Hi all,
Now, i know that the earth is getting hot more and more cause of the global warming.

By logic, the global warming will cause (as we see) that the earth will get hotter and hotter.

But i recently read some articles saying that the global warming may lead the earth to an Ice Age !
I really dont know how that could happen, and i really need to know what about this theory and more information about it. And what are the possibilities for this to happen ?
How much percent this could happen ???
I need to know, as we see now, that Earth is getting hotter and hotter, so how come could it get into an ice age ?!!

Please reply

Thank you.

I think the ice age thing comes from the scientific communtiy warnning of a polar shift. If there is a polar shift which really I do think it is comming(maybe not in my lifetime) but the earths magnetic field would be so to say out of ballance and cause our atmosphere to deplete the abillity to hold in the heat.

The sun has actually gotten hotter, which ultimately controls the temperature here, not us. Another Ice Age is certainly plausible. But when and how, anybody's guess.

the sun does not ultimately control the temp of the earth, green house gases do, Co2,methane ect

Without the suns heat and radiation those things are worthless, since they rely on it.

How does the earth's magnetism, shifted or not, having anything to do with the ability for the earth to retain heat?

The theory is that the Earth will reach a certain temperature causing the currents of the oceans to stop thus sending this planet into an Ice Age. I hope I am not doing homework here.
The magnetic field helps the Earth retain its atmosphere. That is the problem with Mars. If Mars had atmosphere creating cyano bacteria, which originally made our own air and allowed for evolution. It is not retained because Mars' core is cooler and does not produce a strong enough magnetic field.


Lap'iche ni'tis

maybe this will help you...

link:

Would that necessarily lead to an Ice Age, though? It would certainly collapse most of Europe, since if the Gulf Stream failed their climates would actually start to resemble those of the equivalent latitude in North America. That means for you Britons, you would be looking at subarctic forests (possibly mildened by the maritime atmosphere), and long, cold, snowy winters.

Still, even though the Gulf Stream circulation would be over, the planet, overall, would still be warmer, and if greenhouse gases continued to rise up, Europe would regain its climate through sheer heating, or once the freshwater from the Arctic cap dispersed.

Yes, It would be interesting to see what a long term global heating model might show! Anyone have a link?

Here's a start The actual research paper is only available to subscribers, but the abstract includes a summary of their conclusions.

When the megnetic Poles do shift, we will be exposed to massive amounts of UV Radiation, for about an hour or so. And heres the solution to avoid that, stay in doors.

~Thanato

P.S. The Megnetic Poles are moving. Now.

Isn't an ice age the opposite of global warming?

Isn't an ice age the opposite of global warming?

Sorry about the two posts. I was having a few technical difficulties

Still waiting for a thermodynamic model which would even allow any ice age to happen. Haven't seen one yet. Clue: The oceans need to be much warmer, and the land and air temperatures much, much colder than now. Please, just how does that actually happen?

Ice Ages seem to follow cycles that correspond roughly with changes in the Earth's axial tilt. The basic idea is that Ice Ages seem to occur when the climate is already capable of being plunged into a colder state, and the loss of sunlight to the middle and higher latitudes from the shrinking of the Earth's tilt is the basic trigger.

Here's a link.

Hadeka, the melting of the Arctic pack ice could stop the Atlantic conveyor, a world-wide current that includes the Gulf Stream as one component. However, this would only temporarily turn Europe cold. A similar event happened at the end of the last glacial period about 11,500 years ago. This is a thermohaline current, in which the heat of the Gulf Stream warms the air blowing across Europe, while making the Gulf Stream waters more salty, and thus heavier. They then sink, and become part of a global deep water current.

According to climatologists we are already 5000 years overdue for the next glacial period of a long series of glacial and interglacial periods. The activities of man have increased atmospheric greenhouse gases, long before the Industrial revolution. Cutting down forests to plant crops is one component, as is the domestication of ungulates, and the effects of rice paddies (they produce a lot of methane).

~~~Cebrakon

The general consensus is that it is a combination of up to three different factors:

Atmospheric composition (particularly the fraction of CO2 and methane),
Changes in the Earth's orbit around the Sun known as Milankovitch cycles (and possibly the Sun's orbit around the galaxy), and the arrangement of the continents.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age

One thing to remember about Ice Ages is that they can only happen in times when the Earth is already cold enough to allow glacial ice to form at the poles, such as in the past 30 million years or so (and even then, it still wasn't cold enough until 3 million years ago). During the Cretaceous period, when the atmosphere's CO2 content was something like 16 times more than what it is now, the change in sunlight caused by the cycles wasn't enough to seriously effect the temperature of the planet.