Is it true that the Earth will experience another Ice Age in the future?

Question

If it is true, when do scientists expect it to happen?

Answer 1

Probably. The planet has been in an 'ice age' cycle for about the last 2 million years. During the past few hundred thousand years, glacial periods have occurred on average every 100,000 years separated by an average of 10,000 years of interglacial conditions (relatively warm). The giant ice sheets of the last glacial maximum began retreating between 25 and 18,000 years ago. Between then and about 12,000 years ago the global climate gradually warmed. At 12,000 scientists have found evidence that most of the planet returned to glacial conditions for a 'short' time (~1,000 years; called the Younger Dryas). Abruptly, the climate came out of that cool spell and started warming again. Around 10,000 years ago the climate seemed to stabilize--at least only have minor variations (in contrast to large climate swings during ice ages)--this period is called the Holocene, and is commonly known as the interglacial period.

We are 10,000 years into the Holocene--or relatively stable climate--or interglacial. Interglacials--on average--last about 10,000 years. Some are shorter, some are longer. But I would say that we are on the brink of the next big one. Who knows, it may have already started. Human-induced warming may be melting ice at the poles, which in turn may increase the freshwater input to the oceans. A leading theory states that a large freshwater pulse to the North Atlantic and the continental shelves around Antarctica could "turn off" global ocean circulation (Google the great ocean conveyor--or thermohaline circulation). By turning off the circulation, heat is not vented from the oceans, and the atmosphere becomes cooler--and possibly turns the 'switch' to glacial period.

Paleoclimatologists dont understand fully the climate system. There are so many variables. Many of the data that back up these theories are from proxies--indirect evidence. Scientist core trees to look at tree rings, look at hundreds of feet of alternating light and dark depositional layers from ancient lakes (varves), map moraines and other glacial deposits, drill into the ocean bottom and retrieve ocean sediments that contain rock fragments or tiny oceanic fauna, core peat bogs to see the post-glacial vegetative progression of an area, etc. A lot of it is like looking for a needle in a haystack. As time goes on, scientists amass more data, and a clearer picture of the past will emerge. A cardinal rule of geology and climate science is that 'the past is the key to the future.'

Sorry, I wrote a ton! :0)

Answer 2

Yes, they happen in cycles, and one is overdue now, so it can come suddenly like the little ice age a few centuries ago, or it can come very slowly like the big ancient one. But no one knows what size it will be; big or small. And global warming might possibly be stopping it OR pushing it further along. No one's sure. But don't expect a "Day After Tommorow" type of thing.

Answer 3

We are currently in an Ice Age

Answer 4

Yes!! It will be called Ice Age 2: The Meltdown!!!

Answer 5

researchers have believe that a ice age will happen again.if u ever saw the movie day after tomorrow than u can see what can happen in your future.

Answer 6

Yes it could happen again. The cause of ice ages remains controversial for both the large-scale ice age periods and the smaller ebb and flow of glacial/interglacial periods within an ice age. The general consensus is that it is a combination of several important factors: atmospheric composition (the relative amounts of water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, sulfur dioxide, and various other gases and particulates in the atmosphere), changes in the Earth's orbit around the Sun known as Milankovitch cycles (and possibly the Sun's orbit around the galaxy), the motion of tectonic plates resulting in changes in the relative location and amount of continental and oceanic crust on the Earth's surface, variations in solar output, the orbital dynamics of the Earth-Moon system, the impact of relatively large meteorites, and eruptions of supervolcanoes.

The first of these factors is probably responsible for much of the change, especially for the first known ice age. The "Snowball Earth" hypothesis maintains that the severe freezing in the late Proterozoic was both caused and ended by changes in CO2 levels in the atmosphere. However, the other factors do matter in complex and interrelated ways.

An abundance of land within the Arctic and Antarctic Circles appears to be a necessity for an ice age, probably because the landmasses provide space on which snow and ice can accumulate during cooler times and thus trigger positive feedback processes like albedo changes. The Earth's orbit does not have a great effect on the long-term causation of ice ages, but does seem to dictate the pattern of multiple freezings and thawings that take place within the current ice age. The complex pattern of changes in Earth's orbit and the change of albedo may influence the occurrence of glacial and interglacial phases — this was first explained by the theory of Milutin Milanković.


A glacier carried away the missing half of Half Dome in Yosemite Valley.The present ice ages are the most studied and best understood, particularly the last 400,000 years, since this is the period covered by ice cores that record atmospheric composition and proxies for temperature and ice volume. Within this period, the match of glacial/interglacial frequencies to the Milanković orbital forcing periods is so good that orbital forcing is the generally accepted explanation. The combined effects of the changing distance to the sun, the precession of the Earth's axis, and the changing tilt of the Earth's axis can change and significantly redistribute the sunlight received by the Earth. Of particular importance are changes in the tilt of the Earth's axis, which impact the intensity of seasons. For example, the amount of solar influx in July at 65 degrees north latitude is calculated to vary by as much as 25% (from 400 W/m2 to 500 W/m2, see graph at [3]). It is widely believed that ice sheets advance when summers become too mild to melt all of the accumulated snowfall from the previous winter. Some workers believe that the strength of the orbital forcing appears to be too small to trigger glaciations, but feedback mechanisms like CO2 may explain this mismatch.

While Milanković forcing predicts that cyclic changes in the Earth's orbital parameters can be expressed in the glaciation record, additional explanations are necessary to explain which cycles are observed to be most important in the timing of glacial/interglacial periods. In particular, during the last 800 thousand years, the dominant inter/glacial oscillation has been 100 thousand years, which corresponds to changes in Earth's eccentricity and orbital inclination, and yet is by far the weakest of the three frequencies predicted by Milanković. During the period 3.0 — 0.8 million years ago, the dominant pattern of glaciation corresponded to the 41 thousand year period of changes in Earth's obliquity (tilt of the axis). The reasons for preferring one frequency to another are poorly understood and an active area of current research, but the answer probably relates to some form of resonance in the Earth's climate system.

The "traditional" Milankovitch explanation struggles to explain the dominance of the 100,000-year cycle over the last 8 cycles. Richard A. Muller and Gordon J. MacDonald [4] [5] [6] and others have pointed out that those calculations are for a two-dimensional orbit of Earth but the three-dimensional orbit also has a 100 thousand year cycle of orbital inclination. They proposed that these variations in orbital inclination lead to variations in insolation, as the earth moves in and out of known dust bands in the solar system. Although this is a different mechanism to the traditional view, the "predicted" periods over the last 400,000 years are nearly the same. The Muller and MacDonald theory, in turn, has been challenged by Rial .

Another worker, Ruddiman, has suggested a plausible model that explains the 100,000 cycle by the modulating effect of eccentricity (weak 100,000 year cycle) on precession (23,000 year cycle) combined with greenhouse gas feedbacks in the 41,000 and 23,000-year cycles. Yet another theory has been advanced by Peter Huybers who argued that the 41,000-year cycle has always been dominant, but that the Earth has entered a mode of climate behavior where only the 2nd or 3rd cycle triggers an ice age. This would imply that the 100,000-year periodicity is really an illusion created by averaging together cycles lasting 80 and 120 thousand years. This theory is consistent with the existing uncertainties in dating, but not widely accepted at present (Nature 434, 2005,

Answer 7

What if instead, the Erath was scortched with intense heat?

Answer 8

Nobody knows. And nobody - and I mean NOBODY - can accurately predict it.

Just bear in mind that you won't be around to see it, if and when it happens.

So don't panic, I suppose.

Answer 9

Yes. Hopefully it will occur after my lifetime.

Answer 10

yea I'm sure it will happen again... but not in our life time