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To: ReadTheLaw
"A new sudden Ice Age would leave all the world's harbors landlocked with catastrophic...."

The article speaks of a Maunder Minimum type cooling, not a new "sudden Ice Age". Even at the height of the last ice age latitudes up to 38 degrees were free of glacial ice. Snowball earth was 600 million years ago and is not likely to be repeated over the next few election cycles.

20 posted on 08/21/2009 12:19:50 AM PDT by Justa
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To: Justa
Ah, yes, but... If you study the cycles over the last few million years, we are overdue to drop into a real period of glaciation. Not a "Snowball Earth", but, then again, the last period of normal cold / extensive glaciation nearly killed off humankind.

Our present interglacial period has lasted longer (and been more stable) than any in the last several million years. Interglacials are normally short. It may be that humans have had some effect, in that regard, though also it is of note that temperatures in the current interglacial have NOT exceeded the peak of the last interglacial. If we have had an effect, it seems to be mostly a "buffering" effect, and no one can tell me anyone knows if the effect is enough to continue overriding the overall pattern. Similarly, no one really knows how much of a dip might trigger a greater drop.

Shoot, we were supposed to be rained on like crazy, yesterday, much of the day, and we got nary a drop.

25 posted on 08/21/2009 1:29:32 AM PDT by Paul R. (We are in a break in an Ice Age. A brief break at that...)
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