Earth could plunge into sudden ice age

[Mudoria]

Source: MSNBC

In the film, "The Day After Tomorrow," the world gets gripped in ice within the span of just a few weeks. Now research now suggests an eerily similar event might indeed have occurred in the past.

Looking ahead to the future, there is no reason why such a freeze shouldn't happen again — and in ironic fashion it could be precipitated if ongoing changes in climate force the Greenland ice sheet to suddenly melt, scientists say.

Starting roughly 12,800 years ago, the Northern Hemisphere was gripped by a chill that lasted some 1,300 years. Known by scientists as the Younger Dryas and nicknamed the"Big Freeze," geological evidence suggests it was brought on when a vast pulse of fresh water — a greater volume than all of North America's Great Lakes combined — poured into the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans.



Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34242705/?GT1=43001

[paulsby]

1. "looking ahead to the future"

brought to you by the "department of redundancy department"

[kestrel91316]

31. Read with humor by Dr. kestrel, DVM.

[underpants]

2. Oh boy! the RW will turn themselves inside out on this one

of course not telling the audience the entire story

[mwb970]

5. It's funny how important it is to the wingnuts that climate change not be real.

Glaciers melting, icecaps disappearing, weather patterns changing, and all we get from the right is "Liberal rubbish!"

An article in this morning's Columbus Dispatch tells about the residents of a tiny town in Alaska whose lives have been turned upside down by climate change. I was wondering as I read what these people would say to the likes of Sen. Inhofe (R-Crazytown) when he says that the changes they are experiencing are not in fact occurring.

[xultar]

13. But if you look at it, it shows how hypocritical they are...a sudden ice age is a climate change...

if you can believe in it getting suddenly cold why can't you believe in it growing gradually hotter.

Feel me?

[yellowcanine]

27. Sen Inhofe (R-Jesus) should be exiled to the Maldives. Let him contemplate the oceans rising there.

http://www1.american.edu/ted/ice/maldives.htm

[kestrel91316]

32. When the waves overtake the Maldives, Inhofe will deny they ever existed.

[KamaAina]

34. Sweet! The Maldives is a Muslim country.

:P

[SoCalDem]

45. Inhofe's Christmas lights?

[JVS]

3. BRING IT ON!

[TexasProgresive]

4. This possible scenario is not a new idea

That has been one of the concerns of warming that it would cause a melt large enough to disrupt the Atlantic Conveyor.

[14thColony]

6. Exactly right

That an overall global temperature rise could lead to regional temperature drops was and still is a prediction of the theory. But it's counter-intuitive and requires thought and a willingness to make an effort to understand something slightly complicated, so most people will simply dismiss it.

[trotsky]

11. Or they won't just dismiss it.

They'll take it as "proof" that global warming either doesn't exist, or would actually be a good thing to "offset" this.

Oy.

[SkyDaddy7]

12. Many Americans do not trust science...

It bothers me so much that 63% of Americans think Evolution is a lie and that transfers over to global warming and to science in general. Folks feel science threatens their religion so they block it out. The Republicans use this willful ignorance to their advantage in so many ways!

[KakistocracyHater]

39. it's because their local churches tell them science is a big lie

too bad there isn't a National Science Breakfast, to counter the nonsense passed around the National Prayer Breakfast. I guess I can only dream it.

[SkyDaddy7]

44. I know! I live in the deep south and folks down here...

Take great pride in their utter ignorance! However, it would not be so bad if the problem was simply a southern problem, its not! I am the first to admit we southerners are not the brightest group of folks in the country...But when it comes to believing in Bronze Age Myths and denying reality it is a nationwide problem! One that is getting worse not better!

[dipsydoodle]

7. Not only that

Apparently the resultant reduction in land mass exposed to the sun could be significant enough to precipitate and new ice age.

[valerief]

19. Yep. I first heard of it from Al. It's very scary. Scarier than 100 al Qaeda dudes. nt

[WriteDown]

20. Its probably not new because..

its happened before. :)

[Lorien]

35. Al Gore discussed that in "An Inconvenient Truth"

He said that the freeze wouldn't happen overnight, but probably within a period of ten years once Greenland's glaciers melted.

[Blandocyte]

8. Growing up in the 70s

we were getting ready for the coming ice age. Even mentioned in the Clash's "London Calling." I'm ready. I have a thick wool scarf.

;-)

[a la izquierda]

9. It's a good thing I love Mexico...

and so far, the Mexican government likes me back.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

15. No need for that scarf 'cos the sun is zooming in.

[depakid]

29. Only if you read stupid shit on the "popular" press

and didn't pay attention in science class.

[zeemike]

10. There is another explanation that is not well received.

And that is a shift of the polar axis.
But they do need to explain things like finding a heard of Mastodons standing in a heard frozen solid in the ice.

and to me it poses a question...if the earth gets out of balance by the melting of the polar ice cap could it trigger a precession of the solar axis....like a gyroscope precesses suddenly?

[L. Coyote]

50. Not well received because it is pure crap.

melting polar ice caps restores balance because fluids migrate and ice does not.

the earth does not have a "solar axis" but an axis of rotation, and that already has a precession caused by gravitation of other solar system bodies.

inertia is the force you should consider, and the amount of energy needed to counter it.

[NOW tense]

14. 12,800 years = about half of the Earth's Precession.

The wobble takes 26,000 years to complete. Just an interesting side note.

[paparush]

16. DING DING!

Science strikes again!

The Earth goes through one such complete precessional cycle in a period of approximately 25,800 years, during which the positions of stars as measured in the equatorial coordinate system will slowly change; the change is actually due to the change of the coordinates. Over this cycle the Earth's north axial pole moves from where it is now, within 1° of Polaris, in a circle around the ecliptic pole, with an angular radius of about 23.5 degrees (or approximately 23 degrees 27 arcminutes <2>). The shift is 1 degree in 72 years, where the angle is taken from the observer, not from the center of the circle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precession

[Lorien]

38. Wrong science. This has nothing to do with natural cycles. nt

[paparush]

47. So natural cycles have just, what, stopped?

I'm not diminishing man's complicity in climate change. I believe that completely. I also believe that the earth is not, nor ever has been, a static system.

[Lorien]

37. Ten years from the melt to a new ice age. nt

[NOW tense]

43. Hmmm

point taken.

[AngryAmish]

17. The year 1994:

From out of space comes a runaway
planet, hurtling between the Earth and the Moon,
unleashing cosmic destruction. Man's civilization is
cast in ruin.

Two thousand years later, Earth is reborn...

A strange new world rises from the old: a world of
savagery, super science, and sorcery. But one man
bursts his bonds to fight for justice! With his companions
Ookla the Mok and Princess Ariel, he pits his strength,
his courage, and his fabulous Sunsword against the
forces of evil.

He is Thundarr, the Barbarian!

[jayfish]

18. Give Me A Sunsword Over A Lightsaber Any Day Of The Week. -NT-

Jay

[EnviroBat]

23. Wow, when I was a kid I always wished I could "ride" Ariel...

[slackmaster]

21. If the Younger Dryass was that bad, think of what the Older Dryass must have been like

:hide:

[Skink]

25. I'll take the dry Tortugas anyday.

:beer:

[slackmaster]

28. Make mine a dry Martini

[FarCenter]

22. Some nice graphs for temperature change in Greenland for Younger Dryas

http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/pi/arch/examples.shtml
Two examples of abrupt climate change.

The web site also discusses another mega-drought event in the Mid-East.

[WriteDown]

24. What did the people who lived over 12.8K years ago do to cause....

the Younger Dryas. Maybe we need to learn from their mistakes.

[beardown]

30. Eureka

I got it. At first I didn't see the profound principle within your statement, but then it hit me. If people did not, nay, could not cause the last great climate change then people are not causing it now. Brilliant in it's simplicity and truth. I'm putting your principle to good use right away.

For years I've followed Smokey the Bears' advice about preventing forest fires by dousing my camp fire and by not throwing lit matches into dry forests. However, I know that the last big forest fire hereabouts was caused by a lightning strike and not a camp fire or matches. I'm going out this weekend to have my first truly free experience in the forest. I'm going to be building camp fires the size of houses and throwing whole boxes of burning matches into the dry tinder and loving every second of it.

First it was Al Gore and now Smokey the Bear. The list of lying liberals grows larger every day.

[nashville_brook]

40. teehee...well done.

[WriteDown]

41. If you see a forest fire....

do you assume arson or lightning?

[beardown]

48. If I observe it, I don't assume at all.

It's like if I observe that the overwhelming majority of climate scientists and climate study organizations say there is a 90 percent probability that man is contributing to global warming I don't assume it's sun spots or Rush Limbaugh farts.

On the other hand, when people go through extreme mental contortions to try and deny or diminish the science supporting global warming I can't observe their motives and I have to make assumptions. I might assume that they do so because they are too weak or inflexible to handle the sacrifices that may be needed to fix things so they want to delay the fix as long as possible. I might assume that they are so tied to a ideology that they can't process any information no matter how factually based it is that conflicts with their ideology.

I realize that you have to technically make an assumption if it's only a 90 percent situation, but in the real world if five cancer doctors tell you that there is a 90 percent chance that if you quit smoking it will cure your cancer, you quit smoking and you don't take the advice of the crazy guy with the hacking cough down on the corner who said it's just a plot by the cancer doctors to hurt the tobacco companies' profits.

[L. Coyote]

51. Move to America with fire?

Actually, the human fire in America alteration has not been given serious scientific study, but should be considered.

It is thought that massive glacial lakes in Canada were unleashed by the climate changes.
Another scenario involves a comet hitting the Canadian ice shield, resulting in the lakes emptying.

[yellowcanine]

26. Global Warming could trigger an ice age? Way too complex for the GW skeptics to comprehend.

currents smurrents. George Will's head will explode. Not too mention triggering an onslaught of Will columns loaded with single word "sentences" such as "Perhaps." and "Well!"

[NYC Democrat]

33. meh Id just move to Puerto Rico or something.

[Lorien]

36. Yeah, like that would help.

It would be frozen-with a lot of very dead flora and fauna and starving people.

[KillCapitalism]

42. You're probably right.

If this scenario plays out, anyplace above 10* lattitude on either hemisphere is probably going to be completely uninhabitable.

[L. Coyote]

52. Wrong.

Hominids survived the ice age above 45 degrees, and fully modern humans survived the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) in France. The LGM did empty Siberia above 60 degrees. Ocean moderated coastal refugia are no longer in evidence due to oceans rising, but they are always very different than continental climates.

"One woman, one child, one century, = one billion people" may be too slow a demographic adjustment is an ice age begins. Reduced population will happen by necessity, if not by force of starvation.

[marshall]

46. Movies are usually based on elements of truth

That is what draws in the audience.

[L. Coyote]

49. Temperate zone myopia at work

The tropics are not plunged into an ice age when the temperate zones are. Europe and the northern latitudes should worry, of course, but tropical zones would be little affected. The Atlantic conveyor is especially relevant to northern Eurasia.

[earth mom]

53. We are SO fucked. Obama is only going to Copenhagen on the last day, Gore cancelled his speech

at Copenhagen...

Sorry, but I don't have a good feeling that anything will be solved-not with the fucking corporations in charge in Washington DC!

:grr: