down the Gulf Stream, but not enough to stop the Gulf Stream (Through enough to make Europe colder than it has been in the recent past).

That brings me to the Godzilla of Global Warming, the WEST ANTARCTIC ICE SHEET (WAIS). This is located just south of Argentina and is a set of Ice Sheets grounded on the sea floor among various islands in the West Antarctic Islands (Today covered by the WAIS or the WAIS connect the islands together to look like one big set of solid land). The WAIS is unstable for two reason, while it is within the Antarctic Circle, it si grounded BELOW sea level and thus Sea level Temperatures affects it as it base. Second it is smaller than the EAIS and thus NOT AS COLD. Given its base below sea level it is subject to rapid deterioration (i.e. one day it looks solid, the next day the whole ice sheet can be floating in the Southern ocean, the Ocean that surrounds Antarctica). Such a Sudden Collapse of the WAIS will raise world wide sea levels overnight, southern Florida is be flooded (Through central and Northern Florida will still be above sea levels). Parts of New York City will be flooded (But Harlem will still be above Sea level, through the Streets of Downtown New York will be under Water). This will be true of every city on the Ocean. Please note we are NOT taking about 20 feet inland, but 20 up-wards. Thus a lot of Southern Florida will be under water for it is less than 20 feet above today's sea level. but most cities only that part closest to the Ocean will be flooded, but in the Atlantic that may be 100 of feet inland (and less on the the West Coast for the est Coast tend to raise up above the ocean much more than the East and Gulf Coasts do).

A collapse of the WAIS is believe to have started the Mad House Century, and may do so again.

For more on the Mad house Century see:
http://www.imaja.com/as/environment/can/journal/madhousecentury.html
http://williamcalvin.com/2000/EdgeQuestion.htm
http://fermat.nap.edu/books/0309074347/html/index.html
http://ces.iisc.ernet.in/hpg/envis/doc98html/globalcll1119.html

[bloom]

22. Hansen - in his report says, "Another “ice age” cannot occur unless..."

Page 18 http://www.giss.nasa.gov/~jhansen/keeling/keeling_talk_and_slides.pdf

4. Another “ice age” cannot occur unless humans become extinct. Even then, it would require
thousands of years. Humans now control global climate, for better or worse.

---------

I don't know if he is right or not. From looking at the historical data - it certainly looks like the earth is ready for a huge drop in temps. That's the big question - is CO2 or whatever preventing it from happening or not?

Another resource:

Arctic Climate Impact Assessment

http://www.acia.uaf.edu./

[Dogmudgeon]

25. Who is Khabibullo Abdusamatov?

I usually check out sources behind interesting news stories, especially in newly-established scientific bailiwicks like climate change. That's why I didn't ridicule the idea when Bell and Strieber wrote The Coming Global Superstorm; as far from science as much of their work has been, they researched the topic carefully and did a good job presenting climate change issues for the lay public. It was probably the first such popular book in a long, long time. Strieber's fictional vignettes made for bracing reading, and were the basis of The Day After Tomorrow, only superior.

Then, too, Bell and Strieber are intelligent guys, even if they don't bring delight to the membership of CSICOP. On the other hand, the popular press overall has only a tenuous grasp of scientific reasoning, and have gotten away with intellectual murder simply by quoting a scientist or two -- like, perhaps, Khabibullo Abdusamatov -- and thinking they've fulfilled their mission to inform the public.

So I decided to check out Abdusamatov, half fearing that he was an invention of one of the editors at Novosti. After all, Pravda is little more than a tabloid these days -- all it needs are a few Page Six cheesecake cuties and its devolution will be complete.

There was very little I could find on Abdusamatov on Google. But I did find some references to scientific publications and presentations at recent symposia. It appears that he really is a space scientist from Kazakhstan, probably has some connection to Baikonur Kosmodrom, and has been publishing since the late 1960s. In other words, he appears to be legit.

Still, if he's discovered some way to predict solar cycles longer than the 22-year-long electromagnetic polarity cycle, I'd like to read more about it. The idea behind climate change inducing ice ages does not depend on decreased insolation -- it's driven by changes in salinity in key ocean currents, especially the group of currents that warm the eastern North Atlantic ocean and Western Europe from Svalbard Island to the Canary Islands. When the water is fresh enough, it loses its ability to efficiently conduct heat AND its propensity to sink after releasing some of that heat. That current has recently been weakened, dramatically, and this winter has been one of Europe's coldest in a long time. Once the thermohaline currents weaken in the Maritimes -- on North America's side of the pond -- we will be in for some of the same weather. I'm sure the scientists from Lamont-Doherty and Woods Hole will be watching them very closely this coming summer.

--p!