Neo you are right that I don't have sufficient data to say that it's a safe bet that glaciation begins this Xmas. But I definitely don't have data to say it won't happen.
Given the huge effect that CO2 is supposed to have on global warming, we have had almost no temperature rise, despite a century of vast effort around the world, burning easily obtained oil, coal and methane with a population which went from 1 billion to 6 billion.
Over this century, the human population is going to reduce. By 2100 there will be only about 3 billion people. By 2150 there will be only about 2 billion. They will NOT be driving around freeways in SUVs burning buckets of oil.
Peak People will be in 2037 [barring catastrophes such as nuclear war, H5N1 style disease, meteor impact]. Peak Oil will be in 2037 too.
Given the lack of warming, we can conclude that all we have achieved with our CO2 production effort is counter-acting the slide to ice, or the Greenhouse Effect theory is somewhat bung.
As our efforts reduce, the greedy chlorophyll crowd will scoff the CO2 we produced, putting us back where we started. Already they have eaten something like half the CO2 we have produced over a century of effort. It's like filling a leaky bucket. The faster we fill it, the faster it leaks out and the slower we get towards "Full".
This sun-spot cycle and subsequent ones is obviously going to be on the low side. You can look at the graph over a couple of centuries to see that.
It's not yet time to panic and buy tracts of outback Australia, the Sahara and Death Valley, but I have my eye on it.
Meanwhile, most people are more worried about being really broke due to the financial implosion than about the Greenhouse Effect theoretical woes. The Greenhouse Effect has had its day. Al Gore had his day in the sun.
On how long it takes to enter glaciation, as you have seen from the expansion and shrinkage of Arctic ice cover, a lot happens in a single season. The fact that it's not very deep is irrelevant. What matters is the 3 year trend. When we have had 5 years in a row of expanding total snow cover, we can say we have entered glaciation. It's a bit like wondering whether we are entering recession or not. We know after it has happened.
It certainly won't take 1000 years of increasing ice to figure out that a glaciation is upon us. Snow cover is a rapid feedback loop along with cloud cover. After 2 years in a row of snow when there should have been wheat, the average farmer would start to moan. They won't take 1000 years to figure out that the snow is affecting their livelihood unduly.
Mqurice |
