How does global warming lead to Ice Age?

Answer 1

The warming of the North polar ice cap releases large numbers of icebergs into the North Atlantic. As these drift south and melt they cool the water around them. This can have the effect of 'turning off' the warm Atlantic current known as the Gulf stream which keeps North and North Western Europe (including the UK) in a relatively mild temporate zone. If the Gulf Stream is turned off or diverted further South, then paradoxically the UK will be subject to more severe and colder winters.

Answer 2

Right now the northern Atlantic coasts have a several degrees higher average temperature than the northern Pacific or Siberian inland regions. The reason for this is of course the Gulf Stream.

The Gulf Stream flows northwards on the surface of the Atlantic. In order to do so, the water must go somewhere in the northern Atlantic. What happens is that the salt rich (evaporated, e.g. in the Caribbean) water cools down and becomes heavy enough to sink all the way to the ocean bottom. At the same time in the equatorial region water wells up to replace the evaporation losses and the water going north with the Gulf Stream. In effect, there is a depth counter current to the Gulf Stream which is fed by the salt rich water of the Gulf Stream.

What happens right now in the arctic seas is that lots of ice melts in summer. In summer 2006, any ship (not an icebreaker) could have sailed right to the north pole. The ice contains no salt, so the melt-off is sweet water.

The melt-off thins the salt content of the water brought north by the Gulf Stream, so that less heavy cold water takes longer to sink down. The downward current may get cut off, and as a result the entire current system may come to a stop.

Come the winter, the less salty water will allow a greater expanse of the shelf ice, pushing southward rather quickly.

If that happens, northern Europe and eastern Canada (and New England) will cool down significantly. Snow won't melt until well into the summer, and the higher reflexion of light on its surface will take in less sunlight (locally). The northern Atlantic region would freeze over. Geological determinations of water temperatures before the coasts show that such a cooling may take as little as 50 to 100 years (though not a single year, as in a certain Hollywood movie).

As a side effect, the warm water now gets trapped in the equatorial region, leading to huge clouds pushed high up, then moving northward to deposit their water in the cold. Hurricanes could become even more frequent than they are now. The temperature in the tropical regions might rise while the arctic cools down. The net effect may still be a global warming, on a much less habitable planet.

Answer 3

Wasn't gonna bother, but seems this is a hot topic with fuzzy science. Everyone got it badly wrong.
Climate cannot be predicted. There are too many factors to consider. Global warming is real, we can measure it. Ice Ages are real, we can measure them. All past tense.
Based on historical data, we are overdue an Ice Age.
How much global warming will influence it's arrival or delay, we do not know. What we do know is that tiny changes in climate will bring major changes at sometime for someone.
We can try to predict, but we might as well try to predict what a beach will look like next morning by tagging individual grains of sand and making an assumption based only on the previous two days.
The only thing worth knowing is that Mankind lives in a narrow band of survivable climate conditions. Tiny change = major change. The rest relies on our imagination.

Answer 4

It is complex and dependant upon intricate climactic systems, but...
Basically what happens is climactic cycles are dependant upon very fragile chain reactions. ie certain things require certain other things to happen to make the weather patterns we currently have (and enjoy!)
The tilt of the Earth, the way the wind and clouds float across the oceans, the depth and levels of currents, the combination of salt and fresh water in the oceans...
All these factors have to be just right to create a stable climate.
If global warming occurs, one of many possible weather patterns, is a decline in overall global temperature. This is no certainty, but it is possible.
How this would probably happen, is that by the ice packs and glaciers melting, the massive weight of frozen ice on one end of the planet would melt into the ocean, and because it is no longer affecting the tilt of the earth, the planets axis would shift in relation to the sun, causing one side to spend more time facing away from the sun, and thus, go into much longer winters, allowing masses of permafrost to settle, and become pack ice.
This model is based upon the theory that the same occurred in the last major glaciation. ie the bulk of the ice pack in the last ice age was in the northern hemisphere, because it spent longer facing away from the sun....
Hope it makes sense!
(and stop driving to work people!!!)

Answer 5

to ascertain that a real ice age to happen, that's needed that temperatures interior the summer season drop to such low ranges that it effectively continues to be iciness all year round. Snow that falls interior the iciness subsequently in no way does melt, yet really retains to acquire, and the suitable result's an 'ice age', and the introduction of ice sheets as a lot as 2 miles thick, the end results of annual accumulation of snow conceal over many centuries. Ice a lengthy time period save on with a trend it truly is regularly occurring by making use of ameliorations interior the kinds of the Earth's Orbit around the solar and ameliorations interior the earth's tilt and rotation. The Earth does no longer save on with a superbly round orbit, yet really it follows an eccentric elliptical orbit, with a cycle of 100 thousand years. the quantity of solar ordinary accomplishing the earth varies counting on how severe the gap of the earth is on the optimal of the elliptic as well because the adaptation of distance throughout each season. The earth also wobbles because it spins, as a lot as 23.5 ranges, a cycle which takes 40-one,000 years. This wobble also motives the region of the earth in its elliptical orbit to modify, a phenemona prevalent because the precession of equinoxes, which follows a cycle of 23,000 years. Ice a lengthy time period happen at the same time as all 3 of those factors are in favorable alignment ensuing interior the smallest volume of summer season warm temperature interior the Northern hemisphere at the same time as summer season takes position on the farthest aspect interior the Earth's elliptical orbit. summer season temperatures subsequently plunge to iciness like situations, and snow accumulates from year to year really than melting. further, the ice age ends at the same time as the approach is the different, ensuing in higher summer season warmth, and summers which ensue on the nearest aspect interior the elliptical orbit.

Answer 6

After taking paracetamol the body become warmer initially but cools down after sometime. But I am still doubtful if global warming first make it warmer and humid and have a cooling effect thereafter.

Answer 7

NEVER, IT CAN NEVER LEAD TO ICE AGE AT THE END. IT CAN ONLY CREATE A MYSTIC WEATHER PATTERN MAKING US BELIEVE THAT ICE AGE IS APPROACHING, WHEN ACTUALLY THE AFFECT OF GLOBAL WARMING IS MELTING THE ICES.

Answer 8

I think it has to do with ocean currents or things like the El Nino effect. Basically the earth is like a human body. It compensates for the heating and wants to cool itself back down.

Answer 9

as the atmoshere gets warmer, it melts the ice caps. the huge influx of fresh water affects the oceans/seas temperature, which the cools the atmosphere and leads to colder weather.... thats the way i understand it anyway, im probably wrong.

Answer 10

it dont it leads to all the ice melting and us all begin flooded,get a boat