Conservatives insist the rest of us live by their rules

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The notion that a period of glaciation is an ice age may be popular among non-scientific people, but not among real scientists. The reality is that ice ages tend to last millions of years. If this one were to end now, it would be the shortest major ice age that we know of. For all we know, it might easily last for tens of millions of years.

In comparison, the longest ice age we know of lasted about 300 million years. I think the shortest known major ice age was something like 40 million years in duration.

Not a peer reviewed paper, but a brief introduction to ice ages, read http://geology.utah.gov/map-pub/survey-notes/glad-you-asked/ice-ages-what-are-they-and-what-causes-them/:

Note the word "informally". A period of glaciation is no more an ice age than was the geologically very recent period known as the "Little Ice Age".

The Ice age is coming, we are not quite in it yet.

We are in it. This ice age began something like 2.6 million years ago.

What will surely come, unless this ice age should miraculously end, is another period of glaciation. A period of glaciation is not an ice age.

Based on your 'morals' you think its robbery, but no it is not legally defined as so...and as I said before unless you got a better idea than taxation to fund the things taxes fund...it really does seem pretty mindless to b*tch, and b*tch and b*tch about the existence of taxation and blame the poor for 'stealing' your money...when its more like if you want to live in a society with an infrastructure there is going to be some required amount of contribution required of all citizens...if you don't want to be a citizen don't. But otherwise b*tching and complaining about people simply getting on programs they 'qualify' for just makes you look like an a** not a justice fighter saint which is probably more what you are going for I assume. And yes by legal standards and definitions people who qualify for welfare programs are entitled to that help and/or money provided by said programs actually regardless of your personal opinion that someone like me ought to be on the streets with no income whatsover because it's 'unfair' for taxes to go to such programs...I wonder if taxes in no way went to public services or the poor and disabled would you then be ok with them? I suppose I mean is it that a percentage of the taxes go to impoverished people that makes you define it as stealing and think taxes should be eliminated? Or are you also pissed at general social services like the fire department who will come put a fire out if your house starts burning down and things like that?

Last edited by Sweetleaf on 09 Jul 2015, 2:43 am, edited 2 times in total.

Well hell even a few years back I read up on some articles that talked about how arctic/nothren Ice is melting...like scandinavians who have fished on these waters in the winter(ice fishing) have noticed a significant decline in Ice, thus effecting their ability to Ice fish...this was like 5 years ago, I only can imagine it more noticeable now. So to deny there are changes happening is idiotic....yes Ice is melting, it could partially be caused by human contribution, lets all cry about it instead of attempting to find 'solutions' for the human contributions.

Note that Lintar mentioned the Antarctic, not the Arctic.

In any event, I think it more important that we do the research to find out whether we need to try to do anything about human contributions to Global Warming instead of going into a panic based on imagination. Even if we do turn out to actually have a reason to need to reduce our contributions, trying to do something without understanding the problems is likely to be very expensive and have very poor results.

It is quite possible that the best thing we could do to cut our contribution to warming is to pollute more -- to introduce more highly reflective pollution high in the atmosphere that will reflect more incoming sunlight back into space.

Another thing that would help would be to start building more and more nuclear power plants all over the globe.

What do you think about creating pollution intentionally and building many nuclear power plants?

In that case, where is all the Ice...I mean I suppose I have a hard time with the correlation of glaciers and northern Ice melting at a quicker rate than ever, and an Ice age and global warming all at the same time. But perhaps you know something I do not.

And starting at the third paragraph gives a good impression of why humans so easily f*** themselves and their surroundings over. The best thing we can do is pollute more and create more nuclear radiation brilliant and do anything else we can to increase our negative imprint on the earth. absolutely brilliant I say, absolutely brilliant

The West Coast is baking. Drought is becoming Super Drought.

The cause, The Ocean is warmer, it forms high pressure above, which blocks storms from bringing clouds and rain.

El Nino, La Nina, this has been going on for a while. The Incas had to put up with it.

The drought that took down the Maya, the Anasazi, and the reason there were so few Native Americans in California, started getting bad around 750 AD. It continued till 1550 AD. It was hot, dry, and before industrial anything.

During the same time, the Black Sea and the Nile froze over in 705, only record of that happening, Vikings came south before 900, and the Little Ice Age put year round ice on the northern coast of Scotland from 1100 to 1300.

Hot and dry here, cold and wet there, before industrial, points to changes in Ocean Currents having major climate effects. Two large areas left records, we can expect there were other changes.

This speculation that the Air could cause Global Warming, Climate Change is just speculation.

There is a lot more Ocean, it is proven to cause major changes, and there is nothing we can do about it.

At the current rate of warming, the ice cap on Greenland is expected to take nearly 20,000 years to melt. Antarctica, substantially longer. With more warming, it will be faster, but we're still talking thousands of years.

The fossil fuels will be pretty much gone long before then. There is talk of Peak Oil and Peak Coal. The projections I saw a couple of years ago from the coal industry could see us reach Peak coal in something like the next ten to fifty years depending on whose estimate you want. In the meantime our industrial plants, particularly power plants, are scrubbing more and more CO2 from their emissions.

The future is electric. Predominantly nuclear, but some solar and wind power as well as they become more and more viable and competitive.

I really don't expect CO2 emissions to be a big problem in 200 years even if we don't improve our technology. There will still be plenty of CO2 already in the atmosphere, but over time that will be reduced.

In the meantime, while there is disagreement over the precise causes of ice ages, much of it seems likely to be due to very slow processes such as continental drift and large scale changes to the land masses and the oceans. I can't imagine that such long-term things are going to change fast enough for us to get out of this ice age within the next million years.

Within the ice age, glaciations appear likely to be the result of changes in the orbit including how elliptical it is as well as the tilt of the axis. These are cyclical and much shorter term than the cause of the ice age itself, but they do seem to explain the presence of periods of glaciation separated by interglacial warm periods.

As much as I would like it, Global Warming is not going to be sufficient to bring us out of this ice age. At best, it may delay entry into the next period of glaciation enough for us to be better prepared and more advanced so that just maybe we might have a chance to forestall the famines and starvation that would surely accompany the cooling.

We need research, not Chicken Little style "the sky is falling" panic.

Global warming is already happening, saying "we need more research" is just fiddling while Rome burns.

Again, peer-reviewed citation needed for "we are in an ice age"

Do you really believe that scientists publish peer-reviewed papers defining the terms they use or establishing the most basic facts? That would be kind of like publishing a paper establishing that the sun shines in the day time or a paper establishing the definition of thermocline.

How about a link to an article in a reputable scientific periodical that references this "fact"?

Kirsty E. H. Penkman, Richard C. Preece, David R. Bridgland, David H. Keen, Tom Meijer, Simon A. Parfitt, Tom S. White & Matthew J. Collins, A chronological framework for the British Quaternary based on Bithynia opercula, Nature 476, 446–449 (25 August 2011):

For what it's worth, there are a number of journals dedicated to this ice age and the period encompassing it. For example, Quaternary Research, Open Quaternary, Journal of Quaternary Science, and Quaternary Science Reviews.

that's a very oddly formatted url you have there, doesn't appear to work.