Are we experiencing global warming, or an Ice Age?

Question

I heard the other day that in the natural cycle of an ice age (which we are due for) the Oceans warm up, creating more precipitation...Ice Age. Could we be experiencing that climatic shift before we freeze? NO agenda, just interested in everyone's opinion.

Answer 1

Global warming.

This is science. Opinions don't count, "logical" arguments don't count, data does.

Very short version:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png

The best summary of the data available:

http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

Scientists have seen much stranger things than global warming (like Einstein's relativity or quantum mechanics) proved to be true by data. So the data, not "logical" arguments, is what they go by. The data is why why the vast majority of scientists agree that it's real and mostly caused by us. Data about that here:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686

If you want to know more, here's the best website (warning - it's very big) with lots of data:

http://www.realclimate.org

Answer 2

Global Warming is natural, but humans fear that they may have caused this. This is not true, it is a cycle which the planet goes through, it has thousands of times before. It is, however, human assisted, which means we are speeding up the effect of global warming. The debate is how much we affect this process. Some say a lot, and some say very little. My opinion is that we do not effect this process very much considering one volcano eruption puts out more CO2 and Sulfur than man has put out in the past 100 years. I believe it is a good thing that we should consume and pollute less maybe even zero.

Answer 3

THEN The little Ice Age develop right into a era between 1350 and 1850 whilst worldwide air temperatures have been cooler than they have been in the 20 th century. This phenomena develop into okay documented in the Northern Hemisphere. Temperatures began to upward push slowly initiating in the previous due 1800's and it develop into no longer until eventually a speedy develop of photograph voltaic pastime in the 1930's and 40's that the worldwide experienced temperatures reminiscent of on the instant. in the previous due 1950's and 60's photograph voltaic pastime slowed temporarily and yet another cooling cycle began, which brought about some to take a position relating to the potential of yet another mini-ice age on the horizon in the previous due 1970's. NOW: in the mid 1970's photograph voltaic pastime returned with a vengeance yet develop into masked by the volcanic eruptions of EL-Chichon in 1982 and Mt. Pinatubo in 1991. The previous due 1980's and early 1990's ought to have been even warmer the it develop into in 1998, and all the alarm-ism could have began 2 many years formerly. the destiny except a substantial volcanic eruption takes place and speeds issues up, the worldwide is forecast to proceed on a steady cooling cycle over here few many years. photograph voltaic cycle 25 is forecast to be weaker than any that have been stated in centuries. by 2030 the worldwide may well be a lots cooler place. different than: there is one threat that cycle 24 ought to be between the biggest that human beings have seen. if so, there may well be a threat of our technologies it rather is predicated upon electronics to be critically broken. "No means for Months, perchance years for some. yet cycle 25 will honestly be a less warm era in spite of what cycle 24 does. THE data: each and every climatic exchange that has been got here upon by paleontology over the final numerous thousand years could be defined by photograph voltaic variability, in case you have self assurance in guy made worldwide warming you're trusting the forecast of our destiny to pc simulations, that are purely modeling a fragment of the variables required to foretell climatic exchange. each and every thing is a cycle, our civilization is prospering purely by fact the climate is heat, no longer any incorrect way around.

Answer 4

Well look at this ,every body is worried about global warming and the carbon foot print . Look at the formula CO2 That is 1 atom of C and 2 of oxygen . We should be more worried about the O2 foot print as that what we all need. Considering all the things that get burned ,why haven't we Sean the decreas in our oxygen . Normal it is 20.9 % and as solid as a rock mountain. there has been no decreas in the level.Is it the plants are truely doing a great job. if there was all this CO2 every where there would be some oxygen missing.

Answer 5

Both. We are currently in an interglacial period of an ice age. An ice age is a period when large sheets of ice cover portions of the earth, such as are currently seen in the arctic and the antarctic. However, during an ice age there are periods when glaciers advance to cover larger portions of the earth (such as the earth had from 110,000 years ago to around 20,000 years ago,) and there are interglacial periods when those glaciers retreat. We are currently in an interglacial period of an ice age.

We are also seeing a small period of global warming. The earth has warmed about 0.6*C in the last century following a period a cooling that lasted about 300 years.

Answer 6

We are in an interglacial period, much like the Holocene.

The Earth temperature flucuates in 180,000 year cycle based on the distance from the sun, also on solar activity.

You may want to check out the website

http://www.junkscience.com for a very comprehensive view of the mythical global warming hype.

The current stream of green is not science. It is political, and even the former head of greenpeace calls it the current movement driven by global marxist politicos and not science.

Media Shows Irrational Hysteria on Global Warming

"The Public Has Been Vastly Misinformed," NCPA's Deming Tells Senate Committee

12/6/2006 5:57:00 PM

To: National Desk

Contact: Sean Tuffnell of the National Center for Policy Analysis, 972-308-6481 or [e-mail]

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 /U.S. Newswire/ -- David Deming, an associate professor at the University of Oklahoma and an adjunct scholar with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), testified this morning at a special hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The hearing examined climate change and the media. Bellow are excerpts from his prepared remarks.

"In 1995, I published a short paper in the academic journal Science. In that study, I reviewed how borehole temperature data recorded a warming of about one degree Celsius in North America over the last 100 to 150 years. The week the article appeared, I was contacted by a reporter for National Public Radio. He offered to interview me, but only if I would state that the warming was due to human activity. When I refused to do so, he hung up on me.

"I had another interesting experience around the time my paper in Science was published. I received an astonishing email from a major researcher in the area of climate change. He said, "We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period." "The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was a time of unusually warm weather that began around 1000 AD and persisted until a cold period known as the "Little Ice Age" took hold in the 14th century. ... The existence of the MWP had been recognized in the scientific literature for decades. But now it was a major embarrassment to those maintaining that the 20th century warming was truly anomalous. It had to be "gotten rid of."

"In 1999, Michael Mann and his colleagues published a reconstruction of past temperature in which the MWP simply vanished. This unique estimate became known as the "hockey stick," because of the shape of the temperature graph. "Normally in science, when you have a novel result that appears to overturn previous work, you have to demonstrate why the earlier work was wrong. But the work of Mann and his colleagues was initially accepted uncritically, even though it contradicted the results of more than 100 previous studies. Other researchers have since reaffirmed that the Medieval Warm Period was both warm and global in its extent.

"There is an overwhelming bias today in the media regarding the issue of global warming. In the past two years, this bias has bloomed into an irrational hysteria. Every natural disaster that occurs is now linked with global warming, no matter how tenuous or impossible the connection. As a result, the public has become vastly misinformed."

---

The NCPA is an internationally known nonprofit, nonpartisan research institute with offices in Dallas and Washington, D. C. that advocates private solutions to public policy problems. NCPA depends on the contributions of individuals, corporations and foundations that share our mission. The NCPA accepts no government grants.

http://www.usnewswire.com/

my 2 cents.

Answer 7

a laymans view ,
sorry Bob little Data

it is getting hotter ,dryer and there is less potable water to go around

this text only covers some aspects of global warming ,mainly agriculture i.e.effects of deforestation and subsequent man made desertification

water and air polution such as caused by
industrial contamination ,the contaminating effects of the cities(the internal combustion engine) ,are other stories,

and all of these are also man made ,such as the high industrial chimneys pumping contamination into the clouds and the burning of tires,some of this polution has been found in the ice in the polar regions

there are natural cycles in the planets life
but a lot is influenced by mans existance ,and this is increasing with overpopulation,putting strains on Natural resources and increasing contaminations as well as destructions of essential componants the ensure living conditions for all life forms

in North Africa,India,Mexico ,millions of people are effected by land loss and desertification and some have died as a result

,the Sahara is growing by 7 kilometers a year
and most of the desserts we know are a results of mans actions ,and they are increasing ,not getting less ,in the dinosaurs days ,there were no desserts.

collectively this planet is drying up ,

each degree rise in temperature means 10%crop loss

and there is less and less water (because of deforestation),to irrigate this production ,
and there are less and less farmers to do it..
Arable lands and their farms are lost all over the globe. Many farmers sons abandon farming and head for the cities.

Northern China is drying up, what once were millions of food producing people, are now hungry refugees ,running for their lives from the all consuming dust storms.
This will have a great effect on world food prices when they start buying at what ever cost, to feed their people.

Africa and Asia are loosing millions of people to AIDS , many of whom were food producers.

The farmers that are left have to feed some 70 million more people than the year before but with less topsoil.

Over the last half century,
Population growth & rising incomes have tripled world grain demand from 640 million tons to 1,855 million

In the near future the global farming community will not be able to feed every body ,food prices will continue to rise. .

RISING SEAS
The northpole is melting ,and we will know it without ice in our life times.
this does not affect the sea level because it is ice that is already in the water.but the melting ice from Green land and the south pole ,are another matter

Answer 8

we are having global warming global warming means the increase to the earths average temperture.

Answer 9

What you're suggesting is very well possible.
Have you ever heard of The Day After Tomorrow? Its a movie, If you haven't watched it yet, you should do so. And keep in mind that what they show in that movie is scientifically possible, it could really happen and thats whats so scary about it.

Answer 10

The theory of man-made global warming is false, it is based on falsified or incomplete data. Lets take a look at what the global warming crowd claims, they say that the human output of CO2 is causing the greenhouse effect which is warming the planet. To see how outrageous this claim is try to guess how much of our atmosphere is made up of CO2, the correct answer is 0.03% of our atmosphere, almost nothing. How can such a small part of our atmosphere have such an effect on our entire planet, correct answer it can’t. Greenhouse gases exist naturally and have always been in our atmosphere. Greenhouse gases such as CH4 (methane), N2O (Nitrous Oxide), and water vapor are all put out into the atmosphere naturally in far greater concentrations than humans could ever match. Let’s take a look at water vapor, water vapor makes up between 1-4% of the atmosphere far more than CO2. Water vapor is given off into the atmosphere due to evaporation, so evaporation causes much more global warming than humans ever could. Other natural sources such as volcanic eruptions and the decomposition of plant and animal matter also put far more greenhouse gases than humans ever could.
So what is causing global warming? Well first of all the earth may not even be warming. http://wwwghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/temperature/ This is a collection of global temperatures collected by NASA that shows a general cooling trend especially around the polar ice caps. So assuming the earth is warming what could be causing it, the sun. Look at this graph also put out by NASA: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/17jan_solcon.htm, it shows that the intensity of the sun is directly correlated to global temperatures and recent studies have shown that the sun is now warming than ever before, coincidence? I think not. Also consider that the other planets in our solar system, Mars in particular, are also warming: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html
You have to keep in mind that the earth goes through natural cycles of warming and cooling, take for example the ice age and later warming of the earth enough to melt the ice.
Advocates of global warming will try and post evidence but the fact is most evidence for global warming comes in the form of general statements like “think of your children/grandchildren” that try to guilt you into agreeing with them. These ads are devoid of scientific proof and seek to toy with your conscience. Every once in a while you will see a graph submitted as evidence mostly from http://www.ipcc.ch/. Take a look for yourself, I search in vain for proof of global warming on this site, sure there are dozens of graphs showing the same data: CO2 rising along with global temperatures but where are the graphs for other greenhouse gases that make up a greater percentage of our atmosphere and are put out naturally, or graphs showing the percentage of greenhouse gases put out by humans verses the gases put out by natural sources. These graphs are not included because they disprove the theory of man made global warming. The IPCC has had a questionable past, it has published a deliberately falsified graph, the so called hockey stick graph, which left out a period of warming during the 1400’s. This warming period in the 1400’s was more dramatic than what we are seeing today, and it took place long before humans industrialized. This falsification was proven and a reprint of the graph appeared in the journal Nature. You may have seen claims that there is a scientific consensus on global warming like this one: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686, this is an absolute lie, do you need proof? Here http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm the signatures of over 17,000 scientists who disagree with the theory of man made global warming (check out the report on this site it does an excellent job of disproving global warming). You may have also seen reports about ice cores supposedly proving global warming, this is not true. Here is the truth about ice cores http://www.john-daly.com/zjiceco2.htm.
You may have the question why anyone would support this obviously false theory, the answer is money. Average people with no scientific background are being converted to the global warming crowd by the dozens due to the repression of evidence against global warming. This mass of people is the reason why notable people are jumping on the global warming bandwagon. Politicians are supporting global warming for votes, scientists are joining for media time and grants, and CEO’s are pledging their allegiance to gain customers who want to shop where the environment is being supported.
You may also wonder why I care, you may think we can only help the environment if we agree with global warming what’s wrong with that? I want to distinguish between global warming and helping the environment. I have no problem with environmentalist causes, in fact I support them, but global warming is taking this idea to the extreme. If you were to follow the guidelines set forth by people like Al Gore your lifestyle would be, these people want to tell you what light bulbs to use. The main reason however is money, why waste millions on studying global warming when we could be rebuilding third world countries and helping the poor. Global warming is a fear tactic used to get your money and your vote by unscrupulous members of society. Hopefully this will just fade away like the global cooling scare which was brought upon us in the 1970’s by the same sort of people using the same tactics. A last link http://www.worldclimatereport.com/ possibly the best resource for answering many of the questions raised by global warming. I urge anyone who believes in man-made global warming to look into some of the resources I have presented. Do not sacrifice your money, time, vote, and conscience to the greedy members of society who are blinding you to the truth for their own greed.