a question for some environment / ecology experts about global warming?

Question

my HISTORY teacher told tha class that at some point due to gobal warming, the earth will fall into another ice age.

is this possible ?

is it likely ?

and why ?

mainly im asking because she is my history teacher and not my biology teacher....... and I find it very ironic that "warming" could lead to an ice age.

OHHHH !!! Get serious >:l

im considering my childerens lives and their childrens children

hey Julian, what she ?
only males have answered tha questions so far, who are you talking about ?

Answer 1

The last ice age in Europe is thought by some to have been caused by an instance of global warming. Which, like any good paradox, has an explanation:

This is thought to have occurred because of disruptions in the circulation of global oceanic water. This water is normally heated at the equator, moves north over the top of colder (and therefore denser) water, and then loses its heat in northern (and southern) latitudes. As it does so, it sinks down to the bottom and eventually migrates underneath the warm water back down to the equator. This flow is well documented (link 1).

Some think, however, that a large mass of fresh water flowing out from the poles would stop this current. Fresh water is a lot less dense than salt water, so its flow into the ocean would tend to directly oppose the flow of hot water from the equators. No oceanic currents also means almost no global distribution of heat. So North America and Europe would enjoy arctically cold currents instead of equatorially warm ones. The equator would get hotter and non-equatorial regions would get colder.

Of course, getting colder helps to build the ice back up. So though we're talking about a disruption, it would be a very short one on climactic time scales. Unfortunately, a short time on that kind of scale is still quite a while - that European ice age I mentioned above (called the Younger Drvas and also the Big Freeze) lasted about thirteen hundred years!

Whether this all really happens, though, is somewhat a matter of debate. Large influxes of melting glacial water from Greenland and Hudson Bay are thought to have caused the Younger Dryas. Average temperatures dropped about fifty degrees. Which is not exactly nothing, either - the difference between a sweltering day and a chilly one... or between a chilly one and down right snowed in.

The Younger Dryas occurred about 12,000 years ago. Which is longer than pretty much all of recorded history. In spite of this, there are anthropologists who believe some folk tales might have origins which are this old, and therefore there might be some small remnant of direct experience. Which could concievably explain why your history teacher is talking about it. But more likely it stems from a largely unrelated belief.

Answer 2

I doubt it since the temperature of the earth has increased less than 7/10 of 1 degree (C) from 1880 to 2005. That is an increase of about 1 degree (F) in 125 years. You may choose to believe that is global warming or you may not. Source: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/2005cal_fig1.gif There are numerous charts all over the internet showing the same. Some say that 1 degree is enough to impact the global climate, others say it's not. Most proponents of global warming think the earth's temperature has risen much more than that and don't even know that it has only risen by 1 degree. But the charts do not lie as do the proponents on both sides of this issue. The average temperature in the Antarctica is 109 degrees below zero. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica#Climate It seems to me 108 below (one degree warmer) is still pretty cold and not enough to melt anything. But there are those that say it will.

Back in the '70s all the hype was about global COOLING and another ice age was coming. I remember that they blamed pollution for that too. They said that all the pollution was darkening the skies and not as much sun was coming through so the earth was cooling off. It took many years to discover that they were mistaken and it was all just hype. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling So when someone says, "the sky is falling" don't believe everything you hear on either side of the issue. There are Spin Doctors galore out there.

Most of the time people will form an opinion and not really be informed about the subject with which they become so opinionated about. So it's best that you not form your opinions from other's opinions, (as in this forum) but on the facts presented. (Many do not provide any proof or links to prove their point, just their opinion.) With that said we do have a responsibility to do our part by doing whatever is within your power to keep our planet alive and well.

I hope that helps...

Answer 3

Geologic history shows that the climate goes in cycles. The climate has a sort of stable equilibreum. When things like temperature go one way, various factors tend to push it back, usually overshooting somewhat. So it is possible that warming will in the long run cause an ice age.

Trouble is, it's hard to say what the long run is. The climate change which man seems to be causing now is going at a pace far, far, far faster than any change we see in the last 63 million years of geologic history. Noone really knows how the environment will react to a change this abrupt. The last change this major may have been when the dinosaurs went extinct. The climate recovered from that event and certainly would recover from whatever we can do to it, but in the meantime, there might be a lot of damage and suffering for us. Noone really knows.

Answer 4

She is right. There have been lots of periods in Earth's history that have been a lot warmer (no ice in polar regions and crocodiles living near North Pole) plus lots of times that have been much colder (full Ice Age).

So it is expected that Earth will continue to cycle in and out of Ice Ages.

But our problem is that we're leaving an Ice Age very quickly and we need to adapt. It is only a problem because it is happening quickly. If global warming happens over 1000 years, then humans would have little problem, if it happens over 100 years it will be disruptive but manageable, but if it happens quicker than that, then there could be massive problems (like crop failures that cause mass starvation).

Answer 5

From what I have studied it's going to be many, a long time earlier than we will be able to purchase hydrogen autos. Mostly on the grounds that hydrogen isn't blank, it comes from electrical energy constructed from buring coal and oil. Also as different applied sciences upgrade, hydrogen will likely be much less possible. Ultracapacators might possibly get rid of hydrogen as a long term option. Bottom line, for those who relatively research hydrogen, you'll detect that it's NOT a well resolution for the long run. It appears well at the floor however has lots of disorders.

Answer 6

By all means watch Gores Liberal propaganda masterpiece (he must have reincarnated Goebbels to produce that one) then log on to
Read it ALL, you will then have the real story. After you know that, and the fact that man can in no way, by any immediate or long term action reverse current climate change trends, you may be able to answer any questions people might have about Gores version of "Global Warming" and his solutions, which would plunge the world into economic chaos, starvation, and civil unrest..... the stuff socialist liberals thrive on.
Now, here are the rules, no matter how (liberally) you spread peanut butter and jelly on it… anything that burns creates Co2, including forests, lava flows, volcanic pyroclastics, city dumps, apartment houses, wheat fields… and fossil fuels. Adding to that information the incontrovertible fact that this planets basic ecology is in a constant state of o2/Co2 exchange which creates a daily addition of Co2 to the atmosphere based totally on natural plant photosynthesis and natural decomposition of organic vegetation…. I (eye) defy ANY reasonable (and rational) man of science to show a viable discrimination between these naturally occurring Co2 sources to indicate man is any way MORE to blame than mother nature.
While looking out the window (do it NOW, today) at the freezing rain build up on your Mustang Fastback... ask again, how does heat cause ice ???

Answer 7

The answer is no, but there is a shred of scientific basis to her claim.

When the Greenland ice cap melts, it will pour a lot of cold, fresh water into the North Atlantic. It is likely that this will disrupt the Gulf Stream to at least some extent, and may lead to cooler weather in Europe.

Answer 8

In between ice ages, there are multi-million year periods of more temperate, almost tropical, climate, but also within the ice ages (or at least within the last one), temperate and severe periods occur. The colder periods are called 'glacial periods', the warmer periods 'interglacials', such as the Eemian interglacial era.

The Earth is in an interglacial period now, the last retreat ending about 10,000 years ago. There appears to be a conventional wisdom that "the typical interglacial period lasts ~12,000 years" but this is hard to substantiate from the evidence of ice core records. For example, an article in Nature[3] argues that the current interglacial might be most analogous to a previous interglacial that lasted 28,000 years.

Based on predicted changes in orbital forcing, in the absence of human influence, the current interglacial may be expected to last 50,000 years: see Milankovitch cycles. However anthropogenic forcing from increased "greenhouse gases" probably outweights orbital forcing and the prediction for the next few hundred years is for temperature rises: see global warming.



In other words: No.

Answer 9

With the information that I've seen, anything is possible. Just take whatever data you want, over any period of time you want (leave out some data if it doesn't agree with you), and extrapolate that to whatever you need it to be.

The most logical explanation of this reasoning is that the global warming crowd is floating a trial balloon. Basically, that will allow them a way to explain any years or series of years that don't fit their model because they are colder than expected. Then, they'll probably say that the process is not always linear because of time delays in the positive and negative feedback loops.

Answer 10

watch the day after tommorow :)
when the artic increasinly melts the global ocean temperatures will dramatically drop. THe Gulf stream that keeps Europe warm could freeze and the world could be pushed into an early ice age. fun. but i doubt such an extremety will happen in the next few lifetimes. yet we Should be worried!!! plant trees!