Here Comes The Mini Ice Age

The Lid/UK Mail ^ | 1/10/10 | The Lid

[palmer]

Assuming that the total radiant energy from the sun that is reaching earth is constant, how can air or water currents affect the average temperature?

The global temperature measured by satellite bounces around a lot. The basic reason is that weather (clouds, rain, water vapor, etc) is uneven and causes global cooling or global warming depending on how it adds up. It most certainly does not add up to zero, (e.g. the current freeze in the USA is not "balanced" by warm weather elsewhere).

As far as ocean currents and such, they cause global warming or global cooling on a slightly longer time scale. For example just a bit of extra wind across the Pacific (part of the ocean/atmosphere currents) will cause a great deal of extra evaporational cooling and presto, global cooling.

[palmer]

But as one famous scientists kinda once said, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Not for weather. For just one example, the current cooling in the US is not balanced out by warming elsewhere.