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Title: Forget global warming: Welcome to the new Ice Age
Source:
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URL Source: http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=332289
Published: Feb 25, 2008
Author: Lorne Gunter
Post Date: 2008-02-25 17:02:23 by angle
Keywords: None
Views: 1011
Comments: 59
Posted by angle at the request of Cynicom: Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966. The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January "was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average." China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them. There have been so many snow and ice storms in Ontario and Quebec in the past two months that the real estate market has felt the pinch as home buyers have stayed home rather than venturing out looking for new houses. In just the first two weeks of February, Toronto received 70 cm of snow, smashing the record of 66.6 cm for the entire month set back in the pre-SUV, pre-Kyoto, pre-carbon footprint days of 1950. And remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its "lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts in the past. The ice is back. Gilles Langis, a senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa, says the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many places than at this time last year. OK, so one winter does not a climate make. It would be premature to claim an Ice Age is looming just because we have had one of our most brutal winters in decades. But if environmentalists and environment reporters can run around shrieking about the manmade destruction of the natural order every time a robin shows up on Georgian Bay two weeks early, then it is at least fair game to use this winter's weather stories to wonder whether the alarmist are being a tad premature. And it's not just anecdotal evidence that is piling up against the climate-change dogma. According to Robert Toggweiler of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University and Joellen Russell, assistant professor of biogeochemical dynamics at the University of Arizona -- two prominent climate modellers -- the computer models that show polar ice-melt cooling the oceans, stopping the circulation of warm equatorial water to northern latitudes and triggering another Ice Age (a la the movie The Day After Tomorrow) are all wrong. "We missed what was right in front of our eyes," says Prof. Russell. It's not ice melt but rather wind circulation that drives ocean currents northward from the tropics. Climate models until now have not properly accounted for the wind's effects on ocean circulation, so researchers have compensated by over-emphasizing the role of manmade warming on polar ice melt. But when Profs. Toggweiler and Russell rejigged their model to include the 40-year cycle of winds away from the equator (then back towards it again), the role of ocean currents bringing warm southern waters to the north was obvious in the current Arctic warming. Last month, Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, shrugged off manmade climate change as "a drop in the bucket." Showing that solar activity has entered an inactive phase, Prof. Sorokhtin advised people to "stock up on fur coats." He is not alone. Kenneth Tapping of our own National Research Council, who oversees a giant radio telescope focused on the sun, is convinced we are in for a long period of severely cold weather if sunspot activity does not pick up soon. The last time the sun was this inactive, Earth suffered the Little Ice Age that lasted about five centuries and ended in 1850. Crops failed through killer frosts and drought. Famine, plague and war were widespread. Harbours froze, so did rivers, and trade ceased. It's way too early to claim the same is about to happen again, but then it's way too early for the hysteria of the global warmers, too.
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#4. To: angle (#0)
But, but, but, but....all the "climate change" people say the Sun has nothing to do with it! Wankers...
I don't think the experts say sun spots have no impact, but that there is another factor at play now too.
The experts keep saying that Solar Activity has no effect. Its all Greenhouse Gas emissions.
No they don't, they are just more concerned about the rapid increase in CO2 that's all. Look at that link, it's basic science, and it includes solar activity. Also, we have no control over solar activity, but perhaps we can control some of the CO2.
CO2 has been higher in the past as well as temperatures and we are already moving to cut emissions so what is the problem?
If you believe the data of the ice core samples then the CO2 today is much higher than any in the past. Most scientists to believe it. If it is caused by the burning of fossil fuels, then we could be looking at alternative energy sources. That's a good idea anyway, less dependence on foreign oil and less need for foreign wars.
I don't. There has been a few recent studies to show they are wrong. Climate and the Carboniferous Period The Carboniferous Period and the Ordovician Period were the only geological periods during the Paleozoic Era when global temperatures were as low as they are today. To the consternation of global warming proponents, the Late Ordovician Period was also an Ice Age while at the same time CO2 concentrations then were nearly 12 times higher than today-- 4400 ppm. According to greenhouse theory, Earth should have been exceedingly hot. Instead, global temperatures were no warmer than today. Clearly, other factors besides atmospheric carbon influence earth temperatures and global warming.
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Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latestwe are in for a long period of severely cold weather if sunspot activity does not pick up soon
#5. To: mirage (#4)
#6. To: robin (#5)
#7. To: mirage (#6)
#10. To: robin, mirage (#7)
No they don't, they are just more concerned about the rapid increase in CO2 that's all.
#11. To: farmfriend, mirage (#10)
#14. To: robin, mirage (#11)
(Edited)
If you believe the data of the ice core samples
There has historically been much more CO2 in our atmosphere than exists today. For example, during the Jurassic Period (200 mya), average CO2 concentrations were about 1800 ppm or about 4.7 times higher than today. The highest concentrations of CO2 during all of the Paleozoic Era occurred during the Cambrian Period, nearly 7000 ppm -- about 18 times higher than today.
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