Ice age on the way (merged threads)

[Arrows]

yeah, lol probably won't work that way, knowing our luck

[Gray-Wolf]

The possibility that we must keep reminding ourselves of is that we, human beings , have released large amounts of 'deep stored ' greenhouse gasses (some have not seen the light of day in 345 million years) into our atmosphere recently and as such studies of what occurred in the previously 'sealed' climate at the end of the most recent ice age cannot indicate what this 'man made' climate will react like under a similar set of parameters.

In economics things are often pre-fixed with "all other things being equal" and maybe, when looking at a time before humans let the Greenhouse gas Genie out of the bottle, we should apply a similar disclaimer.

[drgl]

I would say as well as looking at our emissions we really need to kerb the destruction of the rain forests. To me this is much more concerning at the moment-that could be the only way the Earth will rebalance the atmosphere. Think of it like a filter-no filter the fumes get worse & worse...........

[Optimus Prime]

Isn't it too late already? If everyone stopped using their cars, stopped chopping down the rainforests and turned of all the power stations we've already done the damage.

Some parts of the arctic are the most polluted areas on earth because air circulating around the earth gathers pollution from all of our cities. I doubt we'll be changing our impact anytime soon.

[Gray-Wolf]

I would tend to agree that the damage is far to great (and will continue to amass even if we stopped all polluting tomorrow) to do anything other than try to turn adversity into advantage (a thing that has brought humankind to this juncture).

I wouldn't think that the majority of people will adopt this philosophy and will therefore be amongst the reduction in human poulation that the changes will enforce. Maybe after the initial crisis the remnants of humankind can stand a better chance of living within the changes (and of course the majority of the polluting will have ceased) and re-build a semblance of the world we currently enjoy but , as you point out, we are already doomed!!!

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

Way too much doom and gloom on here, i'm checking out of this topic as it is OTT

BFTP

[drgl]

Way too much doom and gloom on here, i'm checking out of this topic as it is OTT

BFTP

lol-i don't think it's too late by a long shot. Cheer up

[Guest Mike W]

I did heaar about someone called James Lovelock who says that he thinks that it's too late, even if we stopped it all, to the point where he saying that we should be implementing Geo-engineering right now, such as cloud seeing, ginat mirrors's etc in order to eleveate the warming and stop the catstrophe etc.

[Snowly does it]

Man, has the heat made everyone into sad puppies or what?

I think 'too late' is a little premature right now (love love love that sentence)

[Guest Mike W]

Record breaking temps are nothing surprising considering we are under global warming, which is being accelerated by stringent clean air acts which make sure we don't emmit any sulphates that cool the planet but don't mind if you heat the planet with CO2 and other warming agents. Something hopefully they will change. In my view past years from the early 80's and beyond are no guide to our present state as SO2 and soot played too big a part in CET's back then, like getting a cool and wet summers after 1976 summer was thanks to sulphates that we were emmiting enough of to counteract any warming. Bascially we are under new condtions, no masking anymore that we used to have, which has been the case since the late 80's really, 91-93/94 was dowbn to the pintatobo eruption, which was VEI6, big enough to cause some tempory cooling. If Pinatobo didn't go off 91 -93 would all have been 10.** with maybe 93 being a 9.8* - 9.9*. 1976 had 4 average [61-90] months compared to the 1 or 2 that we get these days. Their are other examples like 1983 aswell. But if 1976 had just the same stringent cleana ir acts now it would have been lucky to get 1 average month. My point isn't so much about making it a bit more lenient on sulphates but more to do with including warming agents into the act and being more stricter on the warming agents than on the cooling ones as they are more of a problem at present than coolingones, cooling is something we could do with after all.

Edited July 25, 2006 by Mike W

[Dawlish]

Record breaking temps are nothing surprising considering we are under global warming, which is being accelerated by stringent clean air acts which make sure we don't emmit any sulphates that cool the planet but don't mind if you heat the planet with CO2 and other warming agents. Something hopefully they will change. In my view past years from the early 80's and beyond are no guide to our present state as SO2 and soot played too big a part in CET's back then, like getting a cool and wet summers after 1976 summer was thanks to sulphates that we were emmiting enough of to counteract any warming. Bascially we are under new condtions, no masking anymore that we used to have, which has been the case since the late 80's really, 91-93/94 was dowbn to the pintatobo eruption, which was VEI6, big enough to cause some tempory cooling. If Pinatobo didn't go off 91 -93 would all have been 10.** with maybe 93 being a 9.8* - 9.9*. 1976 had 4 average [61-90] months compared to the 1 or 2 that we get these days. Their are other examples like 1983 aswell. But if 1976 had just the same stringent cleana ir acts now it would have been lucky to get 1 average month. My point isn't so much about making it a bit more lenient on sulphates but more to do with including warming agents into the act and being more stricter on the warming agents than on the cooling ones as they are more of a problem at present than coolingones, cooling is something we could do with after all.

Hi Mike.

I've read your posts on the effects of the clean air act, on GW, with interested scepticism, but I'm hooked; you've got me properly interested and I'd like to learn more and decide for myself. Would you lead me to the research, please?

I'm not convinced, but I could be. I have a completely open mind on the subject.

Regards, Paul

Edited July 25, 2006 by Dawlish

[Guest Mike W]

The research, or connections are available on the internet, google search will direct you to the information, you can also get graphs that show the rapid rise in CO2 levels at the same time as sharp reduction in SO2 and soot levels aswell. Their was a programme about this on Horizon, confusingly called Global Dimming when really it was expaling that Global Dimming was something that we had when we were still emmiting notable amounts of SO2 and soot but we are not anymore and we now have Global Brightening, where more and more soalr radiation is getting through which in turn adds more CO2 tothe atmosphere adding more to Global Warming and accelerating the Global Warming we have. The problem ATM is that CO2 and methane and any other warming agents I may have missed are not considered as pollutants and are therefore not on any of the worlds Clean Acts.

Edited July 25, 2006 by Mike W

[Dawlish]

The research, or connections are available on the internet, google search will direct you to the information, you can also get graphs that show the rapid rise in CO2 levels at the same time as sharp reduction in SO2 and soot levels aswell. It's not really about a reduction in SO2 causuing global warming, the reduction only on coolants causes the acceleration in the warming. Their was alos a programme in the Horizon series on Global dimming and that clean air acts are causing an acceleraion and as they are getting more stringent on coolants temperatures will rise faster and faster and higher than expected becasue they fail to treat warming agents as pollutants and the only one on the act NO2 is not being reduced properly either. So it's not so much about scrap the act it's about counter balancing the act so that you loosen the law a bit on coolants but add warming agents like CO2 and methane to the act and be more stingent on them and less so on the coolants that don't hang around for long anyway, a week to 2 months top on SO2 and only a week to 2 on soot, which should still be on the act but not as strict as on the warming ones which are our main problem ATM.

Well, I really was prepared to give it credence, but if I'm expected to do the research myself, I doubt whether I'll bother and I'll remain interested, but sceptical of your Clean Air Act viewpoint, Mike.

Paul

[Guest Mike W]

Dawlish you won't need to do any research it's all ready been done apparantly: Here's some links about tit that you asked for: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes...g_summary.shtml

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7346

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2005-...ightening_x.htm

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0512/p13s02-sten.html

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=154

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/200504051...trunc_sys.shtml

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4880328.stm

Edited July 26, 2006 by Mike W

[Dawlish]

Dawlish you won't need to do any research it's all ready been done apparantly: Here's some links about tit that you asked for: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes...g_summary.shtml

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7346

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2005-...ightening_x.htm

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0512/p13s02-sten.html

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=154

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/200504051...trunc_sys.shtml

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4880328.stm

Ah! Thanks Mike. I'll get into those later today. The hedges call!

Paul

[VillagePlank]

The research, or connections are available on the internet, google search will direct you to the information, you can also get graphs that show the rapid rise in CO2 levels at the same time as sharp reduction in SO2 and soot levels aswell. Their was a programme about this on Horizon, confusingly called Global Dimming when really it was expaling that Global Dimming was something that we had when we were still emmiting notable amounts of SO2 and soot but we are not anymore and we now have Global Brightening, where more and more soalr radiation is getting through which in turn adds more CO2 tothe atmosphere adding more to Global Warming and accelerating the Global Warming we have. The problem ATM is that CO2 and methane and any other warming agents I may have missed are not considered as pollutants and are therefore not on any of the worlds Clean Acts.

Again, looking at graphs B)

Try obtaining the original source data . . .

[Gray-Wolf]

It was post 'Pinatubo effects' that I really started to notice things altering. The late 80's early 90's did throw up a large amount of 'hottest ever', ''wettest ever', 'dryest ever' type records but then Pinatubo mitigated things for 5 years but since then things have hotted up again (our 2003 summer, last years Hurricane season+ Hybrids,etc) and I fear that the changes will be more logrithmic than linear in nature.

[Guest Daniel]

According to a Russian Scientist the current warm spell would sone end and we would suffer another little ice age which would reach its peak around 2060. If he is right than we can expect much colder winters in England with frozen rivers and harbours higher rainfall and more storms. But some summers will continue to be very hot as they were in the 16th and 17th centuries. Average temps will fall in England by around 2 degrees celius in the comming years. The last little ice age in England was period of bitter winters and frost fairs on the thames. Though in a future little ice its unlikerly the Thames in the heart of London will freeze solid due to the heat island effect. though it will out side london. In the coldest of those winters snow lay on the ground for up to a 100 days in Central England. Average winter temps were 2 degress colder than Today. Yet summers were often warm and hot in the very same time period that our rivers froze. though they were also some cold ones as well. As for the Future if these Russian Scientist are right then severe winters in England will be common and polar and mountain ice sheets will start to grow. Not only that we are at the end of the warm spell between major ice ages and if if conditions are right any little ice age that causes the ice sheets to grow to start a cycle that will lead to even greater cooling and an another proper big ice age. you will find this artical in iceage now.

Edited August 28, 2006 by Daniel

[Devonian]

According to a Russian Scientist the current warm spell would sone end and we would suffer another little ice age which would reach its peak around 2060. If he is right than we can expect much colder winters in England with frozen rivers and harbours higher rainfall and more storms. But some summers will continue to be very hot as they were in the 16th and 17th centuries. Average temps will fall in England by around 2 degrees celius in the comming years. The last little ice age in England was period of bitter winters and frost fairs on the thames. Though in a future little ice its unlikerly the Thames in the heart of London will freeze solid due to the heat island effect. though it will out side london. In the coldest of those winters snow lay on the ground for up to a 100 days in Central England. Average winter temps were 2 degress colder than Today. Yet summers were often warm and hot in the very same time period that our rivers froze. though they were also some cold ones as well. As for the Future if these Russian Scientist are right then severe winters in England will be common and polar and mountain ice sheets will start to grow. Not only that we are at the end of the warm spell between major ice ages and if if conditions are right any little ice age that causes the ice sheets to grow to start a cycle that will lead to even greater cooling and an another proper big ice age. you will find this artical in iceage now.

Wolf!

[drgl]

De Ja Vu?!

[flagpole]

another one?!

[johnholmes]

surprise surprise Daniel.

tell us another one do!

[The Penguin]

Daniel - nobody, but nobody, knows what kind of weather we’ll have in fifty years. Maybe climate change will have evolved and we’ll have colder weather than today. Then again maybe it will fizzle out and we will have very similar conditions to now, or global warming will prove to be true and we will have a warmer climate. A minimal variation either way is entirely possible, but the massive global deep freeze you are looking for is far less so. But just supposing for a moment that we could find ourselves in the middle of a sudden fifty year ice age. The cause of such an event within your timescale is most likely to be associated with a large meteor impact, or a major volcanic eruption, and nothing whatsoever to do with any convoluted train of events you’ll find in IAN

[Essan]

If he is right than we can expect much colder winters in England with frozen rivers and harbours higher rainfall and more storms.

No snow then

[VillagePlank]

We are witnessing the process of moderation. Firstly, it was a full-blown ice-age; at least now we're into a little ice age. Can't wait to reduce the predictions to a cold February which, I think, on the basis of Daniel's trend will take another 6/7 months; which should be just in time for the May SST's and the Feb of 2008.

Edited August 28, 2006 by Wilson