| dave1980 | New ice age |
Posts: 1
Joined: 18.12.10 |
Posted on 18-12-2010 22:15 |
Will it be possible?
What are the latest findings about the risk of a stop or reduction of the Gulf Stream?
I hear different things each time climate scientists talk about this risk.
Are there any indications that the Gulf Stream has lost some of its power? I mean this winter is extremely cold here in northern Europe... could it be the cause?
Thank you! 
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| Bo Vinther | RE: New ice age |
Posts: 3
Joined: 17.12.10 |
Posted on 19-12-2010 03:33 |
Dear Dave
I would not worry about a new ice age.
If you follow the link below, then you can read an article documenting that the recent media rapports about this are bogus:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/12/coldest-winter-in-1000-years-cometh–not/
The cold weather we have in Europe this winter is most likely due to a natural weather pattern called the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). This pattern has two modes:
Positive mode: Northern Europe warm, but Greenland cold.
Negative mode: Greenland warm, but Northern Europe cold.
This winter has so far been dominated by the negative mode, with temperatures in Greenland way above normal (+12 degress Celsius in Ammassalik a few days ago!) and Northern Europe having colder than normal conditions.
If the Gulf Stream had slowed down then Greenland would be very, very cold as well - but Greenland is in fact very, very warm, because there is no significant change in the Gulf Stream - the warm air masses have just decided to go to Greenland instead of Northern Europe so far this winter.
You can read more about the NAO here:
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/pi/NAO/
Cheers....Bo
Edited by Bo Vinther on 19-12-2010 03:42 |
| branner | RE: New ice age |
Administrator
Posts: 9
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
Joined: 27.09.09 |
Posted on 19-12-2010 13:40 |
Just to put things into perspective:
Here is the "extreme cold" over Northern Europe last month: 
And here is a map of the glaciation during the last ice ages:
You can read more about the possibility of the Gulf Stream stopping here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutdown_of_thermohaline_circulation.
Also, not everyone agree that a slowdown of the Gulf Stream will be disastrous. Maybe someone has a comment to this short article from Columbia University: The Gulf Stream Myth...
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| Frank Lansner | RE: New ice age |
Posts: 9
Joined: 16.12.10 |
Posted on 19-12-2010 16:45 |
Hi all :-)
Branner, I wish you well with this forum, so far the content is very uplifting :-)
First a more general remark on the "ice age" risk etc:
I have done a little analysis of what we can expect... Below we see a graphic where the resent interglacial warm peaks have been shown to enable compare.
Now, so far on this slightly small data foundation it appears, that speed of cooling after a warm period is slower after long warm periods, faster after short warm periods.
Its as if the heat of a long warm period has affected the upper layers more. The heat is perhaps slightly deeper stored in the upperlayes after a long warming period, and therefore a long warm period is followed by a slower cooling when returning to ice age.
If true, then a returning to ice age now will obviously affect us all, but perhaps the long wam period behind us will give us more time to adapt.
Another remark:
There are many opinions on when the ice age will come, but i believe we are talking about a time limit of this to happen no larger than X thousdan years. That is, there are many opinions on when an ice age will start, but an ice age will come within thousands of years.
For compare we have the other serious threat of a meteor impact of the worst kinds. These happens with millions of years in between.
But even though we know that meteor disasters are perhaps 1000 times less likely than an ice age to occur soon, we spend quite a dollar on preventing meteor impact rather than making systematically preparations for ice age. This is a problem. its a problem that we dont play it safe because of a global warming debate that silences the thread of an ice age.
K.R. Frank
Illustration taken from:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/30/co2-temperatures-and-ice-ages/
Edited by Frank Lansner on 19-12-2010 16:51 |
| WeatherRusty | RE: New ice age |
Posts: 4
Joined: 25.12.10 |
Posted on 26-12-2010 23:33 |
According to the theory of orbital forcing or Milankovitch cycles, the next ice should be held off for something like another 40,000 years. The prominent cycle maintaining the current mild Holocene period interglacial is that of the Earth's orbital eccentricity which is slated to favor warmth for several 10's of thousands of years. No ice age anytime soon due to the same factors which have produced the past 3 million years of ice ages.
AGW will play out on the century scale and is thus of far more immediate concern than any ice age potential.
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| Desertphile | RE: New ice age |
Posts: 28
Joined: 15.02.11 |
Posted on 15-02-2011 01:52 |
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The next ice age is about 12,000 years from now. Don't worry about it: global warming is a vastly more pressing problem.
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| hotair | RE: New ice age |
Posts: 11
Joined: 11.05.11 |
Posted on 11-05-2011 21:34 |
When you talk about gulf stream reversal, its not an ice age.
What you're talking about is how the heat pumps moving heat around the world will change.
I guarantee that the result won't be what you expect. Namely, we're still heating the place, so, a golf stream reversal would mean that the heat would be blocked, or move in a different (currently unknown) fashion.
Given that the arctic is heating up at a horrendous rate, that would at the very least imply a very mild 'ice age' (if we can call it that).
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| jakeliu | RE: New ice age |
Posts: 3
Joined: 17.01.13 |
Posted on 17-01-2013 04:08 |
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other serious threat of a meteor impact of the worst kinds. These happens with millions of years in between.
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| peter_k | RE: New ice age |
Posts: 4
Location: UK
Joined: 21.02.13 |
Posted on 21-02-2013 12:11 |
Hello friends,
Thanks for sharing this information with us.
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| Phil | RE: New ice age |
Posts: 8
Location: Australia
Joined: 09.02.13 |
Posted on 06-03-2013 10:41 |
Hi all,
Nice post.
The shared detailed information is very useful.
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