[PenultimateManStanding]

Forget about global warming, says this interesting website. We are on the edge of a new Ice Age. The oceans are being warmed by unusually heavy volcanic activity, this will result in alot of evaporization and cause huge snowfalls. The geophysical signs include the apparently imminent geomagnetic pole shift, solar cycles and the historical record of past Ice Ages. It's been 11,500 years since the current inter-glacial period began; that means this period should end soon and Canada and Russia will be under ice sheets. There is an interesting account of a major fossil find which seems to indicate that a herd of dinosaurs was wiped out by a massive snow storm.

http://www.iceagenow.com/

[rockdoc123]

Perfectly plausible I think.....I remember back in the late sixties and early seventies everyone was absolutely sure we were going into another ice age.
Turn, Turn, Turn....for every season.......
Personally given all the things that can contribute to climate change I think it is pretty much a crap shoot what is going to happen.....I'm along for the ride.

[smiley]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'P')ersonally given all the things that can contribute to climate change I think it is pretty much a crap shoot what is going to happen.....I'm along for the ride.

[Schweinshaxe]

When I was a child in Sweden back in the Seventies, we used to play icehockey and bandy on natural ice between the end of November and the beginning of February.

Now we can be happy if there is a little bit of snow during Christmas time making things look a little bit Christmas like.

If the Ice Age is coming, it's coming in a strange way...

[SinisterBlueCat]

it is true. the last major ice age was triggered by global warming. It has to do with the Gulf stream "switch" or "conveyor"

the gulf stream begins south of the equator and as it flows along the gulf of Mexico it absorbs heat from the tropics. It continues on past the coast of Britain. When it gets up in to the northern regions of the Atlantic, cooled and make denser and it sinks in to the deep sea and goes back the other way.

This sinking is caused by salt in the water. When the salty water cools near Greenland it becomes so dense that it plummets to the bottom of the ocean. The water then heads back south to where the gulf stream began, and the whole process begins again. It’s a continuously circulating belt of water and heat, that’s why it’s called the conveyor.

when global warming melts polar ice caps, it dilutes the salinity of the warm, thereby shutting down the gulf stream switch. and it is this that triggers an ice age.

If you are up for some rather disturbing reading, here is a website. It talks more in depth about the shutting off of the switch, and how it causes an ice age to come on very quickly (2 - 3 years) as opposed to the previously held theory that it came on gradually.

www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi? ... 130-11.htm

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')
And these changes came suddenly.

For early humans living in Europe 30,000 years ago - when the cave paintings in France were produced - the weather would be pretty much like it is today for well over a thousand years, giving people a chance to build culture to the point where they could produce art and reach across large territories.

And then a particularly hard winter would hit.

The spring would come late, and summer would never seem to really arrive, with the winter snows appearing as early as September. The next winter would be brutally cold, and the next spring didn't happen at all, with above-freezing temperatures only being reached for a few days during August and the snow never completely melting. After that, the summer never returned: for 1500 years the snow simply accumulated and accumulated, deeper and deeper, as the continent came to be covered with glaciers and humans either fled or died out. (Neanderthals, who dominated Europe until the end of these cycles, appear to have been better adapted to cold weather than Homo sapiens.)

[Ludi]

I thought folks were pretty up to date on the Atlantic Conveyor idea, guess not. So thanks for discussing it.

So yeah, this is why often global climate change is referred to as Global Climate Change, instead of just global warming, because it's very complicated and not merely warming. Warming may lead to cooling, but probably not an ice age. This is the main concern with the current rapid melting of the sea ice, cooling of Europe and North America.

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute Abrupt Climate Change site

[Ebyss]

I only just heard about this from you Ludi, and then only in the last few months. Tbh, I can barely read this stuff it's so scary. Peak oil doesn't scare, bird flu has registered on the worried scale, GW I thought we could just about cope with here in Ireland.. but an Ice Age would completely devastate us.

Does anyone know if there's a map or projection of how this Ice Age will look? What areas will it affect, what are the temperatures going to be etc...

[Ludi]

Google "Little Ice Age" and see if you can find a map of how the temps may have differed then, this possible coming ice age would probably be more like the Little Ice Age than the last big Ice Age. Still hell on folks, though.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SinisterBlueCat', 'w')ay.
If you are up for some rather disturbing reading, here is a website. It talks more in depth about the shutting off of the switch, and how it causes an ice age to come on very quickly (2 - 3 years) as opposed to the previously held theory that it came on gradually.

And these changes came suddenly.

[Ludi]

Article about the possible next little ice age:

ice age


[quote]Should a little ice age arrive, its impact will be told in human suffering, not scientific terminology. The Little Ice Age (Basic Books, 2000), by anthropology professor Brian Fagan of the University of California at Santa Barbara, is replete with tales of woe depicting the plight of European peasants during the 1300 to 1850 chill: famines, hypothermia, bread riots, and the rise of despotic leaders brutalizing an increasingly dispirited peasantry. In the late 17th century, writes Fagan, agriculture had dropped off so dramatically that “Alpine villagers lived on bread made from ground nutshells mixed with barley and oat flour.” Finland lost perhaps a third of its population to starvation and disease.

Life was particularly difficult for those who lived under the constant threat of advancing glaciers in the French Alps. One, the Des Bois glacier on the slopes of Mont Blanc, was said to have moved forward “over a musket shot each day, even in the month of August.” When the Des Bois threatened to dam up the Arve River in 1644, residents of the town of Chamonix begged the bishop of Geneva to petition God for help. In early June, the bishop, with 300 villagers gathered around him, blessed the threatening glacier and another near the village of Largenti

[Ebyss]

I just read that article myself (I googled it as per your suggestion ). I really want to find a map of Europe that shows what parts were affected, where the glaciers formed, what the temps were... basically so I can find out what my chances are in Ireland.. and where would be a better place to ride it out (for the next couple hundred years ). I haven't found such a map yet, if indeed one exists, but there are a few books on the LIA, so I might check those out.



Editted for atrocious spelling. I must be more tired than I thought.

[Ludi]

I tried to find some maps showing the extent of the glaciation, so far no luck.

I think our societies could adapt to another little Ice Age, but it would require the same kinds of societal changes we discuss as being helpful in dealing with peak oil. Most importantly, agriculture would have to change to include a larger number of species, instead of such a great dependence on only a few, and people would probably have to get used to eating a different diet, a diet adapted to the new conditions.

[Ebyss]

Society? Yes.. society will adapt if necessity demands it. Needs must. But I do mean real, in your face, immediate necessity (which is why we have done nothing to change our current position). But the Northern Europeans will struggle massively if there is another Little Ice Age, particulary if it is a sudden onset. I can think of only two options right now. Emigrate or die. Having said that, the Irish survived during the last one. But if we have nothing to heat our soft pampered bodies during an Ice Age winter, I'd imagine a significant die-off from illness... to mention nothing of food.

And thank you for trying to find a map for me, I mentioned it merely on the offchance that people might know of an existing one, not to ask people to go find me one, so, your efforts are much appreciated.

[rockdoc123]

This whole issue of a possible new little ice age is overlooked by the climate change types to a large extent....it would be particularily devastating whereas warming by a few degrees might not be all that bad. Without heat plants and animals alike die off...without plants and animals man dies off. There is some pretty decent research that demonstrates man has always done better in a warmer climate.

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', 'F')orget about global warming, says this interesting website. We are on the edge of a new Ice Age. The oceans are being warmed by unusually heavy volcanic activity, this will result in alot of evaporization and cause huge snowfalls. The geophysical signs include the apparently imminent geomagnetic pole shift, solar cycles and the historical record of past Ice Ages. It's been 11,500 years since the current inter-glacial period began; that means this period should end soon and Canada and Russia will be under ice sheets. There is an interesting account of a major fossil find which seems to indicate that a herd of dinosaurs was wiped out by a massive snow storm.

http://www.iceagenow.com/

[lowem]

Snow in Singapore, yeah, that'll be the day ...

[katkinkate]

I keep remembering that "Ice Age" movie and the dodos. "Prepare for the ice age". and the fumbling of the melons and the last female being knocked over a cliff.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rockdoc123', 'T')his whole issue of a possible new little ice age is overlooked by the climate change types to a large extent....it would be particularily devastating whereas warming by a few degrees might not be all that bad. Without heat plants and animals alike die off...without plants and animals man dies off. There is some pretty decent research that demonstrates man has always done better in a warmer climate.

[PenultimateManStanding]

The blending of science, politics and religion is what this issue is for society at large. There has to be a way to think and talk about it that gets past all that crap. The notion that climate warming and cooling extremes are connected in some manner fits in.

[PenultimateManStanding]

Robert Felix, whose website, www.iceagenow.com I started this thread about, will be on Coast To Coast on Monday 9/26.