This is REALLY interesting. I wonder if the "global warming" models include this fact? I doubt it -- and I doubt the models.

Forget the models. The Antarctic Icepack is getting LARGER. I didn't think ice did that when it got warmer?

388 February 2002

New Research Indicates the Earth May Be Cooling

by Amy Ridenour

After a decade of warnings that the Earth's temperature may be rapidly warming, and that this supposed warming may result in a surge of catastrophic flooding and lethal storms, it now appears that we may be in for global cooling instead.

The mammoth west Antarctic ice sheet, which contains enough water to lift the world's sea levels by 20 feet, isn't melting after all. Instead, it's actually thickening and Antarctica itself is getting cooler.1

http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA388.html

Climate is complex, Dan. For instance, one of the possible consequences of global warming is an Ice Age.

"Huh?" you say. Well, try this on...

Melting ice lowers the salinity of northern waters, which disrupts the "Great Conveyor" system that draws warm water north, sinks it in the far north, then sends it back south to be warmed and head north again. Disruption of the system destroys The Gulf Stream, and removes its current warming effect from northern climates. Result: Ice Age.

What could trigger this? What is a "normal" 20,000 year climate cycle like? Could the switch be a fast one (and in these terms, "fast" is 10-50 years)? What are the critical variables? What role do interactions between phytoplankton-spawned albedo effects and the weakening of the ozone play? Etc.

There's a lot we aren't yet sure of.

That's the thing about climate change. There's a lot of uncertainty... but we are pretty sure that we're dealing with a complex system, that our activities have some effect on it, that the system may have "tipping points" that could trigger major changes fairly quickly, and that those changes would create huge upheavals in human socieities.

What should we do about that (and M. Simon's point re: central planning types seeing anything as an excuse are valid)? What CAN we do that would make a difference? If we decide to start somewhere, where is the best somewhere?

Valid questions, all... and as humanity grows up and begins thinking longer-term these are good questions to train on. But I'm distrustful of those who would walk into this scenario and simply pretend there isn't a problem until catastrophe makes the conclusion unmistakeable.

"The Day After Tomorrow" was junk science and a piece of sensationalist propaganda idiocy - but that doesn't mean that the problem of climate change isn't real, and stuff that seems counterintuitive (like, say, dramatic cooling in Europe) can be an indicator of a problem once you see the system as a whole.

What to do about it is of course another question.

“For instance, one of the possible consequences of global warming is an Ice Age.”

This has more to do with the general ignorance of journalist of all things scientific then it does with reality. The ‘global warming’ house of cards is teetering toward collapse and with it will go the billions of dollars of funding for the gravy train. Fact, climate changes, it changed long before industrialization and it changed abruptly at times. Climate will continue to change in the future with no help from the human race. To get an idea of magnitude of change required to disrupt the conveyor system to create a Ice Age read this. A description of the oceans oscillating conveyer system can be found here

Greenland Ice Core measurements going back thousands of years indicate that the North Atlantic SST patterns typically fluctuate back and forth on 20-50 year time scales and appear to fit this hypothesis.

Scaremongering such as:

“Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects.“

And

“The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.”

Doesn't this sound like something that would come out of the IPCC? Well it isn't new as this article demonstrates.

That's the thing about climate change. There's a lot of uncertainty... but we are pretty sure that we're dealing with a complex system…

“Pretty sure” is a pretty big understatement! It is without doubt the most complex system on earth and one we clearly don’t understand very well.

…that our activities have some effect on it …

A butterfly in a 50 mph wind has “some effect”, it is a question of magnitude. Lord Kelvin expressed it best.

“When you measure what you are speaking about and express it in numbers, you know something about it, but when you cannot express it in numbers your knowledge about it is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind.”

But I'm distrustful of those who would walk into this scenario and simply pretend there isn't a problem until catastrophe makes the conclusion unmistakeable.

I am distrustful of Malthusian predictions of impending disaster, and their associated solutions, that have proven false over and over again throughout history.

Joe:

"But I'm distrustful of those who would walk into this scenario and simply pretend there isn't a problem until catastrophe makes the conclusion unmistakeable.

But what would you have us do? As you admit, it's a mind-bogglingly complex problem, and we don't have the scientific tools to deal with it. Yet you think we should be doing something about it? How do you know a given action will contribute to or detract from a particular flavor of disaster?

Fine, there might be a problem. My idea for the best course of action? Continue as we have been, advance our technologies in all areas as fast and as far as possible. That way, if catastrophe strikes, we'll have more and better tools to deal with it. That's the only sure-fire cost-effective plan.