The Ice Age Cometh?

WeatherBug Meteorologist, ^ | 8AM EDT, September 26, 2003 | By Justin Consor

[Forgiven_Sinner]

Do abrupt climate shifts occur as part of a natural cycle? Despite growing evidence that humans affect climate via urbanization and greenhouse gas emissions, the natural climate cycle may have the final say.

Research from Dr. Stefan Rahmstorf at Germany`s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research suggests that the earth`s climate is characterized by an extraordinarily regular cycle of about 1470 years.

He found that the five most recent cycles had a standard deviation of only 32 years.

Rahmstorf examined ice cores from Greenland. Going back before the 20th century, when weather stations were nonexistent or widely dispersed, ice cores and tree rings provide the most objective and reliable climate record.

Rahmstorf also found that the most recent cold period of the cycle was most likely the "Little Ice Age" of the 16th to 18th Centuries.

These findings suggest that the warming of the past century or so is probably nothing more than the next phase of this repeating pattern of cyclical warming and cooling.

Recent observations and forecast models suggest that the current warming may be the engine to spur rapid global cooling.

Ocean scientists have found that some of the largest rivers in the world are dumping 7% less fresh water into the Arctic Ocean than they did in the 1930s.

According to scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, decreased fresh water flow has the potential to shut down a global water flow pattern called the thermohaline circulation.

In its current state, the thermohaline circulation brings cold, deep, salty water south from the poles, while warm surface water moves from the tropics toward the poles. If the circulation were to shut off, abrupt cooling would likely spread through much of the northern Hemisphere, including Europe and the U.S.

This scenario has caused temperatures to plummet an average of 5 to 10 degrees in 20 years in the past. 11,000 years ago, such global cooling occurred and glaciers were seen in much of the northern U.S.

Photo Credit: NOAA Photo Library. The Ross Ice Shelf looms over the Bay of Whales. It was here that Roald Amundsen staged the first successful assault on the South Pole.

What do you think of this story?

[Publius6961]

The Ice Age Cometh?

The sunrise cometh?

Every once in a while, I can't help wondering what is the point of stating the obvious.

If something has been happening cyclically for hundreds of millions of years, why does a repeat warrant any kind of a discussion?

[ancient_geezer]

Well then we'd all better start burning more fossil fuels to slow down the next ice age.

Makes more sense than selling off your parka :)

get some gas for my riding lawn mower then go home and cut the heads off of some grass

Grass grows better if you increase the CO2 concetration with your riding mower, kinda self defeating isn't it. ;O) I prefer to grow rocks instead.

[El Gato]

It's entirely possible that both the "ice age" predictions of the 1970s (and earlier) and the "global warming" theorists of the 1990s were both correct. It's just possible that SUVs and all the other stuff, managed to hold off the ice age, which otherwise might have occurred say around 1985, for a couple of decades. But as she usually does, Nature will win out in the end. The ice age "theory" isn't so much a theory as an observation. Ice Ages happen, and their is yet no reason to believe they will not continue to do so. And we are slightly overdue.

And no y'all can't come stay with me in San Antonio. I've have a wife, two daughters and their husbands and maybe their kids in my two bedroom apartment, along with assorted dogs, rats and other critters. :)

[ancient_geezer]

Thus periods of 88k,83k,93k, and 130k to present.

One thing for you to think about, the other planets have a great deal of gravitational influence over the orbital plane of the earth. Time we spend within the mean solarplane gathering cometary debris varies even though the periodicity of the orbital precession/wobble is quite stable. The actual track of the earth through space in relation to the mean solarplane and debris in it is not a smooth nor symetrical function of time.

Read the paper: Origin of the 100 kyr Glacial Cycle

[El Gato]

Again, the heat output of the sun does not vary up or down in abrupt cycles, but gradually, so ordinarily, the fauna and flora that cover earth may adjust the the altered conditions.

How certain of that are we? Not very, and some stars not unlike the sun do evidence fairly rapid changes.

The only thing that cannot be adjusted over this time frame is the attitude of certain "environmentalists" who lack even rudimentary knowledge of how the planetary system operates.

The evidence indicates that the temperature of the earth *has* undergone rapid changes in the past, and there is no evidence to indicate that it cannot do so again in the future. Whether that means starting next year, or next century, it's hard to say, although there is some evidence to indicate that it's already started, that is to say their are changes observed that could lead to the start of the next ice age, even though right now temperatures are rising very very slightly.

[Vinnie]

Thanks for the heads up.

I tried WB several yrs ago and it installed a spy program called Gator. That program devoured my machine. I wrote them a nasty e-mail about it.
Some months later I started getting e-mails from 'Stephanie' advising me that Gator was no longer packaged with WB and to try it again.

I was thinking about trying it of late but you just convinced me otherwise.

[Publius6961]

Read the article. Origin of the 100 kyr Glacial Cycle It is much more complete and explains the the irregular interval between warm periods very well.

I was unable to access the figures and charts with that link.
What am I doing wrong?

[ancient_geezer]

The site sometimes has trouble feeding pics, need to hit them with mouse left click "show picture".

I have copied some of the main graphs to my own website to assure display here. Here's the crux of the paper:

Origin of the 100 kyr Glacial Cycle

Figure 2. Spectral fingerprints in the vicinity of the 100 kyr peak: (a) for data from Site 607; (b) for data of the SPECMAP stack; (c) for a model with linear response to eccentricity, calculated from the results of Quinn et al. (ref 6); (d) for the nonlinear ice-sheet model of Imbrie and Imbrie (ref 22); and (e) for a model with linear response to the inclination of the Earth's orbit (measured with respect to the invariable plane). All calculations are for the period 0-600 ka. The 100 kyr peak in the data in (a) and (b) do not fit the fingerprints from the theories (c) and (d), but are a good match to the prediction from inclination in (e). return to beginning


Far more important to our present analysis, however, is the fact that the predicted 100 kyr "eccentricity line" is actually split into 95 and 125 kyr components, in serious conflict with the single narrow line seen in the climate data. The splitting of this peak into a doublet is well known theoretically (see, e.g., ref 5), but in comparisons with data the two peaks in the eccentricity were merged into a single broad peak by the poor resolution of the Blackman-Tukey algorithm (as was done, for example, in ref 8). The single narrow peak in the climate data was likewise broadened, and it appeared to match the broad eccentricity feature.

***

Figure 3. Variations of the inclination vector of the Earth's orbit. The inclination i is the angle between this vector and the vector of the reference frame; Omega is the azimuthal angle = the angle of the ascending node (in astronomical jargon).. In (A), (B), and (C) the measurements are made with respect to the zodiacal (or ecliptic) frame, i.e. the frame of the current orbit of the Earth. In (D), (E), and (F) the motion has been trasformed to the invariable frame, i.e. the frame of the total angular momentum of the solar system. Note that the primary period of oscillation in the zodiacal frame (A) is 70 kyr, but in the invariable plane (D) it is 100 kyr.

[Publius6961]

Thank you very much!

[Johnny Crab]

"We are rotating around the Sun at approx. 67,000 miles per hour! And the Eath is spinning around and around at about 1,000 miles per hour (at the equator)."

I love using that one on 'em too except I preface it with "Do you really want something to worry about that you, as a tiny human, have NO control over?". Even my 11 and 13 year old KNOW this. They also understand why it works.

[El Gato]

As far as periodicity, the 100kyr period is extremely sharp and clean.

Well the 100k yr spectral componet of the data is indeed very strong and narrow, but that still doesn't mean that other spectral components, whatever their actual cause, cannot act to vary the "peak" (or trough) of the "waveform", they can and apparently do, even in the "proxy" data used in the study.

[El Gato]

If something has been happening cyclically for hundreds of millions of years, why does a repeat warrant any kind of a discussion?

Ordinary people can experience the periodic nature of the sunrise (although that too is not as simple as it might at first blush seem, the time varies on an (almost) yearly basis for example, and the point on the horizon where it occurs also varies on a yearly basis). They cannot experience the periodicity of the ice ages. Therefore they need to be convinced of their existance, which is one point of having a discussion. The other point is understanding causation, which in turn can improve prediction of the next event. If you knew it was going to happen in the next few years, you might invest in land in Arizona, Mexico, or even central or northern South America. Or at least make sure you have a parka, snow shoes and lots of insulation.

[per loin]

I tried that site, but it is malfunctioning (at an increasing frequency) in its delivery of graphics. I'll check it again in 100k years or so. :)

[ancient_geezer]

Of course,

Have I anywhere indicated that 100kyr cycle is the only operative factor in Climate variation? It is only one of the main ones, others ares the 27kyr period of the polar precession, multi kyr & million yr motions through the Galactic plane, ..., aperiodic variations in solar output. ...

Man's influence on the otherhand is nil as well as flucutations of CO2 concentration which are swamped out by variations in water vapor content of the atmosphere:

 

Anthropogenic (man-made) Contribution to the "Greenhouse
Effect," expressed as % of Total (water vapor INCLUDED)

Based on concentrations (ppb) adjusted for heat retention characteristics	% of All Greenhouse Gases	% Natural	% Man-made
Water vapor	95.000%	94.999%	0.001%
Carbon Dioxide (CO2)	3.618%	3.502%	0.117%
Methane (CH4)	0.360%	0.294%	0.066%
Nitrous Oxide (N2O)	0.950%	0.903%	0.047%
Misc. gases ( CFC's, etc.)	0.072%	0.025%	0.047%
Total	100.00%	99.72	0.28%

CO2-Temperature Correlations

• "(1) correlation does not prove causation, (2) cause must precede effect, and (3) when attempting to evaluate claims of causal relationships between different parameters, it is important to have as much data as possible in order to weed out spurious correlations.
  
  ***
  
  Consider, for example, the study of Fischer et al. (1999), who examined trends of atmospheric CO2 and air temperature derived from Antarctic ice core data that extended back in time a quarter of a million years.  Over this extended period, the three most dramatic warming events experienced on earth were those associated with the terminations of the last three ice ages; and for each of these climatic transitions, earth's air temperature rose well in advance of any increase in atmospheric CO2.  In fact, the air's CO2 content did not begin to rise until 400 to 1,000 years after the planet began to warm.  Such findings have been corroborated by Mudelsee (2001), who examined the leads/lags of atmospheric CO2 concentration and air temperature over an even longer time period, finding that variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration lagged behind variations in air temperature by 1,300 to 5,000 years over the past 420,000 years."

[ see also: Indermuhle et al. (2000), Monnin et al. (2001), Yokoyama et al. (2000), Clark and Mix (2000) ]

• "Other studies periodically demonstrate a complete uncoupling of CO2 and temperature "

[see: Petit et al. (1999), Staufer et al. (1998), Cheddadi et al., (1998), Raymo et al., 1998, Pagani et al. (1999), Pearson and Palmer (1999), Pearson and Palmer, (2000) ]

• "Considered in their entirety, these several results present a truly chaotic picture with respect to any possible effect that variations in atmospheric CO2 concentration may have on global temperature.  Clearly, atmospheric CO2 is not the all-important driver of global climate change the climate alarmists make it out to be."

---

 

Global warming and global dioxide emission and concentration:
a Granger causality analysis

http://isi-eh.usc.es/trabajos/122_41_fullpaper.pdf

•  "We find, in opposition to previous studies, that there is no evidence of Granger causality from global carbon dioxide emission to global surface temperature. Further, we could not find robust empirical evidence for the causal nexus from global carbon dioxide concentration to global surface temperature."

[ancient_geezer]

see reply 48 above, for the core graphical representation of the paper.

[El Gato]

with those speeds how do people think they can pick up a radio signal from a plant in space that is also probably spinning also? i know this of target but??

Those speeds are pretty low compared to the speed of light. Thus the frequency shifts of radio waves are not large. And the radio waves propagate at the speed of light, regardless of the motion of the sender or receiver.

[headsonpikes]

Within 500 years almost certainly.

I wonder how the Luddite tree-huggers view that? As an opportunity to chill out?

An ice-age could start this coming winter.

[per loin]

Kuul! Thanks much.

[CatoRenasci]

I agree. I had weather bug for a year or so. Never seen so many popups or so much spyware in my life. I was sad to see it go, cause it's a nice to have program, just not worth the stuff with it.

[SamAdams76]

Well for what it's worth, there is an unusually large pool of cold air up north right now. Some of that cold air will descend into the United States next week, ending the growing season in a lot of areas. We could be in for a cold winter. I'm getting two cords of wood delivered shortly.