Text 65896, 40 rader
Skriven 2011-07-01 09:26:00 av Paul Quinn (3:640/384)
  Kommentar till text 65893 av Tom Walker (1:123/140)
Ärende: Re: Size matters.
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Hi! Tom,

In a message to Holger Granholm you wrote:

 HG>>We may even be headed to another "small ice age" that occurred
 HG>> 1790-1830 during the Dalton minimum
[ ...trimmed... ]
 TW> How can that be. teh Liberal Politicans here say we are destroying
 TW> the Planet with Global Warming??

This is a common misconception due to the name given to precursor conditions. 
The global warming results in the melting of -fresh- water in the polar
icecaps, alpine areas and glaciers.  This influx of fresh water, which is
happening now in an ever-increasing yearly output (downhill snowball effect),
causes the heat-transfer from the tropics to northern latitudes via the great
oceanic 'conveyor belt' currents to *cease*.  Once the heat-transfer stops
everything freezes.  Hence the mini ice age effect.

 TW> You mean Nature really is in charge of the Weather and any pittiful
 TW> thing that Mankind may do is little more than nothing in the big
 TW> Picture!!  :-)  :-)  :-)

Yep, for the most part.  Earth is currently experiencing the latter stages of
the last great warming that started 40-thousand years ago; another ice age is
inevitable.  Research has proven that mini versions (called "flips", as in
switch-on/switch-off) have occurred in the past and have occurred quite rapidly
at times, some as fast as 10 years such as at the turn of the 18th century,
but, usually over time scales of 50-100 years (which scientists -expect- with
the next flip).  Mankind's little excursions into hastening the flips is not so
well understood... it's early days... so far.

IIRC the movie 'The Day After Tomorrow' (2004) says it all quite well, and
dramatically.  The DVD extras provide a lot of scientific insights into the
basic premise for the movie.

Cheers,
Paul.

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 * Origin: I started out with nothing and I still have most of it. (3:640/384)