Could global warming be a natural cycle that the earth goes through?

Question

Like when the earth's climate changed during the last ice age.

I talking about a cycle that follows the precession of the earth over a period of 24000 or so years. 12000 years ago was the ice age, is there some cycle that causes the earth to heat at half this cycle or any other periods that possibly geologists out there might know of. Is the earth closer to the sun now or is there solar activity that could be causing some of this.

Answer 1

Precession is just one of several cycles Earth goes through and is the shortest one (21,000 to 26,000 years)

Earth precesses due to tidal foces exerted by the sun and the moon in conjunction with Earth being a rough oblate spheroid with an equatorial bulge.

Anomalistic precession is the precessing of the orbital ellipse in space and is in opposition to gyroscopic precession of axial rotation, this shortens the period of equinoxial precession to 21,000 years relevant to the perihelion, the shortest cycle.

Because there are other cycles, and solar cycles as well, there is a complex interaction between these warming and cooling cycles. It's rather like the position of the planets in the solar system - they're all rotating around the sun but at differnt rates. So whilst each planet (cycle) follows a regular pattern there's an infinite number of positions that the planets (cycles) can be in.

Just as we can map the movement of the planets and know where they are, where they've been and where they will go we can do the same with the different cycles. By inputting the information into computers we can calculate what the net warming or cooling effect of the cycles will be.

So it's not quite as simple as a 24,000 year cycle with half the time warming and half the time cooling. Life would be much easier if it were.

Climatologists take these cycles into account, along with all other known factors, when conducting research and making predictions. As such we can safely say that the world would be in a warming phase of it's own making even if humans weren't here. We can also work out with a reasonable degree of accuracy by how much it would be warming.

It's for this very reason that scientists have been worrying for the last 100+ years. The warming of the planet is far greater than anything that can be attributed to natural cycles.

You mentioned the end of the last 'ice age', this was brought about by the interaction of natural cycles and atmospheric conditions on Earth. During this period the temperatures rose by a little under 1°C per 1000 years, they're presently rising at 17 times this rate.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

Absolutely, Ice ages recur almost like clockwork at approximate 100,000-year intervals and persist for about 90,000 years, after which they are followed by approximate 10,000-year interglacials. In Greenland, rapid warming - approximately 7°C in a few decades - was observed around 11,500 years ago. Some of the Ice ages have occurred during a time when the the CO2 levels were 15 times higher than they are now.

Answer 4

The problem with the theories that this is a natural cycle is they don't work. The numbers don't come out right.

Theories that say 80-90% of the problem is man made greenhouse gases do work. Here's one example, from the Source below:

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png

The inability of natural theories to match the observed data is the reason why the vast majority of scientists think global warming is mostly man made. The key word in this quote is "quantitative" (numerically correct):

"There's a better scientific consensus on this [climate change] than on any issue I know... Global warming is almost a no-brainer at this point. You really can't find intelligent, quantitative arguments to make it go away."

Dr. Jerry Mahlman, NOAA

Good websites for more info:

http://profend.com/global-warming/
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/
http://www.realclimate.org
"climate science from climate scientists"

Answer 5

It's possible. It's also possible that global warming is caused by small fairies at the bottom of my garden, there's just no evidence indicating that this is the case.

Natural variations of the climate have to have causes. The climate doesn't just magically change on its own. The Earth warming out of past ice ages was the result in orbital variations in Earth's path around the sun, known as "Milankovitch cycles". Since we're not in one now they couldn't possibly be the cause of the current warming.

Answer 6

In between ice ages, some lesser peaks of temperature have occurred a number of times, especially around 125,000 years ago. At this time, temperatures may have been about 1°C to 2°C degrees warmer than today. Sea level was 5 to 8 metres higher than today – a rise sufficient to inundate most of the world's coastal cities. This peak was triggered by the orbital cycles.

After the last glaciation ended, global temperatures appear to have peaked around 6000 years ago, called the Holocene Climatic Optimum. The warming appears have been largely localised, concentrated in the northern hemisphere in summer, and average global temperatures did not exceed those of recent decades by much, if at all. Again, orbital variations were the trigger, but these led to changes in vegetation and sea-ice cover that produced marked regional climatic alterations.

From about AD 800 to AD 1300, there was a minor peak called the medieval warm period, but it was not as warm as recent decades.

What is clear from the study of past climate is that many factors can influence climate: solar activity, oscillations in Earth's orbit, greenhouse gases, ice cover, vegetation on land (or the lack of it), the configuration of the continents, dust thrown up by volcanoes or wind, the weathering of rocks and so on.

The details are seldom as simple as they seem at first: sea ice reflects more of the Sun's energy than open water but can trap heat in the water beneath, for example. There are complex interactions between many of these factors that can amplify or dampen changes in temperature.

The important question is what is causing the current, rapid warming? We cannot dismiss it as natural variation just because the planet has been warmer at various times in the past. Many studies suggest it can only be explained by taking into account human activity.

Nor does the fact that it has been warmer in the past mean that future warming is nothing to worry about. The sea level has been tens of metres higher during past warm periods, enough to submerge most major cities around the world.

In the end we have to take global warming seriously, determine its most likely causes and do what we can to ensure a healthy environment.

Answer 7

The earth's climate has been cycling since the Pleistocene, but the causes of this cycling are well known. Ice ages (and inter-glacial periods) are caused by small changes in the Earth's orbit called Milankovitch cycles by astronomers, or "orbital forcing" by climatologists.

Since the Earth's orbit can be computed for thousands of years into the past and future, we know that orbital forcing peaked 6000 years ago, during the so-called Holocene maximum, and should be slowly cooling the planet right now.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/207/4434/943

The causes of the current warming are anthropogenic, not natural.

Answer 8

Short answer: yes.

Better answer: Humans have altered and accelerated natural cycles. Since something like this has never been documented before -- problems must be identified and researched before appropriate and cost-effective solutions can be found and implemented -- it is difficult to produce irrefutable data that will satisfy the naysayers. Still, the body of work is there, many governments are moving forward independently and collectively, and in a few years time everyone but a few stubborn diehards will be on board.

Don't listen to the stories that use scare tactics. In fact, ignore most of the mainstream media, they're just "on it" because the issue is hot, not because they truly want to inform. Educate yourself through your local university and scientific journals. Then when new information is presented you can evaluate it and put it in a better perspective.

Answer 9

Nope. The earth does warm and cool in a predictable cycle, but it has never warmed so much so fast. If you look at a chart of the increase in temperature over the last two hundred years against a chart of the increase in carbon emissions over the same time, there's a remarkable match. Almost all of the world's scientists are convinced that this is a man-made phenomenon, although apparently many Yahooers have access to a higher source of wisdom.

Answer 10

Sure. There is no such thing as a static climate. The Earth is always heating or cooling. It's getting slightly warmer now, but it is still cooler than it was in the early 1800's, and there are fewer hurricanes and storms than in the 1930's and 1940's.

The only reason people are in a panic now, is because this is occurring in their lifetime. We fail to learn what happened before we were born, and this is where we are exploited by the GW charlatans.