The issue becomes confused because global warming can change regional climate, and cause colder weather patterns in some areas even as the whole atmosphere warms.
Among the examples of potential cold created in some areas:
1. The slowing of the jet stream, due to the warming of the Arctic. As the jet stream slows it becomes wavier, and Arctic storms more often move far to the south. We have seen the pattern over the past 5 years in the U.S. creating colder than normal winters. We cannot say with certainty whether the jet stream patterns of the past 5 year are a result of the Arctic warming, but as the jet stream is powered by temperature differences it is a prominent hypothesis. But this is not an ice age: this is more cold air moving out of the Arctic, and more warm air moves in. Alaska and Northern Canada get warm winters when the lower U.S. gets those very cold winters; it is about air movements.
2. A slowing of the Gulf current, the Atlantic heat conveyor. There is no evidence of this actually happening now, but a plausible future condition is a slowing of the Gulf current. The current is powered by salinity. So, should the salinity of the Northern Atlantic be reduced enough due to melting ice and/or fresh water run off, the current could severely slow. That would reduce the heat carried from the tropics to the Northern Atlantic. The northern US and norther Europe would then change to icy conditions while the tropics got much hotter. Again, this would be a change in where heat moves.
Ice ages require a decrease of CO2 in the atmosphere. The astronomical triggers of past ice ages were not great enough to bring ice ages without the CO2 feedback. The earth will not see an ice age as long as humans are adding CO2 barring a massive astronomical change not yet known in the earth's history.
No.
Science has a pretty good understanding of what caused previous ice ages (ie, Milankovitch cycles, variations in the sun's output, etc.) and global warming certainly is not one of them.
Please don't get confused with what 'the media' in general and particular climate focused blogs tell you. The fact that scientists believe certain short term cold-weather events might be triggered by long-term global warming does not mean a new ice age is imminent. As a matter of fact, all long term temperature trends show a strong upward temperature increase, not a downward movement as an ice age would require.
No, our emissions of CO2 aren't likely to cause significant warming or cooling. If by ice age, you mean mini ice age such as the Maunder Minimum (minimal number of sunspots) corresponding to the Little Ice Age, then the answer to that is also no. It appears that solar activity was the driving factor. Alarmists like Bacheous often make incorrect assertions such as "Ice ages are created by decreases in tropospheric CO2." In fact, the CO2 was controlled by the temperature, not vice versa but it is pretty hard to push a far leftist agenda unless CO2 is the driver.
It is certainly possible that periods of high temperatures are followed by periods of low temperatures. One of the mechanisms may be increased volcanic activity due to heat related stresses on the crust, and more forest fires and dust storms which all add to dust and particles in the upper atmosphere. This blanket would effectively block solar radiation from getting to the earth and we would have some cooling going on.- Enough for severe winters. Whenever even one major volcano blows there is major disruption to weather systems for some years. But for the most part it is the Sun that is responsible for heating and cooling.
Well it happened once before, in the Younger Dryas period, the Earth was coming out of an ice age, when some event happened (what exactly is under dispute) the CO2 shot up to 400 to 450ppm and the temperatures dived back down again very dramatically, interestingly the CO2 levels declined quite rapidly in only 40yrs.
http://www.godandscience.org/images/youn...
Ha! Ha! A statement that has a twinge of levity to it. Even though the concept is ridiculous you would be surprised at how many climate clowns actually believe this.
Quote by Chris Folland of UK Meteorological Office: “The data don't matter. We're not basing our recommendations [for reductions in carbon dioxide emissions] upon the data. We're basing them upon the climate models.”
It is ridiculous at best.
Well(another deep topic), here is a thought. GW causes the oceans to evaporate faster (more than they normally do) which gives us clouds. A lot more clouds, which in itself blocks out the sun from the land surface of the planet - which would normally warm up. Clouds makes it colder as it drops its load of rain onto the lands, cooling them moreso. So neverending global cloudy period would result in a cooler planet. Hard to say for certain as we have never had a "model planet" upon which to experiment on. Using ourselves as guinea pigs is just not wise.
They figure the last ice age was because of some massive volcanic eruptions that threw millions of tons of dust particles and smoke into the atmosphere...resulting in a global cloud...that put a shield over the planet, blocking out the sunlight...for hundreds of thousands if not millions of years.
No, it can't. And here is a tip. If you can't explain how global warming can cause a given phenomenon, chances are it doesn't, and "warmers" don't say it does. When denialists say they do, that is an example of a straw man argument.
No, it has been demonstrated that the Vostok Ice core data clearly shows that temperature increases precede an increase of CO2. Atmospheric CO2 levels are a effect of temperature changes not a cause.
Sure - It causes both hot and cold, droughts and floods, storms and calm, whatever - It's caused by global warming. And events can only be predicted after they happen.
No. Ice ages, and interglacials, which we are in now, are caused by eccentricities in earth's orbit around the sun.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitc...
Anyone who makes silly claims to the contrary is lying to you.
'warm' is the opposite of 'cold'
No, it doesn't cause an Ice-age.
no.
