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Author Topic: Global Warming and the Next Ice Age
al-Qa'bong
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posted 03 February 2004 02:21 AM      Profile for al-Qa'bong   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
We could use an "Environment" Section.

How Global Warming May Cause the Next Ice Age...

quote:
In quick summary, if enough cold, fresh water coming from the melting polar ice caps and the melting glaciers of Greenland flows into the northern Atlantic, it will shut down the Gulf Stream, which keeps Europe and northeastern North America warm. The worst-case scenario would be a full-blown return of the last ice age - in a period as short as 2 to 3 years from its onset - and the mid-case scenario would be a period like the "little ice age" of a few centuries ago that disrupted worldwide weather patterns leading to extremely harsh winters, droughts, worldwide desertification, crop failures, and wars around the world.


According to discoveries mentioned in this article, ice ages don't come about gradually, but can occur in a year or two, as climate trends flip from warm to cold.

People on the West Coast should be safe enough...

[ 03 February 2004: Message edited by: al-Qa'bong ]


From: Saskatchistan | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged
CMOT Dibbler
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Babbler # 4117

posted 03 February 2004 04:51 PM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by al-Qa'bong:
We could use an "Environment" Section.

How Global Warming May Cause the Next Ice Age...


According to discoveries mentioned in this article, ice ages don't come about gradually, but can occur in a year or two, as climate trends flip from warm to cold.

People on the West Coast should be safe enough...

[ 03 February 2004: Message edited by: al-Qa'bong ]


We have drouts and harsh winters already...


From: Just outside Fernie, British Columbia | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
Agent 204
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posted 03 February 2004 08:41 PM      Profile for Agent 204   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I wonder what the effects would be in central and western North America? It sounds like the east is in for some very serious trouble (though maybe not as bad as Europe, I don't know).

According to this article it won't necessarily go back to the state of maximum glaciation, though it would still be catastrophic. Unfortunately I think there's a very good chance that we are headed for some very bad times in the near future. We should do our utmost to avoid it, of course, but maybe those of us in the know about it should be planning for the possibility of it happening too.


From: home of the Guess Who | Registered: Nov 2003  |  IP: Logged
Cougyr
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posted 04 February 2004 01:19 PM      Profile for Cougyr     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
This speculation goes a long way back. It's part of the reason that big industry won't take global warming seriously. How can you have global warming when some scientists talk about the coming ice age?
From: over the mountain | Registered: Nov 2002  |  IP: Logged
al-Qa'bong
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posted 04 February 2004 01:35 PM      Profile for al-Qa'bong   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Strange irony isn't it? Global warming, which melts the arctic ice cap, will cool the Gulf Stream, thus shutting down the conveyor, which will cause continental glaciation.

Everything is cyclical.

[ 04 February 2004: Message edited by: al-Qa'bong ]


From: Saskatchistan | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged
DownTheRoad
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posted 04 February 2004 01:38 PM      Profile for DownTheRoad     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Nice to see that one major US government agency is taking it seriously:
quote:
Global warming may be bad news for future generations, but let's face it, most of us spend as little time worrying about it as we did about al Qaeda before 9/11. Like the terrorists, though, the seemingly remote climate risk may hit home sooner and harder than we ever imagined. In fact, the prospect has become so real that the Pentagon's strategic planners are grappling with it.

Uh oh.

From: land of cotton | Registered: Oct 2003  |  IP: Logged
Bubbles
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posted 04 February 2004 02:47 PM      Profile for Bubbles        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Look at the opportunities an 'instand' ice age has to offer.

There could be a run on rooftop escape hatches.

The idea that in a few years we could be covered in twenty feet of snow and ice. They better figure out how we all are going to fit in BC, the Yukon and Banks Island. Something for the new national emergency department to figure out.

Sky scraper construction could be a hot item too.


Just as someone mentioned this possibillity of another ice age is not new, we talked about this 20 years ago already. But that it could be on us so quickly is rather troubling, how could one prepare for something like that. A 10,000 year hibernation? Maybe if we could reduce ourself to the size of microbes.


Construction of reflectors in space to create some warm oasis in this huge ice desert.


This is too dreadfull to contemplate. We probably will all be froozen into inaction by this aproaching possibillity.


From: somewhere | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged
Rufus Polson
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posted 04 February 2004 06:24 PM      Profile for Rufus Polson     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Well it may be true but it would be just one trend among many. I think you'd get a short-term, and perhaps serious, cooling in that particular region--but don't forget the gulf stream circulates heat, it doesn't create heat. The polar ice cap would still be gone, and so the ocean there would be absorbing rather than reflecting heat. And the overall greenhouse effect wouldn't have gone away. If anything, the cooling in that one region might make the heating in other regions worse, as they kept heat that used to be pumped away from them by the gulf stream.
From: Caithnard College | Registered: Nov 2002  |  IP: Logged
Bubbles
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posted 04 February 2004 06:38 PM      Profile for Bubbles        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I Guess a bit like the circulation fan stopping on your furnace (without safety switch). Blazing hot in the furnace room and freezing cold in the living room. I agree somewhere along the line a new ballance gets established, but will we be able to cope with the change?

Time to get a nice sailing boat.


From: somewhere | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
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posted 10 February 2004 01:56 AM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Some thoughts on Earth...

quote:
Before I flew I was already aware of how small and vulnerable our planet is; but only when I saw it from space, in all its ineffable beauty and fragility, did I realize that human kind's most urgent task is to cherish and preserve it for future generations.
- Sigmund Jähn, German Democratic Republic

From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
DonnyBGood
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posted 10 February 2004 08:09 PM      Profile for DonnyBGood     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I think it is kind of romantic, an ice age! Bearskin clothing, stone tools, mile high glaciers knocking down the New York skyscape...

Hey!

This has got to be an Al Queda plot secretly planned by the oil lobby...

...or not


From: Toronto | Registered: Jan 2004  |  IP: Logged
CMOT Dibbler
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posted 10 February 2004 08:25 PM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by DonnyBGood:
I think it is kind of romantic, an ice age! Bearskin clothing, stone tools, mile high glaciers knocking down the New York skyscape...

Hey!

This has got to be an Al Queda plot secretly planned by the oil lobby...

...or not



Sorry dude, I can't find anything even remotley amusing about this. That's why I try not to think about it...


From: Just outside Fernie, British Columbia | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged

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