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Forums - General Discussion - Are We Going Into An Ice Age?

Slimebeast said:

Ok, I understand.

But still, when landmass was concentrated near the equator (the Pangea continent), wasn't that like +100 million of years ago? And I recall that I have seen numbers of past CO2 thrown around of at least 500ppm if not more. But perhaps those really high CO2 concentrations were pre-cambrian and after that it's been more or less stable in the 2-300ppm ballpark during almost 500 million years. Is that the current theory? Which would mean that our current 390ppm is a level we haven't seen in hundreds of millions of year. Is that the current theory, or have we had 500ppm levels after the cambrian, during interglacial periods or whatever?

I'm just curious.

It's likely that we had really high CO2 conc levels from end of perm to the end of the jurassic periode with 500-1000ppm(maybe even more) and up to the start of the neogene periode 22million years ago it still was about 300-400ppm - after that it dropped to the 250-280ppm and was pretty constant at that level until the 20th century.

The climate change I was refering took place ~280million years ago close to the start of the perm periode, temperatures went up significantly without much of a CO2 increase/at very low CO2 levels and yes that was after pangea was formed (pangea formed ~300m years ago and broke apart ~200m years ago)



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the 80s it was global cooling, 90s global warming, 2000;s global warming until the scam was uncovered with the "climate change forecasting software", now its climate change because its going to be 20-30 degrees Fahrenheit under the average for this time of year today in florida, and the eco-terrorists protesting global warming look like idiots in a blizzard.

i dont think they know enough to know shit to be honest, but that doesnt stop them from stealing more of your money so they can feel good about themselves.



 

Slimebeast said:
Also, I never understood what triggers the glacial-interglacial periods and the differences of at least 4 degrees Celcius (or is it even +6 degrees?).

I also haven't got a good explanation for the lag in CO2 concentration to temperature if CO2 is supposed to be the driving force or trigger.

There is probably a great many different factors that influence that.

As I said before the current landmass distribution does favor an ice age by itself and that seems to be the reason why the average state of earth in the last ~2.4 million years is a glacial period, yet when solar activity is high, the gulf stream strong, the earth-sun distance relatively small ( it's very constant to be honest, but there are ever so slight variances there) and maybe concentraton of climate active gases (CO2, methane, aqueous vapor,..) high enough then glaciers may melt faster in the (northern hemnisphere) summer than they are formed in the winter and if that continues long enough then the effect amplifies itself as less glaciers means less albedo, so more sunrays hit soil/rock or water and are converted to infra-red rays.

Additionally oceans and soil may store climate active gases, but frosted soil can't emit that again, so the less perma frosted soil there is the more of these stored gases can be released to the air and warmer oceans release more of these gases aswell as for example a lot of methane is stored as methane-hydrate, which destabilizes if temperatures increase (there are complex CO2 based mechanism in the oceans aswell).

And that again is probably the main reason for the CO2 lag - these gases are emitted much more easily if it's warmer. Volcanic activity, which can be another big source of those, ofcourse is totally unrelated to global mean temperatures though.



Well Australia had its hottest record in March LOL. Max temp and number of days over 30degrees C

so some place has to be colder to compensate.



 

 

Lafiel said:
mjk45 said:
Lafiel said:

I'm a geologist and there are several sound hypothesises how global warming can result in the next glacial period (or "Ice Age", although we consider this earth-epoch, the holocene, to be an "Ice Age" anyway with glacial and interglacial(warm) periods, yet most of the time it's cold).

Ofcourse other more popular hypothesises state that our climate changes to a "hot house climate", yet we have seen heatspikes at the end of several interglacial periods, so I personally think it's very possible that at the end of this current one we will see another glacial/ice age. Interesting times are ahead :).

How does this relate to the on going trend of  glacial retreat.

uhm.. I don't denie global warming, it's getting hotter, especially in the polar regions and glaciers are melting at an alarming pace, yet there are mechanisms how this might actually lead to a drastic cooling

the hypothesis is that europe and north america are warm right now mainly because of the gulf stream which flows from the caribean gulf to north of norway/svalbard and carries warm/ low on salt water at the surface and cold/highly saline water at the bottom - now global warming means that a lot of cool/cold fresh water is added to the ocean, but that water can't sink down as quickly as highly salted water does so the stream might weaken and not lead as far into the north anymore or even stop completely resulting in very very drastic cooling for the northern hemnisphere

different hypothesises say very similar things may happen in the pacific ocean, but frankly pacific ocean streams are barely researched at this point

Another thing is although there are a small % of glacier's expanding , the expansion is at a small rate and they tend to share a location , along with physical characteristics that make them susceptible too  increased rainfall and in some situations snowfall , and  that's now occurring because of evaporation from warming ocean water and prevailing winds , the increased rainfall acts as a lubricant , this reminds us that the worlds climate isn't uniform and a cooling or warming can effect parts of the world differently depending on geological terrain and other factors ,even those that are in a close proximity .



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It sucks to have an entire continent stuck on a pole for millions of years.

This planet was beautiful once - wet, warm, full of life on massive tropical rainforests and shallow seas, without massive deadspots like central asia or the sahara. But alas, all that carbon being sequestered wasn't easily replenished. 

We're growing on ruins we've learned to call home....



 

 

 

 

 

Lafiel said:
Slimebeast said:

I also haven't got a good explanation for the lag in CO2 concentration to temperature if CO2 is supposed to be the driving force or trigger.

CO2 is not the trigger, it can lead to increased warming or cooling. Depending where you dig into the ice, you'll find that CO2 concentrations either lead or lag temperature changes by several hundred years. There is a member potholer54 on youtube who has several vids that explain what you are looking for.



Oh, just figured I'd add onto the marvel that is this April for us.

Yes folks, yet another Winter Storm Warning (the 3rd one) has been issued for central/southern MN. Saint cloud should get accumulations of 4-9" (I'm thinking about 5-7 in about 8 hours based on models). Minus a few snow showers later this week, this should be the last large accumulating snow.

This should put St. Cloud at a total of over 25" for the month, with localized areas having over 30" for the month of April (that is very very high for any month of any year).



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haxxiy said:

It sucks to have an entire continent stuck on a pole for millions of years.

This planet was beautiful once - wet, warm, full of life on massive tropical rainforests and shallow seas, without massive deadspots like central asia or the sahara. But alas, all that carbon being sequestered wasn't easily replenished. 

We're growing on ruins we've learned to call home....

There will also be these "deadspots". Places like tundra, desert and mountains are just natural landscapes that form as the plates move around and bump into each other. Say, if Antarctica wasn't where it is today, there would still be ice. It just happens. And i wouldn't call them deadspots, as they still have wildlife just less than the forests and jungles. And i also blame people for areas with little wildlife left, we destroyed their home and made it ours, without thinking of the consequences. It's why places which have few people and have been undisturbed must be protected from us. Not just places like the Amazon rainforest but places like alot of Alaska too.  



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Yes we are. Just like last year we were facing global warming cuz the temperatures were higher than normal!