You said — We are 5,000 years overdue for the next glacial cycle, and folks who know that are disturbed that there are those who want to put an end to Global Warming...
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It’s a sort of “convoluted process” that is going for the why and how the sun affects the weather here on earth. It’s not as straightforward as you might think. Take a look at that video in Post #17 and that will give you some idea about it. It may *surprise you* for the reason why things warm up and then cool down ... on earth.
It doesn’t have to do with the sun (necessarily) heating up and cooling off, but rather with the sunspot activity. But, the sunspot activity actually affects *something else* and *not* directly the weather on earth... surprise, surprise... LOL...
Anyway, when there is a sunspot minimum for a long period of time, then you’re going to get cooler weather. But, when there is increased sunspot activity over a longer period of time, then you’re going to have things warm up.
We’re in what is similar to a “Dalton Minimum” right now...., and that will probably mean colder weather for another decade, a shift in the grow zones, to the south, by one grow zone (across this country) and then about a 30% loss in crop output in the U.S. over the next decade because of that...
Dalton Minimum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalton_Minimum
And then for the “Little Ice Age” we had a few hundred years ago, look at...
Maunder Minimum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum
Little Ice Age
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age
Rather chilling relationships in fact.
I’m just guessing that muawiyah has been looking at the cyclic temperature pattern of the last 5 million years or more, and then comparing that to our present, very unusual interglacial period. We don’t have, you know, sunspot records going back 5 million years, though we do have some other partial data in some areas, over that period.
At any rate, our present interglacial period is not following the pattern: Temps have NOT peaked as high as the last few interglacials, and even more interestingly, instead of peaking and falling back off rapidly, as is virtually always the case, so far as we know, temperatures sort of maxed out (just barely below where they’ve been the last couple decades) and then just sort of levelled off. (The climate variations of the Dalton and Maunder Minimums are almost insignificant compared to the greater cyclic variations.) So, what I look at, and maybe muawiyah too(?) is the fact that we are overdue for a drop into a period of glaciation (normal climate, actually) that will make the Little Ice Age look like a moment of warm spring breeze, by comparison.
Looking at the longer term pattern, one might conclude that this present “flat” period is so unusual, that there almost has to be something going on that wasn’t happening in past cycles. Could it be Man? I don’t know of anyone who can really disprove the notion.
But, if Man is having an effect, how long will his puny activities counter the massive normal cycle? Given that even minor variations like the sunspot activity we are discussing here seem to be able to override any trend Man might cause, this is a most interesting, and potentially deadly, question. If nothing else, carbon based fuels WILL run out soon (on a geologic time scale), and then what?
Either way (Man does or does not have a significant effect), looking at the long term patterns, one can only come to one conclusion: Without interference by Man on a much greater scale than anyone has been debating in this thread, in the relatively near future, Chicago WILL be back to “normal”: Under a mile of ice.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ice_Age_Temperature.png
