Governments and public organizations are actively discussing the coming “global warming” and measures to combat it. However, there is a well-founded opinion that in reality we are facing not warming, but cooling. And in this case, the fight against industrial emissions, which are believed to contribute to warming, is not only pointless, but also harmful.
It has long been proven that our planet is in a “high risk” zone. A relatively comfortable existence is provided to us by the “greenhouse effect,” that is, the ability of the atmosphere to retain heat coming from the Sun. And yet, global ice ages periodically occur, which are distinguished by a general cooling and a sharp increase in continental ice cover in Antarctica, Eurasia and North America.
The duration of the cold spells is such that scientists talk about entire glacial eras that lasted hundreds of millions of years. The last, fourth, Cenozoic, began 65 million years ago and continues to this day. Yes, yes, we live in an ice age, which is unlikely to end in the near future. Why does it seem to us that warming is happening?
The fact is that within the ice age there are cyclically repeating periods of time lasting tens of millions of years, which are called ice ages. They, in turn, are divided into glacial epochs, consisting of glaciations (glacials) and interglacials (interglacials).
All modern civilization arose and developed in the Holocene - a relatively warm period after the Pleistocene Ice Age, which reigned only 10 thousand years ago. A slight warming led to the liberation of Europe and North America from the glacier, which allowed the emergence of an agricultural culture and the first cities, which gave impetus to rapid progress.
For a long time, paleoclimatologists could not understand what caused the current warming. It was found that climate change is influenced by a number of factors: changes in solar activity, fluctuations in the earth's axis, the composition of the atmosphere (primarily carbon dioxide content), the degree of ocean salinity, the direction of ocean currents and wind roses. Painstaking research has made it possible to identify the factors that influenced modern warming.
About 20 thousand years ago, the glaciers of the Northern Hemisphere moved so far south that even a slight increase in the average annual temperature was enough for them to begin to melt. Fresh water filled the North Atlantic, slowing local circulation and accelerating warming in the Southern Hemisphere.
Changing directions of winds and currents led to the fact that the water of the Southern Ocean rose from the depths, and carbon dioxide, which had remained “locked” there for millennia, was released into the atmosphere. The mechanism of the “greenhouse effect” was launched, which 15 thousand years ago provoked warming in the Northern Hemisphere.
Approximately 12.9 thousand years ago, a small asteroid fell in the central part of Mexico (now Lake Cuitseo is located at the site of its impact). Ash from fires and dust thrown into the upper atmosphere caused a new local cooling, which further contributed to the release of carbon dioxide from the depths of the Southern Ocean.
The cooling lasted for about 1,300 years, but in the end only strengthened the “greenhouse effect” due to the rapid change in the composition of the atmosphere. The climate “swing” once again changed the situation, and warming began to develop at an accelerating pace, the northern glaciers melted, freeing Europe.
Today, carbon dioxide from the depths of the southern part of the World Ocean is being successfully replaced by industrial emissions, and warming continues: during the 20th century, the average annual temperature increased by 0.7°C - a very significant amount. It would seem that one should be afraid of overheating, and not sudden cold weather. But it's not that simple.
It seems that the last onset of cold weather was a very long time ago, but humanity remembers well the events related to the “Little Ice Age”. This is how specialist literature refers to the severe European cold snap that lasted from the 16th to the 19th centuries.
View of Antwerp with the frozen Scheldt River / Lucas van Valckenborch, 1590
Paleoclimatologist Le Roy Ladurie analyzed collected data on the expansion of glaciers in the Alps and Carpathians. He points to the following fact: the mines in the High Tatras, developed in the mid-15th century, were covered with ice 20 meters thick in 1570, and in the 18th century the ice thickness there was already 100 meters. At the same time, the advance of glaciers began in the French Alps. Written sources contained endless complaints from residents of mountain villages that glaciers were burying fields, pastures and houses.
Frozen Thames / Abraham Hondius, 1677
As a result, the paleoclimatologist states, “Scandinavian glaciers, synchronously with Alpine glaciers and glaciers in other areas of the world, have been experiencing the first, well-defined historical maximum since 1695,” and “in subsequent years they will begin to advance again.” One of the most terrible winters of the “Little Ice Age” occurred in January-February 1709. Here is a quote from a written source of that time:
From an extraordinary cold, the likes of which neither grandfathers nor great-grandfathers could remember<...>Residents of Russia and Western Europe died. Birds, flying through the air, froze. In Europe as a whole, many thousands of people, animals and trees died.
In the vicinity of Venice, the Adriatic Sea is covered standing ice. The coastal waters of England are covered in ice. The Seine and Thames are frozen. The frosts were just as severe in eastern North America.
In the 19th century, the “Little Ice Age” gave way to warming, and harsh winters became a thing of the past for Europe. But what caused them? And will this happen again?
Frozen lagoon in 1708, Venice / Gabriel Bella
People started talking about the potential threat of another ice age six years ago, when unprecedented frosts hit Europe. The largest European cities were covered in snow. The Danube, Seine, and the canals of Venice and the Netherlands froze. Due to icing and broken high-voltage wires, entire areas were without power, classes in schools stopped in some countries, and hundreds of people froze to death.
All these horrific events did not fit in with the concept of “global warming”, which had been fiercely discussed for a decade before. And then scientists had to reconsider their views. They noticed that the Sun is currently experiencing a decline in its activity. Perhaps it was this factor that became decisive, having a much greater impact on the climate than “global warming” due to industrial emissions.
It is known that the activity of the Sun changes cyclically over 10-11 years. The last 23rd (from the beginning of observations) cycle was indeed highly active. This allowed astronomers to say that the 24th cycle will be unprecedented in intensity, especially since something similar happened earlier, in the middle of the twentieth century. However, in this case, the astronomers were wrong. The next cycle was supposed to begin in February 2007, but instead there was an extended period of solar “minimum”, and the new cycle began late in November 2008.
Head of Laboratory space research Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences Habibullo Abdusamatov claims that our planet passed the peak of warming in the period from 1998 to 2005. Now, according to the scientist, the activity of the Sun is slowly declining and will reach its minimum in 2041, which is why a new “Little Ice Age” will begin. The scientist expects the peak of cooling in the 2050s. And it can lead to the same consequences as the cold snap in the 16th century.
However, there is still reason for optimism. Paleoclimatologists have established that warming periods between ice ages are 30-40 thousand years. Ours lasts only 10 thousand years. Humanity has a huge supply of time. If in such a short period by historical standards people managed to rise from primitive agriculture to space flights, then we can hope that they will find a way to cope with the threat. For example, they will learn to control the climate.
Materials from an article by Anton Pervushin were used,
Last Ice Age
During this era, 35% of the land was under ice cover (compared to 10% today).
The last ice age was not just a natural disaster. It is impossible to understand the life of planet Earth without taking these periods into account. In the intervals between them (known as interglacial periods), life flourished, but then once again the ice moved inexorably and brought death, but life did not completely disappear. Each ice age was marked by the struggle for survival of different species, global climate changes occurred, and in the last one, the new kind, who became (over time) dominant on Earth: it was a man.
Ice Ages
Ice ages are geological periods characterized by strong cooling of the Earth, during which vast areas of the earth's surface were covered with ice, observed high level humidity and, naturally, exceptional cold, as well as the lowest sea level known to modern science. There is no generally accepted theory regarding the reasons for the onset of the Ice Age, but since the 17th century, a variety of explanations have been proposed. According to the current opinion, this phenomenon was not caused by one reason, but was the result of the influence of three factors.
Changes in the composition of the atmosphere - a different ratio of carbon dioxide (carbon dioxide) and methane - caused a sharp drop in temperature. It's like the opposite of what we now call global warming, but on a much larger scale.
The movements of the continents, caused by cyclic changes in the orbit of the Earth around the Sun, and in addition the change in the angle of inclination of the planet’s axis relative to the Sun, also had an impact.
The earth received less solar heat, it cooled, which led to glaciation.
The earth has experienced several ice ages. The largest glaciation occurred 950-600 million years ago during the Precambrian era. Then in the Miocene era - 15 million years ago.
Traces of glaciation that can be observed at the present time represent the legacy of the last two million years and belong to the Quaternary period. This period is best studied by scientists and is divided into four periods: Günz, Mindel (Mindel), Ries (Rise) and Würm. The latter corresponds to the last ice age.
Last Ice Age
The Würm stage of glaciation began approximately 100,000 years ago, peaked after 18 thousand years and began to decline after 8 thousand years. During this time, the thickness of the ice reached 350-400 km and covered a third of the land above sea level, in other words, three times the area than now. Based on the amount of ice that currently covers the planet, we can get some idea of the extent of glaciation during that period: today, glaciers occupy 14.8 million km2, or about 10% of the earth's surface, and during the Ice Age they covered an area of 44 .4 million km2, which is 30% of the Earth's surface.
According to assumptions, in northern Canada, ice covered an area of 13.3 million km2, while now there is 147.25 km2 under ice. The same difference is noted in Scandinavia: 6.7 million km2 in that period compared to 3,910 km2 today.
The Ice Age occurred simultaneously in both hemispheres, although in the North the ice spread over larger areas. In Europe, the glacier covered most of the British Isles, northern Germany and Poland, and in North America, where the Würm glaciation is called the “Wisconsin Ice Age,” a layer of ice that descended from the North Pole covered all of Canada and spread south of the Great Lakes. Like the lakes in Patagonia and the Alps, they were formed on the site of depressions left after the melting of the ice mass.
The sea level dropped by almost 120 m, as a result of which large areas were exposed that are currently covered sea water. The significance of this fact is enormous, since large-scale migrations of humans and animals became possible: hominids were able to make the transition from Siberia to Alaska and move from continental Europe to England. It is quite possible that during interglacial periods, the two largest ice masses on Earth - Antarctica and Greenland - have undergone slight changes throughout history.
At the peak of glaciation, the average temperature drop varied significantly depending on the area: 100 °C in Alaska, 60 °C in England, 20 °C in the tropics and remained virtually unchanged at the equator. Studies of the last glaciations in North America and Europe, which occurred during the Pleistocene era, gave similar results in this geological area within the last two (approximately) million years.
The last 100,000 years are of particular importance to understanding human evolution. Ice ages became a severe test for the inhabitants of the Earth. After the end of the next glaciation, they again had to adapt and learn to survive. When the climate became warmer, sea levels rose, new forests and plants appeared, and the land rose, freed from the pressure of the ice shell.
Hominids had the most natural resources to adapt to changing conditions. They were able to move to areas with the greatest amount of food resources, where the slow process of their evolution began.
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1.8 million years ago, the Quaternary (anthropogenic) period of the geological history of the earth began and continues to this day.
River basins expanded. There was a rapid development of the mammal fauna, especially mastodons (which would later become extinct, like many other ancient animal species), ungulates and great apes. During this geological period in the history of the earth, man appears (hence the word anthropogenic in the name of this geological period).
The Quaternary period marks a sharp change in climate throughout the European part of Russia. From warm and humid Mediterranean, it turned into moderately cold, and then into cold Arctic. This led to glaciation. Ice accumulated on the Scandinavian Peninsula, in Finland, on the Kola Peninsula and spread to the south.
The Oksky glacier with its southern edge covered the territory of the modern Kashira region, including our region. The first glaciation was the coldest; tree vegetation in the Oka region disappeared almost completely. The glacier did not last long. The first Quaternary glaciation reached the Oka valley, which is why it received the name “Oka glaciation”. The glacier left moraine deposits dominated by boulders of local sedimentary rocks.
But such favorable conditions the glacier changed again. Glaciation was on a planetary scale. The grandiose Dnieper glaciation began. The thickness of the Scandinavian ice sheet reached 4 kilometers. The glacier moved through the Baltic to Western Europe and the European part of Russia. The boundaries of the tongues of the Dnieper glaciation passed in the area of modern Dnepropetrovsk and almost reached Volgograd.
 Mammoth fauna |
The climate warmed again and became Mediterranean. In place of the glaciers, heat-loving and moisture-loving vegetation has spread: oak, beech, hornbeam and yew, as well as linden, alder, birch, spruce and pine, and hazel. Ferns, characteristic of modern South America, grew in the swamps. The restructuring of the river system and the formation of Quaternary terraces in river valleys began. This period was called the interglacial Oka-Dnieper age.
The Oka served as a kind of barrier to the advancement of ice fields. According to scientists, the right bank of the Oka, i.e. our region has not turned into a continuous icy desert. Here there were fields of ice, interspersed with intervals of thawed hills, between which rivers of meltwater flowed and lakes accumulated.
Ice flows of the Dnieper glaciation brought glacial boulders from Finland and Karelia to our region.
The valleys of old rivers were filled with mid-moraine and fluvioglacial deposits. It became warmer again, and the glacier began to melt. Streams of meltwater rushed south along the beds of new rivers. During this period, third terraces are formed in river valleys. Large lakes formed in the depressions. The climate was moderately cold.
Our region was dominated by forest-steppe vegetation with a predominance of coniferous and birch forests and large areas of steppes covered with wormwood, quinoa, cereals and forbs.
The interstadial era was short. The glacier returned to the Moscow region again, but did not reach the Oka, stopping not far from the southern outskirts of modern Moscow. Therefore, this third glaciation was called the Moscow glaciation. Some tongues of the glacier reached the Oka valley, but they did not reach the territory of the modern Kashira region. The climate was harsh, and the landscape of our region is becoming close to the steppe tundra. Forests are almost disappearing and steppes are taking their place.
A new warming has arrived. The rivers deepened their valleys again. Second river terraces were formed, and the hydrography of the Moscow region changed. It was during that period that the modern valley and basin of the Volga, which flows into the Caspian Sea, was formed. The Oka, and with it our river B. Smedva and its tributaries, entered the Volga river basin.
This interglacial period in climate went through stages from continental temperate (close to modern) to warm, with a Mediterranean climate. In our region, at first birches, pine and spruce dominated, and then heat-loving oaks, beeches and hornbeams again became green. In the swamps grew the Brasia water lily, which today can only be found in Laos, Cambodia or Vietnam. At the end of the interglacial period, birch-coniferous forests again dominated.
This idyll was spoiled by the Valdai glaciation. Ice from the Scandinavian Peninsula again rushed south. This time the glacier did not reach the Moscow region, but changed our climate to subarctic. For many hundreds of kilometers, including through the territory of the present Kashira district and the rural settlement of Znamenskoye, the steppe-tundra stretches, with dried grass and sparse shrubs, dwarf birches and polar willows. These conditions were ideal for the mammoth fauna and for primitive man, who then already lived on the boundaries of the glacier.
During the last Valdai glaciation, the first river terraces were formed. The hydrography of our region has finally taken shape.
Traces of ice ages are often found in the Kashira region, but they are difficult to identify. Of course, large stone boulders are traces of glacial activity of the Dnieper glaciation. They were brought by ice from Scandinavia, Finland and the Kola Peninsula. The oldest traces of a glacier are moraine or boulder loam, which is a disordered mixture of clay, sand, and brown stones.
The third group of glacial rocks are sands resulting from the destruction of moraine layers by water. These are sands with large pebbles and stones and homogeneous sands. They can be observed on the Oka. These include Belopesotsky Sands. Often found in the valleys of rivers, streams, and ravines, layers of flint and limestone rubble are traces of the beds of ancient rivers and streams.
With the new warming, the geological epoch of the Holocene began (it began 11 thousand 400 years ago), which continues to this day. The modern river floodplains were finally formed. The mammoth fauna became extinct, and forests appeared in place of the tundra (first spruce, then birch, and later mixed). The flora and fauna of our region has acquired modern features - the one we see today. At the same time, the left and right banks of the Oka still differ greatly in their forest cover. If mixed forests and many open areas predominate on the right bank, then continuous coniferous forests dominate on the left bank - these are traces of glacial and interglacial climate changes. On our bank of the Oka, the glacier left fewer traces and our climate was somewhat milder than on the left bank of the Oka.
Geological processes continue today. The earth's crust in the Moscow region has been rising only slightly over the past 5 thousand years, at a rate of 10 cm per century. The modern alluvium of the Oka and other rivers of our region is being formed. What this will lead to after millions of years, we can only guess, because, having briefly become acquainted with the geological history of our region, we can safely repeat the Russian proverb: “Man proposes, but God disposes.” This saying is especially relevant after we have become convinced in this chapter that human history is a grain of sand in the history of our planet.
GLACIAL PERIOD
In distant, distant times, where Leningrad, Moscow, and Kyiv are now, everything was different. Dense forests grew along the banks of ancient rivers, and shaggy mammoths with curved tusks, huge hairy rhinoceroses, tigers and bears much larger than today roamed there.
Gradually it became colder and colder in these places. Far in the north, so much snow fell every year that entire mountains accumulated it - larger than the present-day Ural Mountains. The snow compacted, turned into ice, then began to slowly, slowly creep away, spreading in all directions.
Ice mountains have moved into the ancient forests. Cold, angry winds blew from these mountains, the trees froze and animals fled south from the cold. And the icy mountains crawled further to the south, turning out rocks along the way and moving entire hills of earth and stones in front of them. They crawled to the place where Moscow now stands, and crawled even further, to warm southern countries. They reached the hot Volga steppe and stopped.
Here, finally, the sun overpowered them: the glaciers began to melt. Huge rivers flowed from them. And the ice retreated, melted, and the masses of stones, sand and clay that the glaciers brought remained lying in the southern steppes.
More than once, terrible ice mountains have approached from the north. Have you seen the cobblestone street? Such small stones were brought by the glacier. And there are boulders as big as a house. They still lie in the north.
But the ice may move again. Just not soon. Maybe thousands of years will pass. And not only the sun will then fight the ice. If necessary, people will use ATOMIC ENERGY and prevent the glacier from entering our land.
When did the Ice Age end?
Many of us believe that the Ice Age ended a long time ago and no traces of it remain. But geologists say we are only approaching the end of the Ice Age. And the people of Greenland are still living in the Ice Age.
About 25 thousand years ago, the peoples who inhabited the central part of NORTH AMERICA saw ice and snow all year round. A huge wall of ice stretched from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean, and north to the Pole itself. This was during the final stages of the Ice Age, when all of Canada, most of the United States and northwestern Europe were covered in a layer of ice more than one kilometer thick.
But this does not mean that it was always very cold. In the northern part of the United States, temperatures were only 5 degrees lower than today. The cold summer months caused an ice age. At this time, the heat was not enough to melt the ice and snow. It accumulated and eventually covered the entire northern part of these areas.
The Ice Age consisted of four stages. At the beginning of each of them, ice formed moving south, then melted and retreated to the NORTH POLE. This happened, it is believed, four times. Cold periods are called “glaciations”, warm periods are called “interglacial” periods.
The first stage in North America is thought to have begun about two million years ago, the second about 1,250,000 years ago, the third about 500,000 years ago, and the last about 100,000 years ago.
Ice melting rate last stage ice age in different areas was different. For example, in the area where the modern state of Wisconsin is located in the USA, the melting of ice began approximately 40,000 years ago. The ice that covered the New England region of the United States disappeared about 28,000 years ago. And the territory of the modern state of Minnesota was released by ice only 15,000 years ago!
In Europe, Germany became ice-free 17,000 years ago, and Sweden only 13,000 years ago.
Why do glaciers still exist today?
The huge mass of ice that began the Ice Age in North America was called the “continental glacier”: in the very center its thickness reached 4.5 km. This glacier may have formed and melted four times during the entire Ice Age.
The glacier that covered other parts of the world did not melt in some places! For example, the huge island of Greenland is still covered by a continental glacier, except for a narrow coastal strip. In its middle part, the glacier sometimes reaches a thickness of more than three kilometers. Antarctica is also covered by an extensive continental glacier, with ice up to 4 kilometers thick in some places!
Therefore, the reason why there are glaciers in some areas of the globe is because they have not melted since the Ice Age. But the bulk of the glaciers found today were formed recently. They are mainly located in mountain valleys.
They originate in wide, gentle, amphitheatrically shaped valleys. Snow gets here from the slopes as a result of landslides and avalanches. Such snow does not melt in the summer, becoming deeper every year.
Gradually, pressure from above, some thawing, and refreezing remove air from the bottom of this snow mass, turning it into solid ice. The impact of the weight of the entire mass of ice and snow compresses the entire mass and causes it to move down the valley. This moving tongue of ice is a mountain glacier.
In Europe, more than 1,200 such glaciers are known in the Alps! They also exist in the Pyrenees, the Carpathians, the Caucasus, and in the mountains of southern Asia. There are tens of thousands of similar glaciers in southern Alaska, some 50 to 100 km long!
A joint statement from various scientific organizations and academies states that The Little Ice Age is coming on Earth. In an address to the heads of the world's leading governments and the UN, scientists said: “Humanity is in danger of its continued existence.”
Here is a list of organizations that wrote this statement:
- German Academy of Sciences, Leopoldina
- Indian National Science Academy
- Indonesian Academy of Sciences
- Royal Irish Academy
- Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (Italy)
- Academy of Sciences Malaysia
- Academy Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand
- Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
- Turkish Academy of Sciences
- Global Atmosphere Watch Program (GAW)
- Global Climate Observing System (GCOS)
- World Climate Program (WCP)
- World Climate Research Program (WCRP)
- World Weather Research Program (WWRP)
- World Weather Watch Program (WWW)
- Commission for Agricultural Meteorology
- Commission for Atmospheric Science
- Australian Academy of Sciences
- Brazilian Academy of Sciences
- Royal Society of Canada
- Caribbean Academy of Sciences
- Chinese Academy of Sciences
- French Academy of Sciences
Abrupt change in temperature in 2017.
Climate change in Antarctica and the South Pole
“Data collected from around the world indicate that a catastrophic cooling scenario will be realized in the coming years. Global cooling has already begun and all of humanity will feel its devastating consequences within 4-6 years,” the report says.
A sharp decrease in average water temperature in the equatorial part Pacific Ocean and in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean.
Scientists emphasize that data collected recently indicate that intermediate water masses are cooling at a catastrophic rate.
Temperature changes in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
Temperature changes in Greenland.
Tracing the relationship between changes in global temperature, one can see that this is closely related to solar activity.
We see one of the strongest global climate fluctuations during the Holocene, the Little Ice Age marked by a long cooling period from the 14th to the 19th century AD. This cooling was associated with a decrease in solar activity and was especially severe during the solar minima of 1645-1715. . AD and 1790-1830 n. e. These minima of solar activity are known as the Maunder minimum and the Dalton minimum. The time for a new low has arrived.
Temperature drop in the South China Sea
“And this is just the beginning; we will be faced with an increasing number of abnormal weather events every day. There will be no place on Earth that will not be affected by these changes. All countries in the world will be affected by these changes. A new ice age begins, the entire weather system of the planet changes and collapses. All critical infrastructure for people's survival will be under attack. Hunger and cold, that’s what humanity expects in the coming years,” the scientists write.
Global changes are clearly visible from the cataclysms already occurring throughout to the globe. recent anomalous phenomena Russia is a very striking example of such changes. Tornadoes, tornadoes, hurricanes, snow in summer, hail, sudden drops in temperature, the whole world has seen all this. Russian meteorologists are no longer able to give a clear and intelligible explanation of the reasons why all this is happening, and no one in the whole world will be able to give these explanations.
There is an explanation and it is real - everything that is happening is just the beginning of global cooling and it will affect not only Russia, all of humanity in all countries of the world will fall under its blow.
“We call on heads of state and government around the world to take our report very seriously. We are talking about the survival of all humanity, and whether it will exist on this planet at all. This is a danger that our modern civilization has not yet encountered in its history. To all leaders. of all countries of our world, it is now necessary to prepare our countries and people for what awaits them in the very near future. Now is not the time for wars and political strife - it is time to unite in order to survive. Humanity is in danger and only by working together can we try to survive,” the report says.
All this did not start today or yesterday, but no one wanted to pay attention to the ominous signs. Alarming climate changes began back in 2013, when snow suddenly fell in Romania at the most inopportune time period, and Germany experienced the harshest winter in 200 years, abnormal cold and snowfalls occurred in the United States, and a record low temperature was set in Antarctica During the entire period of observation, frosts hit Syria and this list goes on and on.
In 2014, the situation did not improve, but became even worse. The number of weather anomalies only increased. There are so many of them that there is no point in listing them all, this is obvious.
The Gulf Stream has stopped and this is indicated by data from The Earth Wind Map and The NOAA Data Satellite. The Gulf Stream is a warm current that has become cold and such an anomaly does not bode well for us.
Some climate scientists could no longer remain silent and support false claims about global warming. For example, NASA climatologist John L. Casey publicly stated that a radical shift has occurred in the global climate and this is not an accident, not a temporary change, but a pattern that is changing our climate globally and for decades to come. He warned that if the scientific community and governments around the world do not act in the face of global cooling, there will be catastrophic consequences for humanity.
John L. Casey warned that the planet was entering a global ice age that would last at least 30 years. Massive loss of life and famine is what awaits humanity.
The Corporation for Research and Development (GCSR) is an independent research institute in Orlando, Florida, USA. It aims to warn governments, the media and people to prepare for catastrophic climate change.
Scientists collaborating with GCSR believe that global cooling will be accompanied by the activation of volcanoes and catastrophic earthquakes. Very coldy, snowstorms, snowfalls, global anomalous cooling will last not a year or two, but 30 or 50 years.
Scientists who had the courage to go against the existing false system of “global warming” wrote articles, spoke in the media, wrote appeals to state leaders, but no one listened to them. 2017 has arrived and everyone in the world is already seeing and beginning to realize that something incomprehensible and frightening is happening with the weather on earth.
Awareness is coming, but time has been lost, and if this awareness does not come to those on whom the fate of the people depends, the countries they rule will soon not exist.
We are in the grip of autumn and it is getting colder. Are we heading towards an ice age, one reader wonders.
The fleeting Danish summer is over. The leaves are falling from the trees, the birds are flying south, it is getting darker and, of course, colder too.
Our reader Lars Petersen from Copenhagen has started preparing for the cold days. And he wants to know how seriously he needs to prepare.
“When does the next ice age start? I learned that glacial and interglacial periods follow each other regularly. Since we are living in an interglacial period, it is logical to assume that the next ice age is ahead of us, isn’t it?” - he writes in a letter to the section “Ask Science” (Spørg Videnskaben).
We in the editorial office shudder at the thought of cold winter, which lies in wait for us at the end of autumn. We, too, would love to know if we are on the verge of an ice age.
The next ice age is still a long way off
Therefore, we addressed Sune Olander Rasmussen, a lecturer at the Center for Fundamental Research on Ice and Climate at the University of Copenhagen.
Sune Rasmussen studies cold and obtains information about past weather by storming Greenland glaciers and icebergs. In addition, he can use his knowledge to act as an "ice age predictor."
“In order for an ice age to occur, several conditions must coincide. We cannot predict exactly when the ice age will begin, but even if humanity had no further influence on the climate, our forecast is that the conditions for it will develop in 40 to 50 thousand years at best,” Sune Rasmussen reassures us.
Since we're talking to an "ice age predictor" anyway, we might as well get some more information about what "conditions" we're talking about to help us understand a little more about what an ice age actually is.
This is what an ice age is
Sune Rasmussen says that during the last ice age the average temperature on earth was several degrees lower than today, and that the climate at higher latitudes was colder.
Much of the northern hemisphere was covered by massive ice sheets. For example, Scandinavia, Canada and some other parts of North America were covered with a three-kilometer ice shell.
The enormous weight of the ice sheet pressed the earth's crust a kilometer into the Earth.
Ice ages are longer than interglacials
However, 19 thousand years ago changes in climate began to occur.
This meant that the Earth gradually became warmer, and over the next 7,000 years freed itself from the cold grip of the Ice Age. After this, the interglacial period began, in which we now find ourselves.
Context
New ice age? Not soon
The New York Times 06/10/2004glacial period
Ukrainian Truth 12/25/2006 In Greenland, the last remnants of the shell came off very abruptly 11,700 years ago, or to be precise, 11,715 years ago. This is evidenced by research by Sune Rasmussen and his colleagues.This means that 11,715 years have passed since the last ice age, and this is a completely normal length of an interglacial.
“It's funny that we usually think of the Ice Age as an 'event', when in fact it's just the opposite. The average ice age lasts 100 thousand years, while the interglacial lasts from 10 to 30 thousand years. That is, the Earth is more often in an ice age than vice versa.”
“The last couple of interglacial periods only lasted about 10,000 years, which explains the widespread but erroneous belief that our current interglacial period is coming to an end,” says Sune Rasmussen.
Three factors influence the possibility of an ice age
The fact that the Earth will plunge into a new ice age in 40-50 thousand years depends on the fact that there are slight variations in the Earth's orbit around the Sun. The variations determine how much sunlight reaches which latitudes, thereby influencing how warm or cold it is.
This discovery was made by Serbian geophysicist Milutin Milankovic almost 100 years ago, and is therefore known as the Milankovitch Cycles.
Milankovitch cycles are:
1. The Earth’s orbit around the Sun, which changes cyclically approximately once every 100,000 years. The orbit changes from almost circular to more elliptical, and then back again. Because of this, the distance to the Sun changes. The further the Earth is from the Sun, the less solar radiation our planet receives. In addition, when the shape of the orbit changes, the length of the seasons also changes.
2. The tilt of the earth's axis, which varies between 22 and 24.5 degrees relative to the orbit around the Sun. This cycle spans approximately 41,000 years. 22 or 24.5 degrees does not seem to be such a significant difference, but the tilt of the axis greatly affects the severity of the different seasons. How more Earth inclined, the greater the difference between winter and summer. The Earth's axial tilt is currently 23.5 and decreasing, meaning the differences between winter and summer will decrease over the next thousands of years.
3. The direction of the earth's axis relative to space. The direction changes cyclically with a period of 26 thousand years.
“The combination of these three factors determines whether there are prerequisites for the onset of an ice age. It is almost impossible to imagine how these three factors interact, but using mathematical models we can calculate how much solar radiation certain latitudes receive at certain times of the year, have received in the past and will receive in the future,” says Sune Rasmussen.
Snow in summer leads to ice age
Temperatures in summer play a particularly important role in this context.
Milanković realized that for there to be a prerequisite for the onset of an ice age, summers in the northern hemisphere must be cold.
If winters are snowy and most of the northern hemisphere is covered with snow, then temperatures and amounts sundial in the summer they determine whether snow will be allowed to remain throughout the summer.
“If the snow does not melt in the summer, then little sunlight penetrates into the Earth. The rest is reflected back into space by a snow-white blanket. This exacerbates the cooling that began due to a change in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun,” says Sune Rasmussen.
“Further cooling brings even more snow, which further reduces the amount of heat absorbed, and so on, until the ice age begins,” he continues.
Likewise, a period of hot summers causes the Ice Age to end. Then the hot sun melts the ice enough to sunlight could again fall on dark surfaces, such as soil or sea, which absorb it and heat the Earth.
People are delaying the next ice age
Another factor that matters for the possibility of an ice age is the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Just as snow reflecting light enhances ice formation or speeds up its melting, a rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide from 180 ppm to 280 ppm (parts per million) helped bring the Earth out of the last ice age.
However, since industrialization began, people have been constantly increasing the proportion of carbon dioxide, so that now it is almost 400 ppm.
“It took nature 7,000 years to raise the share of carbon dioxide by 100 ppm after the end of the Ice Age. Humans managed to do the same thing in just 150 years. This has major implications for whether the Earth could enter a new ice age. This is a very significant influence, which not only means that an ice age cannot begin at the moment,” says Sune Rasmussen.
We thank Lars Petersen for good question and send a winter gray T-shirt to Copenhagen. We also thank Sune Rasmussen for his good answer.
We also encourage our readers to send more scientific questions to [email protected].
Did you know?
Scientists always talk about an ice age only in the northern hemisphere of the planet. The reason is that there is too little land in the southern hemisphere to support a massive layer of snow and ice.
Excluding Antarctica, the entire southern part of the southern hemisphere is covered with water, which does not provide good conditions for the formation of a thick ice shell.
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