Ice Age? Is the increasing amount of cold fresh water flowing ---?

Question

out of the Arctic and off of Greenland. going to screw up the Gulf Stream. This would really make Western Europe cold but could this be the beginning of a new ice age?

Answer 1

There is a possibility that global warming could lead to a small ice age in some parts of the world.

It revolves around the Gulf Stream (North Atlantic Conveyor); this is a current of warm water that moves north through the Atlantic carrying warm water from the Caribbean to the shores of northwestern Europe. Without the warming influence of the Gulf Stream countries including the UK, Ireland and Iceland would be up to 7°C colder than they are now, it also warms the coastlines of Greenland, Scandinavia, France etc but to a lesser extent.

If the conveyor were disrupted in some way and warm waters no longer carried to these regions they would cool down. Hardest hit would be Scotland; parts of England, Ireland and Iceland would also be significantly affected. Over a period of several hundred years there would be a slow glacial advance. In Scotland, glaciers and permanent ice fields would return after an absence of 10,000 years. Ultimately approx 30 million people would be forced to move.

So how could it happen? The Gulf Stream is part of a much larger system of ocean currents collectively known as the Meridian Overturning Circulation or Thermohaline Circulation. Thermo means density and haline means salt – the two factors that drive the Circulation. A change in salinity or density of the oceans could affect these ocean currents and most at risk from such a change is the Gulf Stream.

As the ice from the Arctic and Greenland Ice Cap melts it introduces cold, fresh water into the North Atlantic. One line of thinking is that this could disrupt the Gulf Stream, quite how is a matter of debate – there are several possibilities. The meltwater could do nothing, it could split the Gulf Stream in two, it could divert it elsewhere, truncate it somewhere in the Mid Atlantic or switch it off altogether.

We don’t understand enough about the thermohaline circulation to say with confidence what may or may not happen so for now it’s just a possibility.

Answer 2

The chances are slim, but not impossible... Supposedly, according to scientific data, it can take a relatively short amount of time for an "Ice Age" to become a reality and then many thousands of years for the Ice Age (like the last one) to dissipate into a world similar to what we know today. From what I understand, it could take longer than our lifetime for an ice age to radically change our world. However, we are apparently due for some "mega" cataclysmic global event. If, for example, one of the so-called cauldrons, or super volcanoes of the world, like in Yellowstone National Park were to erupt, and Yellowstone, it is estimated, erupts every 500,000 years or so, a major eruption could trigger something much greater than the Tambora volcano in the year 1815, that caused the "Year without Summer". Even having a few years without a growing season for the agricultural industry would be devastating for our world to say the least. In this scenario, it would goodbye to global warming for a while...

Answer 3

Simple, look to History. We had the long MWP, and a lot of ice melted.

Did this bring an ice age to Western Europe while the rest of the world was still warm?

I do not believe so. But check it out, carefully. This was a longer by far period of global warming, and to a higher level than we have have had yet.

Same earth; what does History show??

Answer 4

Don't forget the antarctic, there's ice there as well.
This is part of the problem with the arguments about global warming, the ice melts resulting in lowering surrounding water temperatures as well as infusing fresh water into salt.
It may effect more than just the Atlantic conveyor, there are other ocean currents as well.
We still don't know enough to come up with more than hypotheses about what MAY happen.

Answer 5

Frankly, I think this theory goes back to something else that I read in Lowell Ponte's 1976 book "The Cooling". He was the guy who came up with the idea that there might be an ice age in our future at that time. That's what you read about pumped up into "scientists predicted" an ice age. It was pretty much just him and one other, and only in the popular press.

Ponte pointed out that during the Revolutionary War, Ben Franklin had proposed that the Gulf Stream could be diverted away from England by damming a particular strait in Newfoundland. According to Franklin (and Ponte), this was only a few miles wide, and well within the engineering capabilities of the time. It was something Ponte would have known about, because before he began writing pop science, he was a weather analyst for the CIA, running a program that seeded clouds over the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and other parts of Viet Nam. He mentions this idea of Franklins as the first documented plan to use weather as a weapon of war using scientific methods that might have worked. The so-called "north atlantic current" theory of ice ages looks to me to derive from this, although I trust Franklin's credentials as a scientist a lot more than Ponte.

The other thing worth knowing about Ponte is he is by no means an objective scientist, and does not pretend to be. He was a rabid anti-communist, and to this day campaigns against all things he percieves Leftist, including Global Warming. He makes it clear that lying to defend against the radical left is perfectly justified, although he objects to the occasions when he thinks they have lied.. He has long since repudiated the silly Ice Age business, but remains active in the disinformation field.

"The cooling has already killed hundreds of thou-
sands of people in poor nations. It has already made
food and fuel more precious, thus increasing the price
of everything we buy. If it continues, and no strong
measures are taken to deal with it, the cooling will
cause world famine, world chaos, and probably world
war, and this could all come by the year 2000."
--Lowell Ponte, The Cooling, 1976.

"To understand science and scientists in America today, you need to think of them as existing in the now-extinct Soviet Union.

And outside their narrow field of expertise, scientists are often no wiser than the drunk at the end of the bar in your local saloon. In fact they are often more foolish than this drunk, because those with the power of science Commissars often become intoxicated with the notion that knowledge and intellect in one field empowers them to speak with the authority of gods in all fields.

One familiar name among the signers of this political attack is Paul Ehrlich of Stanford University. In his field of expertise Ehrlich is a giant. His expertise, like that of the late Harvard neo-Marxist Stephen Jay Gould, is as the world’s leading biological authority on certain species of bugs.

The dirty little secret the Leftist press did not tell you is that our science was already politicized decades ago. The current war is merely over whose politics will prevail. Will it be the present ruling Establishment whose Big Government agenda parallels that of the Democratic Party? Or will it be the more decentralized, open science advocated by President Bush that in many areas dispels dogma and permits a wider diversity of scientific views to be recognized and heard?"
--Lowell Ponte, Frontpage Magazine, 2004

I have a little trouble with the idea of Paul Erlich as a Commisar, but if this guys rantings sound familiar, they should.

Answer 6

Ive been waiting all my life for the Gulf Stream to change direction and bring that warm Mediterranean weather to Canada rather than Europe. You can't have it back, it's all mine now waahahahahahaha!

Answer 7

That is only a movie.

Answer 8

yep