How did the other 6 to 7 ice ages end? Simple enough question.......?

Question

Could it be solar flares? ....volcanic activity? ...caveman's suv's? Why should the here and now be any different?

Answer 1

After the cold comes the warmth...

We have experienced only 0.7 C increase in the 150+ years since the end of the Little Ice Age.

Whatever the causes - this is an emergency?

Answer 2

Not all ice ages are because of the Milankovich cycle. Many of the Earth's past Ice ages have been triggered by super volcanic eruptions like the Toba eruption 70,000 years ago, or from asteroids like the one that caused the mass extinction of the majority of the Dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Both of these types of events cause a mass influx of atmospheric contaminants, everything from ash clouds to CO2 to sulphuric acid and many other contaminants. In either of these cases the ice age comes to a conclusion when the precipitation is able to either pull the contaminants back down to ground level into the soil or else store it into the polar glaciers. The other type of ice age that can occur is the type which is very typical of European Ice ages whereby the salinity level of the ocean is diluted enough such that the ocean currents are disrupted because there is not enough heavy salt water to pull warm tropical waters north and push cold arctic currents deep down along the ocean floor to the south. These ice ages end when snowfall deposits enough of the oceans evaporated fresh water into the Polar Regions such that the salinity level is put back into the range where it needs to be to drive the currents again. Any of these circumstances can cause a substantial ice age if pushed to their limits, but this can be even more compounded if these circumstances are combined. Our human influence is comparable to the atmospheric pollution of super volcanic activity, although without the vast ash clouds that push the Earth into an immediate ice age. These pollutants do cause a greenhouse effect, however, that does melt polar ice and causes desalinification of the oceans thus pushing us towards another of the mechanisms that typically triggers ice ages. If an ice age does occur due to these combined conditions, it does beg the question of how severe the consequential ice age will be in order to self correct the dual causes that we are pushing the Earth's stability structures to deal with?

Answer 3

More salt, in the the North Atlantic, which overcompensated the amount of freshwater in the ocean, brought on by the melted glaciers. IE what made the great lakes.

More salt water that was produced by sea plant life, like kelp.

the Atlantic current is what keeps temperature regulated. If there is more fresh water than salt water, that current can freeze there by preventing the flow. Read about the mini ice age.

Answer 4

Well, the other ice ages were not influenced by any human activities, so that is one way they were different. Whether man is causing global warming or not...I just think we should act on the side of caution while we study climate change and attempt to find conclusive evidence. If we ignore it and are wrong, the consequences could be extreme. If we act on it and are wrong, the consequences are....? (maybe a cleaner environment and less dependence on non-renewable energy)

Answer 5

Over the course of the half billion years for which we have climate data there have been four full ice age cycles each of approx 120 million years. A typical ice age is 50 to 70 million years of cooling followed by 50 to 70 million years of warming.

At the coldest point in the cycle temps are approx 10°C colder than they are now, at the hottest they're approx 20°C warmer. The difference from peak to trough is approx 30°C, a change which is the result of an approx 60 million year trend. In short, the trend is one of warming or cooling by 1°C every 2 million years.

Within the full cycle are shorter cycles resulting in periods of less extreme warming or cooling over shorter periods of time. It gets complex because there are cycles within cycles within cycles within cycles.

The changes that bring about the end or onset of an ice age are many and varied. The two primary drivers are the way the Earth moves in space and the amount of heat energy released by the sun. These drivers are cyclical and we can map whereabouts we are in the various cycles. At certain times the changes within these cycles have a triggering effect that cause disruptions in the atmosphere and ecology of the planet, these further contribute to the warming / cooling. This triggering can set off 'chain reactions' or initiate 'feedback cycles' which further contribute to warming / cooling.

The reason that the here and now is different is because of the speed at which the planet is warming. Changes which would be observed naturally over the course of thousands of years are happening in just a few decades.

I mentioned at the start that we have half a billion years worth of climate data, at no time has the climate been known to have changed at anything close to the rate at which it's changing now. This is what's got the scientists worried.

Answer 6

The climatic patterns of the earth ultimately depend on energy received from the sun, which warms the land and seas and evaporates water. Within this framwork, the distribution of heat over the surface of the earth depends largely on the circulation of the oceans, which is driven by the rotation of the earth and constrained by the positions of the continents.

The thing is that temperatures during those Ice Age periods were changing a lot slower compared to the rapid temperature changes we have witnessed in the last 150 years.

Answer 7

The main flaw in the question is that we are not in an ice age. The temperature drops and ice freezes during an ice age. We have the opposite going on now. So no "other" ice age.

Answer 8

Today's rapid warming? .7 degrees in a century? I would hate to see the globe throwing on the afterburners. With that rollercoaster ride, we might see 1 degree in the next 100 years.

So, let me get this straight. We have accurate weather data for around 100 years out of a 4 billion year old planet (according to some)? And due to a very small increase during that time, we need to make drastic changes because of dire predictions for the next 100 years? Statistically speaking, your data set is just a little bit short, wouldn't you say? Oh wait, the fear-mongerers are arrogant enough to think they know everything there is to know about the 4 billion years based on the last 100 years.

And weren't these same people worried about global cooling for about 10 of those 100 years?

Answer 9

By variations in earth-sun position known as Milankovic cycles.

How do we know that's not what's going on now? Two reasons, each definitive, and completely consistent.

The Milankovic cycles are known and we're not anywhere near the peak that causes the unusual warmth that ends ice ages. According to the cycles the climate should be quite stable.

The cycles don't operate in mysterious ways. At a peak, the sun actually is producing more radiation at the Earth's surface which is very easily measured. It's not there.

The present warmth is being caused mostly by man made greenhouse gases. No other theory explains the observed data quantitatively (numerically).

All climatologists know this stuff well. It's incorporated in their analyses, which prove the present warming is mostly man made.

Answer 10

Because prophet gore says so. See in the future, evil business's men build a time machine, and to plunder the worlds resources from the poor environmentally green peasants, they went back in time a built disguised coal fired power plants that pumped all that co2 into the air so that they could "speed up " time to get to the industrial revolution. didn't you take the "new" history in school. Its kinda like that new math, don't make much sense, but boy do you feel better after class.