Global Warming Could Forestall Ice Age (NYTs Article)

[Tom Rankin]

Summary:

This article says that due to Global Warming, we may avert an ice age within a few millennium, noting "The last ice age buried much of the Northern Hemisphere under a mile or more of ice", although the repercussions of too warm a planet remain ominous.

 

[Hillwalker]

Whew!

That makes me feel so much better. I was dreading the day when I had to clear a mile of ice off my roof with my roof rake. Snows snot so bad

 

[Neil]

So, on a short term basis, we humans may have inadvertently averted a disaster. It would not bode well for corporate America or Bicknell's Thrush if North America was under an ice sheet several miles thick.

I also thought that climate scientists and paleoclimatologists were concerned about the potential for rapid climate change, a flickering back and forth between climactic extremes.

Also, if the current ice sheets melt quickly enough there is the potential for a cessation of thermohaline circulation and a stoppage of the gulf stream, which could result in several miles of ice on top of Mount Marcy. So complicated.

Weather's looking good for this weekend though!

 

[Shardik]

Weather's looking good for this weekend though!

Not really...polar shift expected at 20:12 tomorrow..OM Gawd !
If you are on Marcy.....

"Pole Shift & Pole Reversal at 20:12 Tomorrow !

At 20:12 tomorrow the next polar reversal will take place on earth. This means that the North Pole will be changed into the South Pole. Scientifically this can only be explained by the fact that the earth will start rotating in the opposite direction, together with a huge disaster of unknown proportions."

Source here..
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Have a great weekend everyone ,and when I fix my foot I will join all of youse !

 

[Kevin Rooney]

Source here..

Lots of whackos, aren't there? Not all of them are on Fox News, either.

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

Excellent paper published in Science, one of the most critically reviewed journals, but Revkin likes to fan the flames to keep his readers thinking that the science is not settled on AGW. Hence, the general public is still 50/50 on AGW whereas the science community it is roughly 95/5. The paper basically summarizes data that support what has been the consensus in the paleoclimate community for a couple of decades now, although the annual resolution of the datasets that go back 2000 years are more robust than many previous paleoclimate datasets. I posted probably too much on a similar thread begun by beverly in November 2006, and in one my posts (#66) in that thread invited folks to attend a paleoclimate lecture by Ray Bradley, one of my colleagues, a founder of the Realclimate.org website, and a co-author on the latest Science paper. Co-authors Kaufmann and Overpeck are also my contemporaries with geology backgrounds.

http://www.vftt.org/forums/showthread.php?t=15023

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/category/extras/contributor-bios/

Just for clarification, even Revkin does not say that the former ice sheets were "miles thick" over us here in the Northeast, but rather "a mile or more thick," meaning perhaps a little over one mile. Perhaps in accumulation centers towards the interior of the former Laurentide Ice Sheet that covered northeastern North America the ice was up two miles thick, similar to the middle of the Greenland Ice Sheet today. And, yes, we think that ice sheets take thousands of years to build up, hence global cooling into the next ice age is not believed to be a threat to humanity (i.e., plenty of time to adapt, as humans are "ice-age mammals"). However, ice sheets can collapse much more quickly, perhaps within a few hundred years or less, which could be a threat to humanity, as we might not be able to adapt quickly enough (ex. AGW is already driving many other species to extinction).

Finally, Kevin Rooney's thread "Study: Northeast winters warming fast," begun in January 2008, has now topped 10,000 views, which may be a testament to the interest level of this topic for us in the hiking community?

http://www.vftt.org/forums/showthread.php?t=20006

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

Source here..

Lots of whackos, aren't there? Not all of them are on Fox News, either.

No comment, but I have lots of SF paperbacks on related topics that provide amusing props in the classroom.

 

[MonadnockVol]

A slight difference of opinion

Excellent paper published in Science, one of the most critically reviewed journals, but Revkin likes to fan the flames to keep his readers thinking that the science is not settled on AGW. Hence, the general public is still 50/50 on AGW whereas the science community it is roughly 95/5.

http://www.vftt.org/forums/showthread.php?t=20006

Dr., I agree with you entirely on the scientific consensus on GW, but have a slightly different take on Andrew Revkin's views on global warming. I don't think he's trying to fan the flames of doubt on this issue. As early as 1992 - in his first book on global warming - he was sounding alarm bells about GW. He's followed that up with his book "The North Pole was Here" and being the lead reporter for the NYTimes on climate issues, he's done a lot to keep this issue in the minds of the lay public. Part of being a reporter is acknowledging that there are opposing views. But I don't think Revkin has any doubts on the seriousness of GW.

Full disclosure: Andrew Revkin was my undergraduate lab partner in comparative anatomy. Which is part of the reason why I presume to know something about his views on GW and also why I was motivated to respond about what is admittedly a minor point.

All the best,
MonadnockVol

 

[Dr. Dasypodidae]

Dr., I agree with you entirely on the scientific consensus on GW, but have a slightly different take on Andrew Revkin's views on global warming. I don't think he's trying to fan the flames of doubt on this issue. As early as 1992 - in his first book on global warming - he was sounding alarm bells about GW. He's followed that up with his book "The North Pole was Here" and being the lead reporter for the NYTimes on climate issues, he's done a lot to keep this issue in the minds of the lay public. Part of being a reporter is acknowledging that there are opposing views. But I don't think Revkin has any doubts on the seriousness of GW.

Full disclosure: Andrew Revkin was my undergraduate lab partner in comparative anatomy. Which is part of the reason why I presume to know something about his views on GW and also why I was motivated to respond about what is admittedly a minor point.

All the best,
MonadnockVol

Oh, I know that Andrew Revkin accepts the scientific consensus on AGW, as I have a hard copy first edition of his "Global Warming; Understanding the Forecast," published by the American Museum of Natural History and the Environmental Defense Fund in 1992 (that was soon after the first IPCC report in 1990 and before the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th IPCC assessments in 1995, 2000, and 2007). I have also read his science pieces since he began with the NYT, all the more reason that I have been disappointed that he has granted so much time to the opposing and usually non-scientific points of view, which is one of many reasons that the public remains pretty much 50/50 on the issue. In my opinion, Revkin is a brilliant writer and has more influence on science policy, for better or for worse, than climate scientists ever will have. You two must have had a lot of fun in comparative anatomy lab, as I vaguely remember some pieces he wrote about his undergraduate science training.