Ok ive been reading alot of articles from many websites and all evidence proves that we are heading into a ice age because of global warming. Alot says earth will balance itself out. What do you all think about this? Ill post some links and resources tommorow morning when im more awake

There has been several discussions on this topic ... I've only posted a few here but I'm sure there are more somewhere. As a suggestion, you should read these and see if any are helpful in better understanding the topic.

http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=34939
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=36046
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=35675

My favorite coming ice age theory can be found within this site http://www.remineralize.org/

I particularly hope for the ice age because I prefer cold and like to wear fur, boots, and warm things in general. Also, I like snow a lot. Let's all root for the ice age!

What do you all think about this?

I dont think it matters that much, by the time this happens itll be the generation down the line that will have to deal with it. Until then, we can keep guzzling oil and chopping down the rainforests, what does it matter because we wont have to deal with the consequences anyway.

I hope that was sarcasm...

For the record, there are so many controversies about the "ice age" in general you could even doubt the mere occurence of an ice age.

A few statements:

The Milankovitch cycles fail to explain the ice ages.
There are many geologic field explorations that contradict ice age climate assumptions.
The sea level - ice sheet balance is fake, too much contradicting evidence, like anomal sea level behaviour and system sequence problems with deep sea proxies.
The apparant link between carbon dioxide and temperatures has a cause - effect problem.
The ice sheet on Antarctica appears to be thicker than ever before.

But we have been here before.

I say, what we think that were ice ages was something completely different, and much much more complicated. (second much intented). So, no, we are not heading for another ice age. We are still in an ice age (when defined with the presence of polar ice sheets). We have still no idea what an ice age actually was.

Now and then, I drop by http://www.iceagenow.com/ to see what he's got posted.

Ok i have read all the articles. I read one on discovery a few weeks ago saying that within 6-8 months when an ice age starts it could drop 20-40 degrees all around the earth. Then it would take the hundreds of thousands of years for the ice sheets to cover up the northern part of the world. I think a drop in temperature would be the biggest threat to all species on this planet? What do you all think?

It's almost funny, all those chicken little stories. I repeat, our real knowlegde of the alleged ice ages is way short from doing all those kinds of predictions.

About the web page of Robert Felix, it's nice to have somebody who accumulates global cooling events instead of the opposite. But his ideas are a bit oversimplified. On a scale of 0-10 he scores 9,5 for sensation level, 5 for accuracy of facts and 0,5 for scientific back up.

Take for instance the alleged magnetic reversals and ice ages: http://www.iceagenow.com/Magnetic_Reversal_Chart.htm

The only true magnetic reversal in there is the Brunhes-Matuyama boundary at 780,000 years (not 730,000 years as shown, that has been fine tuned). The upper one, the Gothenburg flip, is a hoax, actually a entertaining story (some other time perhaps). All the others are mostly local Palaeo Magnetic Excursions. Only some are of global level. For comparison perhaps check some real scientific work about the same subject:

http://www.geo.uu.nl/~forth/publications/Related_pubs/Guyodo99.pdf
especially figure 1 on page 250.

The conclusion of this work: no correlation between Earth magnetic field behaviour and climate.

Email Robert Felix at rwfelix@juno.com and let him know your "truths" Andre. I've done so concerning some technical snafus at his site and he was quite appreciative.

I notice he has a link to some data at Edufer's site on his home page. Edufer and I agree a lot on some of that stuff but disagree as to the meritable alarm, as Mr. Felix obviously does too. Robert Felix apparently believes that undersea volcanic activity is the major set of events that trigger ice age starts. Mr. Felix does not find the Hamaker hypothesis to be of much value. I find the latter hypothesis to explain why the volcanic activity increases, basically due to the changes in crust stresses due to shifting moisture from atmospheric gas concentration fluctuation. The thing I like about the Hamaker hypothesis is that there is real experimental results that support the idea, basically the amazing increase in biota mass remineralization facilitates. You can read some detail about the Hamaker hypothesis with the free books available at the first site I list in this thread. Unlike Robert Felix, there is really no profit being made from the dispersal of the Hamaker hypothesis books.

Oh, Andre, every time you mention "Chicken Little" as a criticism of opinions that call for concerted efforts to avoid calamity concerning atmosphere influencing human activities, I see evidence of an attempt at character assasination by yourself. I find such detracts from the trust of your altruism to communicate rather than postulate. If you would like people to take you more seriously, you might avoid the name calling

or not.

Fair enough, I will switch to "alarmists". And I do not have the intention to present others the results of my work.

Curiously enough Felix has an excellent point about the correlation between global volcanic activity in general and the alleged glacial periods. But both are the mere effect of something we have no notion of yet.

The hunt of cause and effect is very tricky. For instance CO2 is not causing the climate change. It's effect of something totally different.

Andre: "CO2 is not causing the climate change."

I guess you consider this a fact with no possibility of any measure of validity. I don't know the truth but I do know there is evidence that things are not as you state. I graphed the oxygen isotope ratios found on deep underground cave wall crystals (a study designed to avoid possible errors in ocean sediment samplings for ice age occurence mapping) with the well dated carbon dioxide concentation fluctuations from ice cores and found the amazing adjustment of the time scale by ten thousand years over ocean sediments (more likely in error than the isotope sampling) placed carbon dioxide peak concentrations squarely at the start of glaciations over the entire period covered by these ice cores. I see the latest ice core samplings are still being mapped to ocean sediment cycle times findings for presentation to the public, stating that a new ice age may not occur for another ten thousand years, exactly what the error in these samplings appears to foster.

The Hamaker hypothesis is not complex and there is hard core experimental results that denote its possibility. Here it is in a nut shell as I understand it:

Plant life depletes its soils of trace elements becomes weak and burns or decomposes increasing carbon dioxide concentrations. Greenhouse effect leads to more moisture being driven into the atmospheric cycle. The moisture leads to more cloud cover as well as high altitude ice crystals that increase the earth's over all reflectivity. The shifting masses of moisture create stresses on the crust increasing overall volcanic activity increasing the carbon dioxide and reflectivity of earth more in a a cascading bringing on of ice age conditions. For the next 90,000 years (virtually like clock work for the last million years or so, 10,000 years for interglacials and 90k for glaciation) glaciers grind rock. Winds carry these dust particles to most of the globe. Soils become remineralized. Plants grow more profusely with all trace elements once again available, removing carbon and providing a buffer of water, slowing the hydrological cycle from land to sea. The decrease of carbon dioxide and fast paced hydrological cycle leads to the next interglacial.

The hard core evidence for the Hamaker hypothesis is the amazing results found for field, garden and desktop analysis of the effects of remineralization. I think this theory fits more of the observed situation than any other. Again, I refer to where you can find an in depth exploration of these ideas at http://www.remineralize.org/ But then, if you already know what the truth is, don't bother looking or at the least, use your greatest skepticism in approaching and assessing this data.

The only calcite oxygen ratio analysis studies I find available on the web are ones done on stalagmites from China that are not selected to minimaize weather fluctuation paramaters. They corroborate, or seemingly do, the ocean sediment cycles demonstration. Appears that within their study, they decided to base their time scale on the ocean sediment studies correlation with the cycles found in the stalagmites. The studies, for I know of two, that I refer to above were reported under the title "Milankovich Takes a Dive in the Desert" and I believe the study was reported in Science News and/or Science magazine. I remember seeing a follow up with more of the same research, involving oxygen isotope ratio analysis of deep pristine cave walls in areas where weather did not incorporate extremes (open to the atmosphere). The regular deposition of minerals in such conditions was thought to give the most accurate record of past glaciations, time and frequency of occurence. Guess I got to hit my files and find my study of about a decade ago to find that reference or maybe, I can find it at a major local library. I should. Sorry, I can not provide a direct reference to this data at this time.

Well we are at least on speaking terms now. Done some studying too.

Recognize the major problems in these graphs?

http://jlevine.lbl.gov/CompareStacks.jpg

You should read the whole story:
http://jlevine.lbl.gov/BenStackconstruct.html

and

http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/vostok+benthic.jpg

Now black is the benthic deep sea stack, red carbon dioxide in the Vostok ice core and blue the heavy hydrogen (deuterium dD) ratio (Petit et al 1999). Maybe you'll notice that something is very wrong here.

Something is very wrong here too:

http://www.yukonmuseums.ca/mammoth/abstrmol-mor.htm

scroll 1/3 down too:

RESULTS OF THE CERPOLEX/MAMMUTHUS EXPEDITIONS ON THE TAIMYR PENINSULA, ARCTIC SIBERIA, RUSSIAN FEDERATION (L)

Dick MOL et al

and there is plenty more where this is coming from.

I went to that site iceagenow.com i dont think that guy has any grip on reality. Ice ages do not happen over night.

Andre, can you put into your own words what it is you are trying to get at?

TIA

Sure, for the first graph, the system response characterists of a linair higher order system is totally off. Bottom line is: cause and effect are totally out of line. It looks like the deep sea started warming first, or the melt water of the melting glaciers got there first after all the ice ages.

The second graph shows that the ice sheets melted first, then the temperature rose and finally the CO2 got up four times in a row. Cause and effect?

The third story shows that in the middle of the last glacial maximum ice age, somewhere very close to the North Pole, where now the average yearly temperature is way below freezing, there was a large lawn, crowded with grazing animals. In the middle of the ice age?

In 15,000 years starting shopping around for a good warm insulated winter coat and boots.......You'll need them!

Yob Atta

IM just saying if earth is heading into a ice age which i think it is it will still be a very slow process.

If heading for the ice age means that there will be bisons (and mammoths) way up in arctic Sibertia again, then sure, lets have an ice age

We'll if we could find a 20,000 to 40,000 year old frozen mamoth buried in Siberia that had some decent DNA, we might be able to start the process for "clonning" a mamoth today. It would probably take a few generations to produce a mamoth again, but's it's possible.....

Yob Atta

Norman, I seem to observe that you have a very distinct ability to put the emphasis exactly on the wrong place. ;)

It's not about the perished pachyderms, it's about the luscious lawns that could never have existed there, but yet they did.

I here tell they even found a frozen Briggs & Stratton lawn mower too!

Curious, that must have meant that this grass even grew too. Something that requires at least 10 degrees C temperature for several months. Something that is quite a rare event in the nowadays Taymir peninsula.

Now seriously, why do we think that there have been ice ages as in waning-and-waning-ice sheets? Small sheets in between, immensly big ice plains during the glacial periods. We have all the glacial remains: kames, eskers, drumlins etc. There is little doubt that those have been caused by moving ice sheets. We have also the cores. Ice cores and sediment cores from lakes and ocean bottoms. We see in the mud and the ice differences in certain ratios of atoms. We know that those ratios use to differ with temperature. We see all those 100,000 years spikes in those ratios or temperatures(?). Et voila, there you go. Ice ages. No doubt about it.

But why don't those stubborn trunky woolly monsters obey to that logic? And when you really start digging you find a whole lot more. After working our way through several dozens of geologic exploration reports we reconstructed a picture of the Northern hemisphere of some 35,000 years ago:

http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/mmm.gif

(reposting, has been here before)

Looks like the wooly mamoths enjoy the green grass more than making snowballs.........

Yob Atta

Oh, I see that lawn mower. Can't say that I can cite the discovery but, look, there it is, must be true. :)

That's it? It must be true, no more challenge. Then please explain how this can be true?

In 15,000 years or less, I hope you have enough warm winter clothing to last you for the next 10,000 to 20,000 years. If not, better stock up now, either that or grow a lot of hair!!!

Yob Atta

Anywayz going back on topic if earth doesn't head into an ice age on its own which i think is going to happen.. Could a big enough asteroid or something like that send us into an ice age?

A big enough ateroid impact would most likely send the planet into another ice age. Of course, we may not survive the initial impact (if its a global killer) but it's not to say an ice age wouldn't follow as billions of tons of dust would be thrown into the atmosphere and blocking out the sun for several years. Also, a complete destabilization of the atmospheric and ocean circulation is all that is needed to start the next ice age as well ... and a large asteroid is more than enough to do just that. The resulting shockwave of the impact would spread throughout the planet disrupting climatic and meteorological patterns ... like throwing a large rock into a calm lake and watching the ripples spread out in all directions ... though the shockwave would be more than just a displacement wave.


Even a medium sized asteroid ... about several hundred meters across ... may be enough to even start a regional ice age since all the dust that is thrown up in the air during impact is enough to plunge the area into a deep cold spell (since the sun would be blocked for quite some time).

Singularity. Im sorry i didnt reply sooner. Ill try to reply ASAP

Don't think so. Volcanic ash only last a few years. The most of it doesn't make it thought the first year, so why would debris of meteorites could stay aloft longer. Besides about some 35 ice ages have started the last two million years, the first million years about 40,000 years apart, the last million years about 100,000 years.

Those intervals are too regular to account it on random meteorites but not regular enough to account it on recurring astronomical events from comet type of orbits.

Besides many impact craters on Earth have been stored in a database but they are not associated with ice age starts.

From a web source
Volcanic eruptions are thought to be responsible for the global cooling that has been observed for a few years after a major eruption. The amount and global extent of the cooling depend on the force of the eruption and, possibly, its latitude. When large masses of gases from the eruption reach the stratosphere, they can produce a large, widespread cooling effect.

Let's keep in mind that upon an asteroid impact ... all that dust and debris are collectively ejected into the atmosphere in a very short amount of time whereas a vocano spits out its volcanic ash during moderately long period of time. And with the resulting shokewave for an asteroid impact, any atmospheric currents are disrupted and/or altered whereas it would take much longer to disperse all that debris.

Consider this, an asteroid of 10 Km in diameter with a density of 4 grams/cubic meters, a impact velocity of 30Km/s, and a graze angle of 65 degrees would result in a kinetic energy of 94247779607 terajoules (or the equivalent yield of 225 gigatons of TNT) ... I got this from a "asteroid impact calculator". And all that is released on impact. I would think that would throw enough dirt and debris into the atmosphere and disturb the natural atmospheric circulation to cause considerable cooling of the surface. OK ... maybe not a full sized Ice Age like those in the past ... but maybe enough to cause a moderately damaging cooling of the planet.

I don't think a volcano can release that amount of energy and dust to cause an ice age. Like you said, volcanic ash only remians suspended in the atmosphere for a few years but that's because atmospheric circulations aren't severely altered. It's not gravity which brings down those dust particulates ... its atmospheric patterns which distributes them everywhere and spreads them out thin across a large area until it is completely immerse into the atmosphere.

What if a large or even small asteroid impacts into middle of Yellowstone Lake, the home of the worlds largest Supervolcano that last erupted 640,000 years ago and is approx. 40,000 overdue for another huge super-eruption.......I think we would have a global near-exinction event if this were to happen and it could! Remember TOBA (Circa: 74,000 years ago)!!!

Yob Atta

Supervolcano eruptions would be the exception to my statement ... but the reason why I didn't mention it was because it's not a common occurance. I wouldn't know how an asteroid impact directly on top of the supervolcano would result in but I can imagine it won't be a pretty sight (well maybe it would look pretty but I wouldn't want to be around it)

If the meteor that crashed in the Arizona desert nearly 25,000 years ago would have impacted in the Yellowstone Supervolcano area, we would have a much smaller global population today.........You can bet on it!!!

Yob Atta

An asteroid and a supervolcano, i dont know how you came up with that random idea, but yes the results will be disastrous. The Yellowstone Caldera is like a bulging bubble, if anything applies so much pressure as an steroid, i think you get the picture ;). But i would love to see a spectacular scene like that.

you forgot to add: "from very far, far away"
maybe you should apply for the ISS crew

"if anything applies so much pressure as an steroid"

You mean California's governor may explode?

haha! Oops sorry. Typos.

Though this article is offered by a company that does have a vested interest in "global warming" it does have a number of references that one could use to launch more investigation:

http://www.ewire.com/display.cfm/Wire_ID/2216

The question here is which is more nonsense, the "day after tomorrow" or this article. [/nods head sadly]

I guess that's easier than picking at the data there.

Im not sure what u mean>? I never posted this article with anything to due with that movie. That movie is unrealistic and completely fake. Their is a thread on that movie in here. I just think over time earth is heading into the next ice age with in the next thousand years.

Day after tomorrow did one good thing -> brought the subject into general populace.

Im not sure what u mean>? I never posted this article with anything to due with that movie. That movie is unrealistic and completely fake. Their is a thread on that movie in here. I just think over time earth is heading into the next ice age with in the next thousand years.

Because the last four ice ages lasted about the same length of time with the last one ending about 13,000 to 15,000 years ago. The next one should be advancing on us in about another 15 ,000 years. Dress warm!

Yob Atta :)

if a real/serious ice age starts then I'm screwed. ~2km of ice above my head.

Forget the ice, maybe this "Thread" is way over your head..........

Yob Atta :)

Asteroids&Comets must make essentially direct hits to cause much damage / ice ages etc. Volcanoes are already here, but seldom if ever cool Earth for a period long enough to make a new ice age. Some of the more serious posts to this thread seem to think that cold winters result in ice ages, but it is cold summers that fail to melt all the snow of the prior winter that is more important, especially as the albedo increases. One major problem, not well understood, is how the Earth gets out of the high albedo state of an ice age. Any thoughts on this?

Some of you may want to visit www.DarkVisitor.com where you will learn why I am interested in ice ages and how they can be quickly initiated.

This is my frist reply - I hope I am supposed to leave the text below, rather than clean it out.

Let's keep in mind that upon an asteroid impact ... all that dust and debris are collectively ejected into the atmosphere in a very short amount of time whereas a vocano spits out its volcanic ash during moderately long period of time. And with the resulting shokewave for an asteroid impact, any atmospheric currents are disrupted and/or altered whereas it would take much longer to disperse all that debris.

Consider this, an asteroid of 10 Km in diameter with a density of 4 grams/cubic meters, a impact velocity of 30Km/s, and a graze angle of 65 degrees would result in a kinetic energy of 94247779607 terajoules (or the equivalent yield of 225 gigatons of TNT) ... I got this from a "asteroid impact calculator". And all that is released on impact. I would think that would throw enough dirt and debris into the atmosphere and disturb the natural atmospheric circulation to cause considerable cooling of the surface. OK ... maybe not a full sized Ice Age like those in the past ... but maybe enough to cause a moderately damaging cooling of the planet.

I don't think a volcano can release that amount of energy and dust to cause an ice age. Like you said, volcanic ash only remians suspended in the atmosphere for a few years but that's because atmospheric circulations aren't severely altered. It's not gravity which brings down those dust particulates ... its atmospheric patterns which distributes them everywhere and spreads them out thin across a large area until it is completely immerse into the atmosphere.

Asteroids&Comets must make essentially direct hits to cause much damage / ice ages etc. Volcanoes are already here, but seldom if ever cool Earth for a period long enough to make a new ice age. Some of the more serious posts to this thread seem to think that cold winters result in ice ages, but it is cold summers that fail to melt all the snow of the prior winter that is more important, especially as the albedo increases. One major problem, not well understood, is how the Earth gets out of the high albedo state of an ice age. Any thoughts on this?

Some of you may want to visit www.DarkVisitor.com where you will learn why I am interested in ice ages and how they can be quickly initiated.

This is my frist reply - I hope I am supposed to leave the text below, rather than clean it out.

You're forgetting the "Supervolcanos"...........Yellowstone is a good example of the world's largest supervolcano that erupts approx. every 600,000 years with a force of 10,000 volcanos going off at the same time and right now, is approx. 40,000 years overdue. When Yellowstone goes again and it will sooner than later, you can bet there will be a define dramatic long term cooling effect on the earth's climate. Ice age? Maybe..........

Yob Atta

I'm not forgetting, as I did not know of it. However, if a there is an Earth based source of long lasting atmospheric dust / ash cover, I think the result would be heating, not cooling. Venus is a good example. Because of the high albedo of its permanent cloud cover, Venus absorbes about half as much solar heat as Earth yet the surface is hotter than liquid lead!

On a small scale, orange growers put "smudge pots" out on cold clear nights, not for the trivial heat they release, but for the cloud blanket that prevents radiative cooling to the 4 degree sky.

Again I ask: Any ideas as to how we get out of the high albedo state of an icy Earth? Your super volcaneos may be part of the answer if they pump out enough greenhouse gases, but then I ask, could our ice-age ancestors have survived such a changed, and presumbably toxic, atmosphere. Clearly they did.

You're forgetting the "Supervolcanos"...........Yellowstone is a good example of the world's largest supervolcano that erupts approx. every 600,000 years with a force of 10,000 volcanos going off at the same time and right now, is approx. 40,000 years overdue. When Yellowstone goes again and it will sooner than later, you can bet there will be a define dramatic long term cooling effect on the earth's climate. Ice age? Maybe..........

Yob Atta

When the supervolcano "TOBA" blew it's top off approx. 74,000 years ago, our neanderthal and other hominid ancestors dwindled down from a approx. a half million worldwide population at that time to only about 4,000 or 5,000 hungry hairy hominids thanks to TOBA.....

Yob Atta

When Yellowstone goes again and it will sooner than later, you can bet there will be a define dramatic long term cooling effect on the earth's climate. Ice age?

Whilst we should not underestimate the immediate effect of these eruptions, a long term effect like a prolonged ice age is not likely. The volcanic tracers in the GISPII ice core of Greenland clearly show the Mt Toba eruption around 71 Ky BP (instead of the usual 74 Ky) but after a few years, there is no more trace left. This is logical. The number of particles in the air are not a norm for the time it takes for these particles to settle down again. So any eruption may create havoc with climate for a couple of years. There is no reason to assume that it last for centuries or may even trigger ice ages.

I think the TOBA eruption had a big effect on the population at that time. No place for the neanderthals and hairy hominids to go and hide except caves. Research has shown that the hairy hominids population at that time dwindled down to approx. 4 or 5 thousand after TOBA erupted. Not to bad considering the total hairy hominid population was probably around 4 to 5 hundred thousand prior to the eruption.......What killed them off? Probably the climate change. It definetly got colder after the eruption and not enough fur coats, hamburgers and warm socks to go around in those days (circa: 72,000 BC).

Yob Atta

I agree with Andre – the particles fell out after large volcanic events too quickly to produce an ice age, however, one must also consider the new gases that might be released into the atmosphere. The dominate gases of the atmosphere, oxygen and nitrogen molecules, are symmetric. Thus they have zero electric dipole moments and consequently neither radiate nor absorb IR or visible radiation well. (I.e. they are transparent.) Molecules like CO2 and SO2 have permanent dipole moments and thus couple to radiation very well. (I.e. are strong “green house” gases.) Thus I find it difficult to accept Norman’s suggestion that Neanderthal populations went into steep decline because a strong volcano induced an ice age and their were too few caves, warm sock etc. If any thing, the physical effect would have been to make a long lasting heat wave by enhanced greenhouse effect. Perhaps these more hairy creatures, died of heat stroke, while our nearly furless ancestors prospered.

I agree with Andre – the particles fell out after large volcanic events too quickly to produce an ice age, however, one must also consider the new gases that might be released into the atmosphere. The dominate gases of the atmosphere, oxygen and nitrogen molecules, are symmetric. Thus they have zero electric dipole moments and consequently neither radiate nor absorb IR or visible radiation well. (I.e. they are transparent.) Molecules like CO2 and SO2 have permanent dipole moments and thus couple to radiation very well. (I.e. are strong “green house” gases.) Thus I find it difficult to accept Norman’s suggestion that Neanderthal populations went into steep decline because a strong volcano induced an ice age and their were too few caves, warm sock etc. If any thing, the physical effect would have been to make a long lasting heat wave by enhanced greenhouse effect. Perhaps these more hairy creatures, died of heat stroke, while our nearly furless ancestors prospered.

Sorry to bust your bubble, but as I mentioned, there has been much research done to show that the supervolcano TOBA eruption (circa; 72,000 BC) reduced your (I emphasize the word "your") immediate neanderthal relatives down to 4 or 5,000 club bearing, cave dwelling hairy hominids. You can just about go to any internet site about the TOBA eruption and find those facts out for yourself. But if you still think TOBA had very little effect on the hairy hominid population at that time, then I suggest that you buy a lake side view apartment on the shore of Yellowstone Lake, and wait for that fateful day (it's approx. 40,000 years overdue) when ole Yellowstone (the world's largest supervocano) decides to blow it's top off again and it will sooner than later...........Be sure and keep your "club" handy (if you're still around and able) to beat up any of the left over hungry hairy hominids that may be hanging around after the eruption that may want to steal your stockpile of McDonalds hamburgers and beer.......Ha!

Yob Atta :D

IM not sure if this goes for any where else. But i think the earth is actually getting colder. Cause this summer has been the coldest summer ive ever lived. Same with last year. It seems to get a little colder every year. Or atleast not as hot

"if anything applies so much pressure as an steroid"

You mean California's governor may explode?

You're right.........It's actually getting colder, but sound research has shown that it will take approx. another 15,000 years before the earth advances into a full scale ice age again. I would recommend a before that time to stock up on some good warm clothing, cigarettes and beer! If you're still around then, a daily temperature update would be appreciated.

Yob Atta :)

Norman, you did not address either of my arguments. You only claim that web pages show a correlation between the time of Neanderthal population decline and the TOBA eruption. I tend not to put much faith in web-posted “facts,” but if you can give a peer reviewed journal reference, I will try to look at it but, at best, it will only be someone’s theory (He was not there and can’t be sure.) and someone else with more knowledge of the physics I give below surely has published the contradictory theory. So lets not bother to get into an argument about whose peer-reviewed expert is correct, even if you can find one who thinks TOBA caused an ice age.

Correlation does not establish a causal relationship. If it did, you could conclude that fire trucks cause fires near them. To establish your claim that TOBA was the caused an ice age that killed most of the Neanderthals, you must both describe some mechanism that selectively killed these “hairy hominids” (your description) and yet spared my nearly hairless ancestors and also refute the physical mechanism that I claim establishes heating, rather than cooling, as the more probable effect of TOBA on climate (not next week’s weather which might have been colder.)

My mechanism for claiming that TOBA probably warmed more than cooled is based on the greenhouse effect of electrically polarizable molecules like H2O, SO2 and CO2 which volcanoes produce in quantity and which strongly interact with heat radiation (absorb it) to reduce the normal radiative loss to space. I. e. if TOBA did anything to the climate, it made Earth more like Venus, which gets much less sun at the surface than Earth does yet is much hotter at the surface because of the greenhouse effect. Refute this physics and Venus example, if you can. Until you do so, it is your bubble that has burst. Stick as many webpages as you like that say “correlation” on my bubble and it will not burst.


Sorry to bust your bubble, but as I mentioned, there has been much research done to show that the supervolcano TOBA eruption (circa; 72,000 BC) reduced your (I emphasize the word "your") immediate neanderthal relatives down to 4 or 5,000 club bearing, cave dwelling hairy hominids. You can just about go to any internet site about the TOBA eruption and find those facts out for yourself. But if you still think TOBA had very little effect on the hairy hominid population at that time, then I suggest that you buy a lake side view apartment on the shore of Yellowstone Lake, and wait for that fateful day (it's approx. 40,000 years overdue) when ole Yellowstone (the world's largest supervocano) decides to blow it's top off again and it will sooner than later...........Be sure and keep your "club" handy (if you're still around and able) to beat up any of the left over hungry hairy hominids that may be hanging around after the eruption that may want to steal your stockpile of McDonalds hamburgers and beer.......Ha!

Yob Atta :D

Refute this physics and Venus example, if you can

We had this discussion in Edufer's good-news-thread, where I mentioned an alternative hypothesis for Venus, which incidentely was develloped here over a year ago. But I wasn't challenged to reveal the mechanism for that and additional evidence supporting that unrevealed mechanism. But there is plenty. The lack of magnetism for instance and the high corrolation -unlike Earth- between local gravity and topography.

Venus has been melted due to a hot brake mechanism -despite the apparant angular momentum problem- and is still cooling after that event. Here is the concept abstract of my paper - work in progress:

ABSTRACT

Venus planetary design and its likely complicated orbit- and spinning- interactions in the past may have caused one or more break outs of the planets inner core spinning axis in relation with the spin axis of the mantle. This may have happened about one or several billion years ago and may have had catastrophic results. We intend to demonstrate that this hypothesis can generally explain the main enigmatic features of Venus simultaneously.

The precession cycles and obliquity (nutation) cycles of the planet Venus in an much earlier stage may have been in a chaotic resonance interaction in the distant past. (Lasker 1993) This may have caused extreme obliquity changes of the planets mantle. Also precession cycles add up here to generate a high rate of change of the spin axis of the mantle. As the external gravity forces on a planet act on the equatorial bulge, the planet's solid inner core is isolated from these external forces and it needs a complicated stabilisation to follow the movements of the mantle spin axis. This stabilisation mechanism may not have been adequate enough to follow the high rate spin axis changes. Consequently, the individual sub- spin axis of the planets solid inner core may have departed from alignment with the mantle-lithosphere spin axis. This may have caused a dramatic braking effect where the spinning energy of the planet was converted to heat eventually after many of those occurances in a long time period. A consequence of the reduction of the spinning energy, a tremendous amount of heat was generated, the hot brake effect.

The surface of the planet shows several apparent signs of extreme heat, which has been attributed to volcanism and runaway greenhouse gas effect. It is recognized however that not all thermal features can be explained either by volcanism or by greenhouse gas effect and upon identifying even much higher temperature in the past, it's also attributed to radiogenic sources, However, such a mechanism lack parallels in the solar system. (which radiogenic sources?).

An extreme internal heat as caused by the internal braking of the inner core would explain these features far more easily. Also a significant volcanic activity in the early period that diminished gradually as the planet cooled, seems to be pointing into this direction.

The atmosphere of Venus contains carbon in about the same order of magnitude as the total Earth lithosphere. This could suggest that all Venus carbon is in its atmosphere, to be explained by a general heating of the complete planet, enough to reduce all limestone type of rocks in the crust to carbon dioxide and calcium oxides.

Consequently, a dramatic decrease in spinning, the dense atmosphere, the extreme heat of the planet and its atmosphere as well as its enigmatic surface features could all be explained by a single mechanism: the big brake.

(c) Andre

Norman, you did not address either of my arguments. You only claim that web pages show a correlation between the time of Neanderthal population decline and the TOBA eruption. I tend not to put much faith in web-posted “facts,” but if you can give a peer reviewed journal reference, I will try to look at it but, at best, it will only be someone’s theory (He was not there and can’t be sure.) and someone else with more knowledge of the physics I give below surely has published the contradictory theory. So lets not bother to get into an argument about whose peer-reviewed expert is correct, even if you can find one who thinks TOBA caused an ice age.

Correlation does not establish a causal relationship. If it did, you could conclude that fire trucks cause fires near them. To establish your claim that TOBA was the caused an ice age that killed most of the Neanderthals, you must both describe some mechanism that selectively killed these “hairy hominids” (your description) and yet spared my nearly hairless ancestors and also refute the physical mechanism that I claim establishes heating, rather than cooling, as the more probable effect of TOBA on climate (not next week’s weather which might have been colder.)

My mechanism for claiming that TOBA probably warmed more than cooled is based on the greenhouse effect of electrically polarizable molecules like H2O, SO2 and CO2 which volcanoes produce in quantity and which strongly interact with heat radiation (absorb it) to reduce the normal radiative loss to space. I. e. if TOBA did anything to the climate, it made Earth more like Venus, which gets much less sun at the surface than Earth does yet is much hotter at the surface because of the greenhouse effect. Refute this physics and Venus example, if you can. Until you do so, it is your bubble that has burst. Stick as many webpages as you like that say “correlation” on my bubble and it will not burst.

It's obvious your so-called theoretical analysis of the the earth warming after the Toba eruption reminds me of the same kind of thinking that took place during the late Jurassic period????...........It only takes a simple mind to comprehend the impact of an eruption on the scale of Toba. Toba (circa: 72,000 BC) released a total of approx. 2,800 km of ejected magma with particles remaining in the earth's atmosphere for over 6 years (www.volcanolive.com/toba.html) resulting in temperatures being reduced 5 to 10 deg. C worldwide. Likewise, it's also apparent that there was a 1,000 year long iceage that followed the Toba eruption during the late Pleistocene age. There is also genetic evidence to show that the world population at that time fell to approx 10,000 or less hairy hominid individuals (your immediate relatives) (www.bradshawfoundation.com/evolution/). The Toba eruption also created a longer term global climate cooling which was caused by a highly reflective sulphuric haze that remained in the earth's atmosphere for several years. Even ice core samples has implicates that the Toba eruption created the coldest millennium in the late Pleistocene period. Also the Toba eruption ejected more sulphur that remained in the earth's atmosphere for a longer time (6 years) than any other vocanic eruption in the last 110,000 years and probably caused the complete deforestation of southeast Asia. I could add another 10 or even 20 websites of scientific data illustrating the after effects of the Toba eruption, but I don't your primative hairy hominid mind could handle it, let alone understand it. So for starters, I gave you a couple of simplistic views (websites) of the what some of the experts found............If you want to learn more about the Toba near-global exinction evidence, then take some courses on reading (I know it may be difficult at first) and learn something new!

Yob Atta :)

Just to make sue I get the correct numbers in my previous post: Toba released 2,800 cubic km of ejected magma with particles remaining in the earth's atmosphere for over 6 years...........

Yob Atta

Norman:

I am not disputing that Toba may have caused a period of cooling, a “Nuclear Winter,” that lasted a few years longer than the period in which it was throwing up opaque dust rapidly enough to replenish that which was settling to Earth. (Dust does settle, as Andre pointed out.) What I pointed out is that several molecular species (CO2, H2O, SO2 etc) are also produced in abundance and may have lasted a little longer. These molecules differ from O2 and N2, the dominant constitution of the atmosphere, in that they are “greenhouse gases.”

When these non-symmetric molecules vibrate they produce an electric dipole moment which strongly interacts with IR radiation. This is why they are “greenhouse gases.” In the case of H2O, the electric dipole moment is permanent because the angle between the hydrogen (really more like between the two protons as their two electrons are filling the “holes” in the oxygen’s outer or valance shell) is 105, not 180 degrees. I am not a physical chemist. I don’t know about CO2 and SO2. Perhaps they are “inline” molecules. Even if they are, when they vibrates like O——C—O on one half cycle of the vibration and O—C——O on the next half cycle, there is an oscillating electric dipole because the negative charge centroid is mid way between the two oxygen atoms. They can also flex and make IR interacting electric dipoles, but that is not easy to illustrate here. This easy electric dipole is why these gases are strong “greenhouse gases” and O2 and N2 are not. This explanation is probably wasted on you, but other readers may benefit.

Despite my stating that reference to a web-page “facts” would not persuade me, that is all you gave. I am open to logical reasoning also. I erroneously assumed you would be also, when I asked you to explain was why the ice age selectively killed the Neanderthals, “hairy hominids” by your own description, and yet my nearly hairless ancestors survived the cold.

Since you provided neither logical argument nor non web page reference, I tried to become better informed independently by searching at www.sciRus.com where I can restrict the search to only peer reviewed journal articles (using Neanderthal + Toba for the search). I got only one hit, which I admit may support, in part, your view. I was able to read the abstract, not the full article that appeared in J. of Human Evolution Vol.34, No.6 p623-651 June 1998. The author (S.H. Ambrose) was at Un. of Illinois. He is an anthropologist, probably not an expert in physics of greenhouse gases, etc. He himself described his idea as only an “alternative hypothesis” to the more standard “weak garden of Eden model” (by Harpending et. al. 1993, if you want to search) for explaining something that anthropoligist refer to as the “bottleneck,” which I gather is the fact that genetic data supports a relatively small human population about the time of Toba. Note also that Ambrose does not speak of “ice age” in the abstract. Instead he mentioned “nuclear winter,” which in 1998, was still in the news, so I won’t hold this fact against you.

After reading the abstract, I hit the “related articles” button and found Hardy and Harcourt-Smith’s 2003 paper in the same journal (Vol. 45 No 3 p231-237) by the title: “The super-eruption of Toba, did it cause a human bottleneck?” Unfortunately J. of H.E. is not so generous about 2003 articles. I could not even read the abstract for free, but one can be confident their answer was “No.” I say this because Ambrose quickly responded in the same journal with “Did the super eruption of Toba cause a human population bottleneck – Reply to Hardy and Harcourt-Smith.” (Also no reading of even abstract for free.) But I think it is fair to surmise that Ambrose is still “hanging in there,” fighting for some credibility for his self admitted “alternative hypothesis.” From all this I conclude that the view of Toba CAUSING the demise of the Neanderthals as you claim (“not enough caves, food” etc.) is:

1) Certainly is not “established fact” only something one can selectively find web page support for or very slightly, perhaps, in one man’s “alternative hypothesis.” Note, even he is not talking about a “Toba induced” ice age, only about Toba’s as a possible “alternative hypothesis” to standard theory to explain the “Human Bottleneck.” (I admit he must have discussed Neanderthals somewhere in the article as the search required this. For all I know, he may have remarked that part of the pressure on humans (the “bottleneck”) came from the Neanderthals, whose furry bodies gave them a slight competitive edge during the nuclear winter period after Toba. – just the opposite of your illogical claim.)
Have you been to the Flat-Earth Society’s page, if it is still up? They prove the Earth is flat! – (From that you should understand my rating of web-page “proofs.” I.e. they often fall flat, and if valid, they will appear in a science journal. ) Again: give me a journal reference and I will try to read it, if I can without cost via the internet. – I live in São Paulo and so do not have access to minor journals, even in the best university libraries. I will trust you to quote sections without distortion.

2) Inconsistent with the physics of greenhouse gases copiously emitted by volcanoes.

3) Fails to explain why hairless humans survived the cold, but furry Neanderthals could not.

Points 2 & 3 were my original questions for you and I am still awaiting for a creditable response, not a web page “fact.” - I don’t waste my time reading through the crap that is common in non-peer-reviewed web pages.

Don’t misunderstand me. I think that most of the volcanic greenhouse gases also were removed from the atmosphere, but probably more slowly than the dust. (Thus, I am NOT claiming that human selectively survived Toba’s “heat wave,” which killed off the Neanderthal because Gillette was not yet selling razors for them to remove their fur coats.) I am completely willing (on the bases of ice core and other evidence, not dying Neanderthals) to believe that around the time of Toba the Earth became colder,even went into an ice age. This CORRELATION, as I pointed out in prior post, does not prove cause and effect, (your claim: “Toba’s ice age killed the Neanderthals.”)

Do you also believe that fire trucks cause fires near them when they park outside the firehouse, based on that very strong correlation?

Again I say: To establish that a Toba caused ice age was the cause of the Neanderthal extinction, you need to say something about the mechanism by which it could be the cause. Andre pointed out the rapidly falling dust did not do this, but maybe it did, if Neanderthals lacked nose hairs to filter the air they breath (at least, that would be a logical argument in favor of your claim).

All I was doing in my first post was to note that the longer lasting gases are greenhouse gases and warm, not cool. You logically could have used the absence of fur coats on humans as a mechanism to explain why only humans survived Toba’s “heat wave,” but neither you nor I think Toba caused a “heat wave.” Where we differ is you think Toba CAUSED an ice age and this selectively CAUSED the extinction of the Neanderthals.

I admit you did not include the word “selectively” as then even you would think your claim illogical, I hope, but fact is Neanderthals died and humans did not during the post Toba period. I.e. something selective happened, perhaps related to Toba. I would put a dollar on the “nose hair” cause before I would put one cent on the illogical ice age cause of this selective extinction. I won’t argue more about it as I can’t argue if logic is ignored. Certainly, any Toba caused ice age can not be used as the mechanism to explain the extinction of the furry Neanderthals while it was only a “bottleneck” for furless humans, but logic does not seem to be your strong point, so I will stop beating you with it and not respond more to your illogical claims.

EDIT (for readers benefit my post to which Norman replied is reproduced in his second post below. Its time stamp is 09-15-04, 01:44 AM in case you want biggeer type.


It's obvious your so-called theoretical analysis of the the earth warming after the Toba eruption reminds me of the same kind of thinking that took place during the late Jurassic period????...........It only takes a simple mind to comprehend the impact of an eruption on the scale of Toba. Toba (circa: 72,000 BC) released a total of approx. 2,800 km of ejected magma with particles remaining in the earth's atmosphere for over 6 years (www.volcanolive.com/toba.html) resulting in temperatures being reduced 5 to 10 deg. C worldwide. Likewise, it's also apparent that there was a 1,000 year long iceage that followed the Toba eruption during the late Pleistocene age. There is also genetic evidence to show that the world population at that time fell to approx 10,000 or less hairy hominid individuals (your immediate relatives) (www.bradshawfoundation.com/evolution/). The Toba eruption also created a longer term global climate cooling which was caused by a highly reflective sulphuric haze that remained in the earth's atmosphere for several years. Even ice core samples has implicates that the Toba eruption created the coldest millennium in the late Pleistocene period. Also the Toba eruption ejected more sulphur that remained in the earth's atmosphere for a longer time (6 years) than any other vocanic eruption in the last 110,000 years and probably caused the complete deforestation of southeast Asia. I could add another 10 or even 20 websites of scientific data illustrating the after effects of the Toba eruption, but I don't your primative hairy hominid mind could handle it, let alone understand it. So for starters, I gave you a couple of simplistic views (websites) of the what some of the experts found............If you want to learn more about the Toba near-global exinction evidence, then take some courses on reading (I know it may be difficult at first) and learn something new!

Yob Atta :)

Billy

...that several molecular species (CO2, H2O, SO2 etc) are also produced in abundance and may have lasted a little longer. These molecules differ from O2 and N2, the dominant constitution of the atmosphere, in that they are “greenhouse gases.”

Quite true, especially when talking about the explosive type of eruption. However the exact mechanism of greenhouse gas effect is carefully hidden by the global warmists and with good reason because it would collapse the global warming hype.

The point is that the greenhouse gas effect is rather complicated. The best approximation is that greenhouse effect is about logaritmic proportial to the concentration. The first 10 ppm of a certain greenhouse gas has far more greenhouse effect than the increase from say 360 ppm to 1000 ppm. Simply because the bandwidth gets saturated, in which the gas is effective. Check this. (http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/PS134/LabManual/lab.modtran.html)

Consequently the effect of releasing enormous amounts of greenhouse gasses has not nearly the same effect as other mechanisms.

Incidently I do neither recall a sudden CO2 spike in any ice core around 71,000 years nor a dramatic change in water isotope ratios (d18O, dD) in the same. The last are assumed to indicate paleo temperature but to me with big question marks.

Yet there are indeed some records of glaciation in Siberia that ended some 60,000 years ago. Nothing decisive though and a hint of the coldest era in the last glaciation is strongly exagarated.

The Last Glacial Maximum for instance (22,000 - 18,000) was definitely something else, at least in Europe. That's where and when the Neanderthaler dissapeared BTW. Not during the Toba event.

Billy



Quite true, especially when talking about the explosive type of eruption. However the exact mechanism of greenhouse gas effect is carefully hidden by the global warmists and with good reason because it would collapse the global warming hype.

The point is that the greenhouse gas effect is rather complicated. The best approximation is that greenhouse effect is about logaritmic proportial to the concentration. The first 10 ppm of a certain greenhouse gas has far more greenhouse effect than the increase from say 360 ppm to 1000 ppm. Simply because the bandwidth gets saturated, in which the gas is effective. Check this. (http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/PS134/LabManual/lab.modtran.html)

Consequently the effect of releasing enormous amounts of greenhouse gasses has not nearly the same effect as other mechanisms.

Incidently I do neither recall a sudden CO2 spike in any ice core around 71,000 years nor a dramatic change in water isotope ratios (d18O, dD) in the same. The last are assumed to indicate paleo temperature but to me with big question marks.

Yet there are indeed some records of glaciation in Siberia that ended some 60,000 years ago. Nothing decisive though and a hint of the coldest era in the last glaciation is strongly exagarated.

The Last Glacial Maximum for instance (22,000 - 18,000) was definitely something else, at least in Europe. That's where and when the Neanderthaler dissapeared BTW. Not during the Toba event.

Better get your facts right dude...No one said that the neanderthals disappeared or became extinct after the Toba eruption.........DNA reseach on the subject of the Toba eruption indicates there was a reduction of the world population of hairy hominids fell to approx. 10,000 or less individuals........And there is "no" exageration about glaciation during the last glacial period. It's just a fact that it was the "coldest glacial period"......... Try majoring in "Fast Foods" instead.......It would be more challenging for you instead of trying to educate yourself by reading these threads........

Yob Atta :)

"Try majoring in "Fast Foods" instead.......It would be more challenging for you instead of trying to educate yourself by reading these threads........"

By your rudeness to one of the most intelligent posters here you show your own value (or lack of). You would be very clever if you had 1% of Andre's brain.

Thanx Cat,

Norman

Even ice core samples has implicates that the Toba eruption created the coldest millennium in the late Pleistocene period.

Again, No.

http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/vostok-data2.gif

Notice the vertical bold face line at 71,000 years intersecting the alleged "temperature" graph not nearly at the coldest point. Notice also that the downwards trend started some 15,000 years earlier. Hence Toba could not have caused that. Notice that the Last Glacial Maximum was even colder as well as the several coolest areas shortly before the interglacials, 140,000 years ago, 265,000 years ago and 330,000 years ago. If we are looking at temperatures of course.

DNA reseach on the subject of the Toba eruption indicates there was a reduction of the world population of hairy hominids fell to approx. 10,000 or less individuals........

No, DNA research can only tell us that there was a reduction in the world population of not so hairy homo sapiens at that time...... We don't have any living homo neanderthalis on which to carry out out DNA tests to establish whether they too went through a bottle neck :)

I think a warming trend is happening ! WATERWORLD is the FUTURE! Unfortunatly Kevin Kostner won't be around to see it!

No, DNA research can only tell us that there was a reduction in the world population of not so hairy homo sapiens at that time...... We don't have any living homo neanderthalis on which to carry out out DNA tests to establish whether they too went through a bottle neck :)

Hominids (two legged) Hairy (hair on some or all parts of body) Get your act together.......There was no mention of neanderthals in my previous post even though neanderthals were around during the Toba eruption and so were some not-so-hairly homosapiens. Undoubtably both groups experienced a reduction in numbers after Toba erupted!

Yob Atta :)

To Norman:

Andre posted on 9-28-04 a graph shown that the coldest period proceeded Toba by thousands of years and the temperature was rising and continued to rise, perhaps at even a faster rate, for thousands of years after Toba event.

In this post you claim not to have mentioned Neanderthals in prior post but that is how you started off your “Toba. as killer of Neanderthals etc.” postings. I copy one for you to read. As far as I can tell, re-reading it, you have not been proven to be totally wrong. Back then there probably were not enough socks to go around. :D

Norman’s post of 9-2-04:

I think the TOBA eruption had a big effect on the population at that time. No place for the neanderthals and hairy hominids to go and hide except caves. Research has shown that the hairy hominids population at that time dwindled down to approx. 4 or 5 thousand after TOBA erupted. Not to bad considering the total hairy hominid population was probably around 4 to 5 hundred thousand prior to the eruption.......What killed them off? Probably the climate change. It definetly got colder after the eruption and not enough fur coats, hamburgers and warm socks to go around in those days (circa: 72,000 BC).

Yob Atta

Hominids (two legged) Hairy (hair on some or all parts of body) Get your act together.......There was no mention of neanderthals in my previous post even though neanderthals were around during the Toba eruption and so were some not-so-hairly homosapiens. Undoubtably both groups experienced a reduction in numbers after Toba erupted!

Yob Atta :)

I'll put it into terms your neanderthal mind (it could be a hairy hominid mind too, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on that one. Homosapien? Not sure on that one) might possibly understand.....If you have so much confidence in the correctness of your so-called ice age theory and and want your name to become a household word, then send your theory to National Geographic and/or at the very least, create a website. If they don't buy it, then no one will! Other than that, don't waste your time trying to impress anyone here in this forum unless you have something that can be tested with science other than something that was created by a figment of your imagination............Get the picture dude? Keep trying and maybe someday you'll be able to get some business cards with name on it.

Atta Boy

Unless something's seriously fucked up with the planet, we are still coming down from the last ice age, not heading into one.
It's not like earth is in its normal state now, it still has alot of thawing out left to do.

All the information presented by Dr.David Suzuki suggests that a BIG warming trend is on the way, we are already feeling the effects of this trend that currently is in full swing. Melting polar Icecaps, rising C02, and warming equiatorial waters are just some of the many examples!

Forget about it.

A few cycles maxes are just about coinciding (NAO, THC, etc). The polar ice caps are not melting but appear to be growing. The warming of equatorial waters is a result of an increase of speed of the Thermohaline Current (Gulf Stream) and has nothing to do with global warming on the contrary, a popular version of Global warming wanted to shut down the conveyor belt instead. Well the opposite is happening. The weather balloon data and satellite date have never shown any warming and the warming of the ground weather station has stalled ever since 1998.

It doesn't really matter what happened in the last 2 years, or hundred or even thousand years. Over a much longer time period the polar caps have been receeding, and should gradually continue to receed, possibly with some minor fluctuations back and forth.

http://sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=41385 evidence of the el nino ?

Make sure any stock up on some warm winter clothing in the next 14,000 years..........You'll need them.

Atta Boy