Headed toward a new ice age?

[Mech]

World might be heading towards Ice Age
23 Apr, 2008, 1327 hrs IST, ANI


CANBERRA: Scientists have warned that the world might once again be heading towards an Ice Age, with global warming approaching a possible end.

economictimes.indiatimes.com/Earth/Are_we_heading_to_ice_age/articleshow/2975016.cms


Evidence in support of this theory has come from pictures obtained from the US Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, which showed no spots on the sun, thus determining that sunspot activity has not resumed after hitting an 11-year low in March last year.

A sunspot is a region on the sun that is cooler than the rest and appears dark.

Some scientists believe a strong solar magnetic field, when there is plenty of sunspot activity, protects the earth from cosmic rays, cutting cloud formation, but that when the field is weak - during low sunspot activity - the rays can penetrate into the lower atmosphere and cloud cover increases, cooling the surface.

According to Australian astronaut and geophysicist Phil Chapman, this might have caused the world to cool quickly between January last year and January this year, by about 0.7C.

"This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record, and it puts us back to where we were in 1930," said Dr Chapman.

"If the temperature does not soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over," he added.

Dr Chapman has proposed preventive, or delaying, moves to slow the cooling, such as bulldozing Siberian and Canadian snow to make it dirty and less reflective.

"My guess is that the odds are now at least 50:50 that we will see significant cooling rather than warming in coming decades," he said

[Mech]

Sorry to ruin the fun, but an ice age cometh

www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0%2C25197%2C23583376-5013480%2C00.html

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.

[Swamp Gas]

This is a good possibility. The last Ice Age had immense amounts of CO2 embedded in glaciers from then. High amounts of CO2 would increase cloud cover, and in turn create much lower temperatures.

The way I gather this information is this...........We are in human accelerated Global Warming, which will have dire consequences. When Glaciers and desalination start occurring from that, cloud cover will increase from CO2 levels, and an Ice Age will occur.

This does not change the fact that Global Warming is accelerating from Industrialization and deforestation, but Al Gore does not address this overlooked data.

[chickenlittle]

So I have a question
Are most of these jets that seem to be chemtrail jets possibly not dispating the fuel as it did so many years ago when we were kids......could it be that:
The atmosphere has so much more cloud cover that it is affecting the jet emissions in a way that causes these trails to linger? So could they not all be chemtrailing?
anyone?

[Swamp Gas]

I always thought chemtrails or aerosol mitigation was to protect against high UV-B from blown out ozone because of atomic testing, reversing global warming by increasing CO2 and cloud cover, or both. In turn, CO2 would accelerate an Ice Age, which could be the outcome of global warming run wild, after initially severe drought.

The weather control aspects were secondary, although I think that is possible.

The biological side I never thought was as viable of an option, but I would not count it out 100%.

[Mech]

Man-made or NOT man-made climate change...regardless, is happening...and I tend to think its a cooling trend. Not warming.

***********

Global warming? Scotland sees its best snow in a decade

David Lister
Times Online
April 17, 2008

The restaurant at the top of the mountain is packed, though the queues are not for tartiflette or omelette savoyarde but for the distinctly un-haute cuisine of haggis and neeps and tatties.

In the shop by the funicular railway, Loch Ness Monster books and goat’s- milk soap from a local crofter are on sale next to ski goggles and thermal leggings. The weather forecast — “Some buffeting on higher slopes” — sounds particularly Scottish, while the signs for the “Cairngorm Poo Project”, an initiative to cut human waste left by walkers, would be hard to imagine in Courchevel or Val d’Isère.

Only a year after experiencing its worst season, the CairnGorm Mountain resort near Aviemore is defying the doomsayers of global warming and predictions of its demise.

The car park is full and the slopes busy. When the sun comes out, it is almost warm. After several weeks of decent snowfalls, the spring skiing conditions are, according to everyone who knows, the best in living memory. The resort has even run out of up-to-date piste maps, and has had to advertise for extra staff because many of its seasonal workers have already left.

[KNOWTHIS]

According to this poll (and I admit that I haven't checked the background of the foundation that funded it) there is a growing certainty about global warming amongst experts. Though the article goes on to say that these scientists were "divided" about the risks, only 13% saw little danger.

www.usnews.com/articles/news/national/2008/04/23/survey-tracks-scientists-growing-climate-concern.html

Survey Tracks Scientists' Growing Climate Concern
Few now doubt global warming, though they disagree on the severity of the danger

Among scientists in two fields that focus closely on climate—geophysics and meteorology—few now doubt that the planet is warming or that human activity is to blame, even though views diverge on the dangers posed, says a new survey released by the Statistical Assessment Service at George Mason University.

Of the 489 Earth and atmospheric scientists surveyed by Harris Interactive, 97 percent said that global temperatures have increased during the past 100 years, and 74 percent agreed that "currently available scientific evidence substantiates the occurrence of human-induced greenhouse warming." The findings mark a significant increase in concern over climate change since 1991, when a Gallup survey of the same universe of scientists showed only 60 percent agreed that temperatures were up and 41 percent believed that evidence pointed to human activity as the cause.

The scientists were about evenly divided on whether they thought the effects of global climate change over the next 50 to 100 years were likely to be near catastrophic (41 percent) or moderately dangerous (44 percent). About 13 percent saw relatively little danger. About 56 percent of the scientists said that global climate change was a mature science, while 39 percent termed it an emerging science.

[KNOWTHIS]

As far as temperatures go. When you're dealing with living systems there's always going to be strange contrasts and anomalies. To use an analogy, my father and I were out working in the yard yesterday and it was well over 80 degrees. He has poor circulation in his legs. While the majority of his body felt very hot, his feet were still cold. Even though his lower extremities felt cold, his overall body temperature was higher than normal. It’s a matter of focus and perception. I believe that these unexpected snowfalls are like cold feet on a hot day.

www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,351749,00.html

NOAA: Last Month Was Warmest March on Record

NOAA's National Climatic Data Center said high temperatures over much of Asia pulled the worldwide land temperature up to an average of 40.8 degrees Fahrenheit (4.9 degrees Celsius), 3.2 degrees (1.8 C) warmer than the average in the 20th century.

While Asia had its greatest January snow cover this year, warm March readings caused a rapid melt and March snow cover on the continent was a record low.

Global ocean temperatures were the 13th warmest on record, with a weakening of the La Nina conditions that cool the tropical Pacific Ocean.

Overall land and sea surface temperatures for the world were second highest in 129 years of record keeping, trailing only 2002, the agency said.

Warming conditions in recent decades have continued to raise concern about global climate change, which many weather and climate experts believe is related to gases released into the atmosphere by industrial and transportation processes.

[Swamp Gas]

The Earth is definitely warming, though last year land temperature was down slightly, but ocean air was much higher. There is no evidence of a mean global cooling over a 150 year span, whereas in the same period, a warming trend is occurring.

An Ice Age will occur with high CO2 levels, more cloud cover, desalination, and variable air currents. I don't think we know quite when the Ice Age will be kicking in, but all the signs are there. Deforestation, increased pollution, and high CO2 levels are accelerating this, whether human or Terrestrial/Galactic in origin.

Al Gore won't touch this side, though the movie "Day After Tomorrow" did in a dramatic way. There is this image of Earth as a Dust Bowl, with famine and melting Ice Caps. This may happen, but the shift from Desert to Ice could very well occur.