Noel Sheppard on Ice Age Prediction

This article outlines the arguments for the very reasonable expectation that the Earth is close to swinging back into a full blown ice age for another 100,000 years. For starters, our interpretation of the proxies confirm just such a repeating cycle. And if the past is a guide for the future, then the ice age should kick in soon.

In fact, this position is surely the uncontroversial one. I happen to disagree with this position but for reasons that will be controversial.

On the evidentiary front, the Holocene is locked into a two degree temperature spread that shows no sign of changing. No such evidence of such a narrow range appears to have existed in the previous interglacials. It is here that I would like to see a convincing review of the data. All indications that I have come across so far suggest a more likely temperature spread of several degrees and the maintenance of the ice sheets.

Yes, temperature points were achieved but I see no believable argument that the sea rose 300 feet.

They also spell out that CO2 levels peaked to present levels equivalent to that of past interglacials. This occurs as an 800 year lagging event after the temperature rises.

My principal objection to the restoration of an ice age in the north as we already have one in the south is that it is not possible to produce sea level ice outside 15 degrees south. It is equally unlikely to produce it very well up to several hundred feet above sea level. Most of the lands outside the mountains are lousy candidates for ice formation. What is more, with the exception of Greenland, all the lands including the Arctic Islands are effectively ice free.

In fact Greenland is unable to sustain an ice cap anywhere over ocean even over the North Pole. This is all because the Gulf Stream is way too powerful as a heat transfer machine.

For ice age conditions to return we must shut down the Gulf Stream. No more no less. At present, this could only happen if the sun reduced its output by a massive percentage. Yet water evaporation would also collapse depriving those ice fields of a supply of snow.

Thus we return to my core conjecture. The ice age ended permanently because the global crust was shifted 12900 years ago taking the northern ice cap thirty degrees south to the center of Hudson Bay. This took the Caribbean out of cooler temperate water into the tropics to produce the necessary hot water of the Gulf Stream.

This explanation also eliminates the many objections thrown at the very idea of an ice age from the very beginning and since conveniently forgotten.

The evidence is discussed more fully in my article ‘Pleistocene Nonconformity’ best seen on Viewzone.com

Global Warming Update: 'Earth on the Brink of an Ice Age'
By Noel Sheppard

January 11, 2009 - 11:57 ET

As Democrats and their president-elect -- with invaluable assistance from their media minions -- continue spreading climate hysteria in order to raise taxes and redistribute wealth, a possibly inconvenient truth has just been presented to the international community: "The earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age, according to a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science."

Additionally, the entire bogus manmade global warming theory that climate alarmists and their surrogates have been forcing down the throats of the citizenry "is based on data that is drawn from a ridiculously narrow span of time and it demonstrates a wanton disregard for the ‘big picture’ of long-term climate change."

Such was reported by Russia's Pravda Sunday, and it not only goes quite counter to the junk science being espoused by folks like Nobel Laureate Al Gore and his accomplices James Hansen and Gavin Schmidt, but it has also been regularly proffered by many of the real scientists and climatologists around the world that global warming loving media not only refuse to cite and/or interview, but also disgracefully ridicule as deniers and flat earthers.

According to Pravda, it is Gore, Hansen, Schmidt, and all their sycophant devotees that are the flat earthers who are distracting the world from a much more serious climate threat (emphasis added throughout):

The earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age, according to a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science. Many sources of data which provide our knowledge base of long-term climate change indicate that the warm, twelve thousand year-long Holocene period will rather soon be coming to an end, and then the earth will return to Ice Age conditions for the next 100,000 years.

Ice cores, ocean sediment cores, the geologic record, and studies of ancient plant and animal populations all demonstrate a regular cyclic pattern of Ice Age glacial maximums which each last about 100,000 years, separated by intervening warm interglacials, each lasting about 12,000 years.

Sounds much like what the realist side has been saying for years, doesn't it? But it gets better:

During the 1970s the famous American astronomer Carl Sagan and other scientists began promoting the theory that ‘greenhouse gasses’ such as carbon dioxide, or CO2, produced by human industries could lead to catastrophic global warming. Since the 1970s the theory of ‘anthropogenic global warming’ (AGW) has gradually become accepted as fact by most of the academic establishment, and their acceptance of AGW has inspired a global movement to encourage governments to make pivotal changes to prevent the worsening of AGW.

The central piece of evidence that is cited in support of the AGW theory is the famous ‘hockey stick’ graph which was presented by Al Gore in his 2006 film “An Inconvenient Truth.” The ‘hockey stick’ graph shows an acute upward spike in global temperatures which began during the 1970s and continued through the winter of 2006/07. However, this warming trend was interrupted when the winter of 2007/8 delivered the deepest snow cover to the Northern Hemisphere since 1966 and the coldest temperatures since 2001. It now appears that the current Northern Hemisphere winter of 2008/09 will probably equal or surpass the winter of 2007/08 for both snow depth and cold temperatures.

The main flaw in the AGW theory is that its proponents focus on evidence from only the past one thousand years at most, while ignoring the evidence from the past million years -- evidence which is essential for a true understanding of climatology. The data from paleoclimatology provides us with an alternative and more credible explanation for the recent global temperature spike, based on the natural cycle of Ice Age maximums and interglacials.

Sounds exactly like what the realists claim, and have been claiming, correct? But there's more:

The reason that global CO2 levels rise and fall in response to the global temperature is because cold water is capable of retaining more CO2 than warm water. That is why carbonated beverages loose [sic] their carbonation, or CO2, when stored in a warm environment. We store our carbonated soft drinks, wine, and beer in a cool place to prevent them from loosing their ‘fizz’, which is a feature of their carbonation, or CO2 content. The earth is currently warming as a result of the natural Ice Age cycle, and as the oceans get warmer, they release increasing amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Because the release of CO2 by the warming oceans lags behind the changes in the earth’s temperature, we should expect to see global CO2 levels continue to rise for another eight hundred years after the end of the earth’s current Interglacial warm period. We should already be eight hundred years into the coming Ice Age before global CO2 levels begin to drop in response to the increased chilling of the world’s oceans.

The Vostok ice core data graph reveals that global CO2 levels regularly rose and fell in a direct response to the natural cycle of Ice Age minimums and maximums during the past four hundred and twenty thousand years. Within that natural cycle, about every 110,000 years global temperatures, followed by global CO2 levels, have peaked at approximately the same levels which they are at today.

The conclusion:

The AGW theory is based on data that is drawn from a ridiculously narrow span of time and it demonstrates a wanton disregard for the ‘big picture’ of long-term climate change. The data from paleoclimatology, including ice cores, sea sediments, geology, paleobotany and zoology, indicate that we are on the verge of entering another Ice Age, and the data also shows that severe and lasting climate change can occur within only a few years. While concern over the dubious threat of Anthropogenic Global Warming continues to distract the attention of people throughout the world, the very real threat of the approaching and inevitable Ice Age, which will render large parts of the Northern Hemisphere uninhabitable, is being foolishly ignored.

For what it's worth, Accuweather's Joe Bastardi told Glenn Beck last Tuesday that Russia's Vladimir Putin may have cut supplies of gas from the Ukraine to Europe because he believes the globe is about to go into a cooling phase, and controlling natural gas will give his country a great deal of added power on that continent.

Maybe Putin was aware of this article about to be published by Pravda?

Regardless, it's going to be very interesting to see how much this report gets covered here in America where our media, regardless of how cold it is or how cold it might get, still believe Al Gore.

Stay tuned.

Post facto thought-provoker: the climate alarmists regularly proffer that America and the world, regardless of whether or not AGW theory becomes prophecy, should prepare for that possibility. Not doing so in their view would be foolish.

Well, what if the realists who believe we're entering another serious cooling phase are right? Wouldn't it be foolish for us not to prepare for that outcome?

After all, as most American residences and structures were built during the recent warming phase, they're not prepared for significantly colder temperatures. Neither is our current electricity grid or our supply of natural gas and heating oil.

Also, it is MUCH easier to deal with warmer temperatures than cooler ones. Maybe more important, a lot more people die from the cold than the heat.

As such, using the alarmist argument that it's foolish not to prepare for a possible outcome, and given the greater consequences involved in a global cooling, shouldn't we be allocating more resources and energy to preparing for it?

How might we accomplish this? Well, with the economy in a serious recession, and Congress considering a stimulus package, how about one that offers tax credits to individuals and businesses that upgrade their heating systems, improve insulation, and install double-pane windows?

Such purchases would not only prepare the nation for a possible cooling, but also fuel the economy and create jobs.

While we're at it, as we're going to need more heating oil, maybe we should fast-track the licensing of new refinery construction so that the inventory of such will be on the upswing thereby reducing the likelihood of price spikes from future supply constraints. Such construction would also create jobs.

Of course, if we are going to need more heating oil, we should remove the current impediments to exploration and drilling both offshore and in the nation's oil shale-rich interior.

Without question, if Pravda and the hundreds of climate realists predicting a cooling are right, America needs to prepare for it. Given the current state of our economy, proactive solutions should be looked at as sound investments in our nation's future with the ancillary benefit of much-needed job creation.

Or is this too logical for global warming-obsessed politicians and media?