Isn't a second ice age inevitable?

Question

And NOT as a result of Global Warming. But it's said we are in a "brief" period between two ice ages, like a slight pause to the life on the Earth. Is this true? Is a second ice age inevitable? Is this a result of the first ice age's effects? I know the fist ice age melted and remelted for years and years.

Answer 1

I hope so,, I`m tired of going too work

Answer 2

Judging by this graph of temps over 450,000 years, we are at that time where temps could start plunging down. Boy would that suck, so please buy SUV's and drive them. ALOT!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ice_A...

Answer 3

I think it is inevitable but nobody knows when. You can't say it is due in 30,000 years because you don't know. By the way, there have been at least four major ice ages in the Earth's past, not just one.

Answer 4

Free snow cones for everyone.  Yahoo !

Answer 5

second ice age? There's been many ice ages - worst is the snowball earth scenario by which it is completely frozen can only get of the situation through a supervolcano.

Answer 6

1. What do you mean "second ice age"?  There have already been several with warming between.

2. The earth goes through several cycles of warming and cooling without respect to anything man can do or has done.

3. Using measurements over the last 100 years does not mean all that GW enthusiasts would have you believe.  Consider where and when the temperatures have been taken and what that means with respect to the interpretation.  

Over the last hundred years, temperatures have been recorded at airports (these have changed from flat pastures to semi-rural areas to monstrous concrete heat islands).  What affect does that have on the "recorded" temperature?  

Look at the accuracy of those temperature recordings (manually read thermometers with an accuracy of maybe 1 degree to current computer readings accurate to 0.1 degree)  What does that mean when you say temperatures have increased 0.3 degrees?  Nothing -- it's not even outside the error bars of the measurement!!

An ice age is inevitable and there is nothing that can be done about it.  We are in a global warming stage and also there is nothing that man can do about it.  It's ludicrous for man to think he is important enough or powerful enough to change the climate globally.

Answer 7

Second?

There is a continues cycle, technically we are not out of an ice age but in an inter-glacial period if we were out of an ice age there would be no ice at the poles.

The current full ice age started 40 million years ago with ice sheets growing & shrinking on 40,000- and 100,000-year periods, the interglacial period (we are in) started about 10000 years ago.

Cutting a long story short we will go back into another glacial period, but not for 1000s of years.

P.s. many have been posting questions about the poles growing and cooling, this is simply not true, NOAA have confirmed 2007 had the smallest ice area on record. This is fact supported by satellite images, not text comments from blog sites. The other one that seems to play here and at other sites is the "Earth started cooling in 1998" This also is complete fiction, 2005 is the warmest year on record followed by 98 the next 3 years are all in the 2000s (This is also documented fact). There is a lot of misinformation floating about the web on GW the two above are being spread widely but are pretty easy to show as fake with a Google search. The second link is one of the best I have seen and covers many of the questions and its from newscientist not rightwing sites like newsmaxx.

Answer 8

Logic dictates that your conclusion is correct.  However this winter in Northern Wisconsin feels like it has arrived.  Man its been cold.

Answer 9

the planet goes through cycles and an ice age is something that will happen again because it is one of the cycles!

Answer 10

That's my understanding.  I guess, as far as climate is concerned, we hit a soft spot.

Answer 11

Yes, It appears that the earth goes through cycles of warming and then cooling as a reaction. But we are still understanding how it works in detail. One thing is certain that life on earth as it is now has complicated interactivity and we are still putting the peices of the puzzle together. Every organism depends on the existence of others. So we must not risk accelerating the next cycle of change . It would be a shame to be evicted from our perfect home through ignorance of how to look after it.

Answer 12

Yes....What some scientist are saying is the the warm watter currents is the trigger.  For what ever reason the Gulf stream has stopped a number of times.  This triggers a cooling of Europe and the rest of the earth follows.  Some say that as the poles melt this will trigger the stop because less salty water will not sink stopping the cold watter from flowing.  I don't know but this could happen at any time and Europe will experience an ice age very quickly.

Answer 13

Thats really scary.....

Answer 14

you are correct sir.  the planet as a whole is cooling.