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?

[ancient_geezer]

PS, The equator is always warmer than the poles. Figure it out for yourself

[Truth666]

Some facts that you might not know :
Many coral species die as soon as the water temperature reaches 30° C.
16 percent of the world coral reefs died in just one year (1998), due to El-Niño.
In 1998 this mass death was still a local phenomenon. Example : Chagos Reef ind the Indian Ocean lost 90% of its coral.
By 2000, with the continuation of abnormal high water temperatures, 27 percent pf the world coral reefs had died.

[ancient_geezer]

Many coral species die as soon as the water temperature reaches 30° C.
16 percent of the world coral reefs died in just one year (1998), due to El-Niño.

So? It only takes a few to survive through any excursion to assure the continuation of coral or any other species.

In 1998 this mass death was still a local phenomenon. Example : Chagos Reef ind the Indian Ocean lost 90% of its coral. By 2000, with the continuation of abnormal high water temperatures, 27 percent pf the world coral reefs had died

And this is your evidence that there never has been an iceage or warmer periods??

Coral continues to survive regardless of local phenomenon or even the excursion of a global order for there have obviously been areas on the earth for species to survive regardless of the extremes in localities. 10% made it Chagos Reef, in only takes a few to assure a survival adaptation across geological time.

[ancient_geezer]

And you can believe whatever graphics you want to be true. ... But I still believe facts and nothing but facts.

Facts like those I see daily outside my home of the glacial moraine left over from the last iceage you choose to ignore.

If I look behind my home I can see deposits with fossils of warm water critters I collected as a youngster from an earlier warm sea and a much warmer global climate.

If I wish, I need only travel a few miles to find the mountains of sea shells from that warm sea laid over a coal bed containing the impression of tropical ferns of a very ancient swamp from an even earlier warm period with the gravel & boulders left by glaciers between.

Very graphic indeed. Charts in stone no less of what those charts of temperature proxies from polar ice say.

Hard facts, a natural graph of stone no less, testifying to that which you chose to be blind to.