Is global warming and carbon footprint CO2 misleading? Do we have global cooling / mini ice age ?

Question

Forget global warming: Welcome to the new Ice Age

Lorne Gunter, National Post Published: Monday, February 25, 2008

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 ... http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=332289

Answer 1

While I agree that this doesn't necessarily mean global warming has ended, it's more than a single month's worth of data. It's for the period from Jan 07 to Jan 08 and it's based on worldwide temp data. It may be transitory but it may also be more than that.

The truth is, even Jack in the Box doesn't know when the next ice age will occur, the cycle is between 15,000 to 20,000 years during the current ice age (we're technically just in an interglacial period). We're now at about year 18,000, maybe overdue for an ice age or it may be thousands of years away. But even a little ice age would cause far more harm than the worst predictions about AGW.

Our current solar cycle, #24, has started late and is thus far very weak compared to any cycle in the last hundred years. If that continues we may be facing a Maunder Minimum which last occurred during the coldest part of the Little Ice Age.

Global temp has only inched up .2 degrees C since 1940 and hasn't budged since the high in 1998. Given a choice between a global glaciation event and warming, I'll take the warming.

Answer 2

haha alright... the north pole has been migrating twards siberia.  it is always cold in quebec and ontario in the winter.  i went skiing in quebec about 10 years ago and it was -40 and snowing.  did you know that it was 70 degrees in january in ohio?  yeah... its supposed to be cold... when the global climate rises 5 degrees, it does not eliminate snow for nothern regions of the world. it doesnt work like that.

Answer 3

It is true that the sun-earth orbit varies over time(called Milankovitch Cycles), and these may lead to ice ages at 11,000 year intervals. However, in the face of inaction, the time it would take to enter the next ice age is thousands of years off and by that time, greenhouse gas related warming will have irreversably changed out planet.   Also, though the planet has warmed measurably(through analysis of measurements gathered from around the planet) and thus global warming is an appropriate term, I prefer "climate change".  This is because climate will change due to changes in atmospheric circulations which result from a warming of the planet overall.  The earth is unevenly heated(the tropics receive more solar energy than do the polar regions), and so heat is continually being transported(through weather systems and atmospheric and oceanic circulations) from low latitudes to high latitudes.  Circulations in the atmosphere which tend to draw warm air poleward also draw cool air down from higher latitude, polar regions.  If these circulations intensify in a warming climate, specific areas may experience changes in normal maximum(or minimum temperatures).  However, surface observations(from weather stations) are making evident the trend towards higher maximum temperatures with warmer nights on average around the globe.

Answer 4

Can't have an ice age when both polar ice caps are melting.

in an ice age they grow and creep down the globe.    We are loosing ice, dude!   Get your sun screen out

Answer 5

If we were to move into an ice age this soon, it will indeed be a mini-ice age. To go into a significant ice age the oceans of the world would need to be significantly warmer, to enable evaporation to continue despite a major bout of global cloud cover.

Global warming eventually will bring us to that stage, where oceans are warm enough, and we have a minor cooling from whatever cause, setting off world wide cloud cover.

Then Canada and Russia, Sweden, Finland, Norway will all have to pack it in for a few thousand years.

We could have a mini ice age along the way.

Answer 6

the media has always pushed the most alarming story. the truth is there are no facts backing up this statement that we are going into an ice age. one month was just colder then normal. nothing really alarming.

if this cooling trend continues for a few years then maybe we can start worrying about cooling, notice that some years are just cooler then others but the 5 year average is still increasing.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs...

Data @ NASA GISS: GISS Surface Temperature Analysis: Graphs

Answer 7

Global cooling is a bad thing to have happen, and it is a result of the ozone layer disappearing

http://officeofstrategicinfluence.com/gl...

Answer 8

I know we have global cooling as in Toronto, we just had another big snowfall two days ago and I heard winter weather like conditions will still be around until the middle of April.

All these global warming and carbon footprint mumbo jumbo are for governments and special interest groups to tax us all and waste our tax dollars and/or pocket them for their secret corrupt purposes like for themselves and/or their friends . Big government = big waste.

Answer 9

No, just look at the data.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs...

Does that look like cooling to you?  Basically we had one relatively cool month (January 2008) because of a strong La Nina cycle, which is already starting to dissipate.

You should read this explanation by James Hansen, head of NASA GISS.

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2...