Hasn't the Earth IN FACT been warming up overall since the ice age ended?!?

Answer 1

Those damn dinosaurs and their SUV's.

Answer 2

Not continually. There are quite a few warming and cooling periods that we know of:

The last "major" ice age in the Northern Hemisphere was the Younger-Dryas, which ended a little over 11,600 years ago.

Then followed a very warm period called the Holocene Maximum, but it came at different times in different parts of the world and is commonly attributed to a change in the Earth's orbit. Northwestern North America had peak warmth 9,000 to 11,000 years ago. In the extreme Southern hemisphere, the warmest period was from 7,000 to 11,000 years ago (called the "Huelmo-Mascardi Cold Reversal"). Northern Europe and the eastern Arctic regions experienced an extremely warm period. The lakes and fjords of Scandinavia were previously glaciers which melted during this very warm period. Climactic shifts were very large. The melting and movements of glaciers set off earthquakes in i.e. Scandinavia. Due to changes in the tradewinds, mid-regions like the American southwest which were previously wet and arable became desertified, and it rained so much on the other side of the world that most of the Middle East and North Africa were inundated (see "Noah's flood").

There was then a slight cooling period that lasted about 4,000 years.

Roughly 2,000 years ago, the Earth started to warm up again, and temperatures rose and reached a maximum between 1200D and 1500AD. This period was called the "Medieval Warm Period" or "MWP". This resulted in the wide cultivation of wine grapes and wheat in Southern Britain, and the colonization of Iceland and southern Greenland, and prolonged periods of drought in what is now the western US as well as in Africa. Some believe that the MWP was a prolonged El Nina-type event.

Then came the "Little Ice Age" which technically started at the beginning of the 1500s but peaked in the mid-1600s to early 1800s.

The temperature has been on a consistenly upwards trend globally since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution except for two small blips - one after the eruption of Krakatoa, the other after the eruption of Pinatubo, when volcanic ash in the atmosphere basically blocked out sunlight, lowering the global temperature by a few degrees centigrade.

The Earth has always gone through warming and cooling periods, and there are several explanations for this. One, is that the Earth's orbit around the Sun is not circular - in some prehistoric periods it has been elliptical. This is explained by a shift in the magnetic poles which throws the Earth out of its normal orbit pattern. The farther the Earth is away from the Sun, the colder it is. We never know when this is going to happen, we can just hope that it doesn't happen soon!

Prehistoric warm periods and Ice Ages can also be attributed to the Earth's seismicity. We live on a "hot planet" with a hot core, and it's "hot" in more ways than heat. The
Earth is Gaia, a living planet, not a dead orb like Mars. If it wasn't, we would have no atmosphere! This living planet, with its sometimes violent volcanic eruptions and earthquakes which do contribute to climate change - sometimes severe. One theory is that volcanic activity can release enough sulfate into the atmostphere that the minute particles literally act as reflectors against the sun - in other words, sunlight does not reach the Earth, it gets reflected back out into space. There is evidence that this theory is viable when we look at global weather patterns after more contemporary volcanic events.

Methane and other gases released into the atmosphere by other types of seismicity (deep water fissures, etc) do the opposite - they form invisible blankets which the sun's rays penetrate and which are heat-retentative. There was a lot of methane going into the atmosphere in the prehistoric era, probably due to tectonic drift. We are pretty certain that most tectonic drift happened during interglacial periods.

There appears to be little doubt that the current warming spell has been helped along by human activities. The extent to which we are contributing is the big question.

Although we know that global warming and deglaciation (whatever its source) is disruptive to the North Atlantic conveyor, and we now know that the conveyor has slowed since 2004, we do not know what it will take to cause it to shut down. Some scientists warn that it could shut down tomorrow or next week, but I think that is rather alarmist.

It is generally accepted that the MWP was a result of increased solar activity from 1100-1250 ("the Medieval Maximum"), and many scientists believe the cooling that followed on a combination of significant volcanic activity and what's called the "Maunder Minimum", a period where there were few or no sunspots for decades at a time. The low point was the year after Mt Tambora erupted, where frost and snow were reported in June and July in New England and Northern Europe. Human activity could not have had much of an impact and there were no major deglaciation events. We know so much more about the MWP and Little Ice Age because they happened "five and ten minutes ago" in Earth terms and are well-documented. During the MWP, we knew about astronomy, for example.

It is also significant that during these warming and cooling periods, there were anomalies. For example, temperatures were cooler in Asia during the MWP, but warmer during the Little Ice Age. And even in Europe during the Little Ice Age, it warmed up again in the 16th and 18th centuries.

Answer 3

Yes (supposedly) but that doesn't mean we are in danger of Global Warming.

The earth NATURALLY warms up and cools off at periods of time. What is actually going to happen is the earth will warm up (as it's doing), melting the polar ice caps, and then we will actually go into another ice age (if God doesn't decide to end the world first). This has happened many times throughout the life of our planet. And it is a process that takes millions of years. We aren't going to wake up someday and be dying from heat, and neither will we wake up to a world frozen over. If humans continue to exist throughout this, I am sure that our bodies will adapt to the changes, allowing us to survive.

Answer 4

Yes. In the history of the planet it has cooled and heated at least 5 times without mankind even being on the planet.
As for the idiot who said there is no debate among science about global warming....there is plenty of debate about it follow the links you arrogant jerk. People who try to stop other people from having a different opinion have no credibility what so ever!

Answer 5

For over a thousand year the corral reefs have surrounded the Oceans of the Planet at it's middle - equatorial line - now it is believed, and studied, that they are collapsing due to rising Oceanic temperatures, Bleaching.

So, you tell me, warming slowly or warming now much quicker as the rise in temperature on the global scale has little precedent in historic record due to the Very very short geological time it is taking to occur.

Answer 6

Yes. Your point?

The Earth warms and cools over long periods of time primarily by two mechanism: changes in earth orbit and the composition of earth atmosphere. These type of changes usually happen on the order of a hundred thousand years.

Today's changes are happening in the order of decades.
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The grey color represents CO2 concentrations, and the scale on the far left refers to the CO2 values. As can be seen in the graph to the left, pre-industrial levels (~280 ppmv) were similar to previous interglacials (times which were not considered an 'ice-age' - as now). The present, post-industrial atmospheric level of CO2 concentration is around 370ppmv, which on this graph would be off the scale.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/carbdiox.html

CO2 "ON THE SCALE"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Carbon_Dioxide_400kyr.png

Answer 7

Did you know that Mars is losing it's ice caps also? ASWA all the other planets in this solar system are warming.
Granted there is proof that we are causing changes to occur to our climate, but there seems to be something else that is going on with our Sun that is adding to it.

Answer 8

I've IN FACT been gaining weight overall since birth.

I guess I shouldn't worry that I gained 100 pounds in the past year right? The doctors are all crazy.

Answer 9

Don't tell Al Gore that,he'll try to take credit for ending the Ice Age.

Answer 10

yes it has and we still dont know enough to say there is global warming. we cant predict the weather that will happen next week let alone in the years to come. sure the polar ice caps are melting in places,but they are expanding in others. read state of fear by michael chrichton. it says tons of stuff in there and it gives the references to back it up

Answer 11

Nice SELECTIVE and incomplete reading of the facts, as usual.

There is NO debate in the scientific community regarding global warming. It is accepted as fact, whether you and Limbaugh like it or not.