Neo, there was a crucial word there "participates". The ice age returns when the many factors are in alignment, one of which is the sunspot minimum. The fact that one cycle runs in 10,000 year units and one runs in units of months or years is irrelevant.
Ice ages return with a bang as snow cover turns brown or green regions white and reflects LOTS of light instead of absorbing it. Clouds too form when it cools and they reflect lots. So with snow cover and cloud cover suddenly combining to effect cool, and combining that with sunspots and foliage minima too [deserts reflect a LOT more than does the chlorophyll realm], we get another glaciation.
Yes, Earth's orbit has an effect too and the glaciation returns during the northern winter, not southern, because of the huge land area in the northern hemisphere which provides support for snow cover and much reflective desert instead of foliage.
I haven't checked the combined variables, but for all I know, the next ice age is going to start this northern winter. We have a sunspot minima just ending, there has been desertification and 10,000 years of ice retreat ready for the next glaciation has been done. It is very cloudy around here [but I haven't checked total global cloud reflection for this year].
Volcanic action might or might not be part of inciting glaciation as big eruptions are quite random and might miss their critical timing.
Just as people were counting on housing over-heating and economic boom times fueled by US$, people are counting on climatic over-heating fueled by CO2 which is related to US$ boom. But surprise surprise, economic glaciation has returned, just as climatic glaciation will surprise the Greenhouse Effect theorists. "Hey, that's not what we though would happen!" Alan Green$pan was surprised too that banks destroyed their shareholders through careless lending practices. Theory was that they would not.
I was ready for economic glaciation and I'm ready for [and expecting] climatic glaciation, not CO2 global over-heating.
I remain hopeful that we can pump enough US$ and CO2 to avoid both economic and climatic glacial winter.
Mqurice |
