Here's a conundrum

[Dorts]

I don't happen to believe that man-made CO2 emissions are having any great effect on our climate. Average temperatures may have gone up by a small amount in recent years, but I belive that would be just part of a natural cycle.

But let us suppose for arguments sake that the 'warmists' and 'greens' and those climate scientists, (a rather small number as it happens), who believe that it is all caused by us, are right.
Let us suppose that our climate will warm-up to a degree so as to equal those 'balmy days' when 800,000 years ago Greenland really was green.

We are at present in an Ice-age that started about 35 million years ago. (Our planet has been cooling for last 50 million years.)

Over the past 2.6 million years (the Pleistocene and Holocene), the Earth’s climate has been on average cooler than today, in fact mostly much colder. These long colder periods are known as ‘Ice Ages’, a long series of glacial periods of around 100,000 years separated by short warm ‘interglacial’ periods that last for between 15,000-20,000 years.
We are currently living through one of these interglacial periods. The last ice started to melt around 20,000 years ago and the present warm period (known as the Holocene) became established around 11,500 years ago, since when our climate has been relatively stable.

This ice age cycle has persisted for millions of years. Every 100,000 years the glaciers advance and then recede, this pattern has been repeated many times. As I said, the last glacial maximum occurred on our planet about 20,000 years ago and since then it has been getting warmer, glaciers have retreated, ice has melted and sea levels have been risen. (It would rather strange to blame any of these events on human activity since they have been occurring and re-occurring for millions of years without our help.)

So, we will very shortly be moving into the next 100,000 year period of encroaching ice. And evidence has shown that this can happen very quickly, in just a few years. What is likely to happen is that snowfalls will continue later into the year, the laying snow will last longer on the higher ground until it does not melt. More areas of land and sea become covered in ice and snow, reflecting more and more heat back into the atmosphere. This cycle of events speeds-up until the whole of the northern hemisphere is locked in a 2-4 mile thick coating of ice. Southern England becomes tundra. Everyone is going to have to move south to survive. The English Channel and the North Sea drys-up.

Now just suppose that our emissions of CO2 and rising temps. could hold back the move towards this encroaching ice for a number of years. Maybe if we were to pump even more CO2 into our atmosphere we could actually stop the next 100,000 years of ice.

If this scenario were possible, then the 'warmists' and 'greens' and AGW believing politicians and scientists who want a total ban on virtually all man-made CO2 would be sending us to our inevitable doom.

For as sure as 'eggs-are-eggs' this pleasant earth will soon change back to its normal cold state, energy output will have to go through the roof if we are to continue to live any sort of comfortable life as the climate changes back to cold.
But perhaps we can do something about it? Perhaps we can turn the tide? Maybe this is the area where research money could be well spent?
Who knows, it may be 'Thank God for CO2', then where will the 'warmists' stand?!
Thoughts?

Dorts.

[RoyW]

So increases in CO2 don't increase global temperatures....but they could potentially help to avert the cooling effects of a glacial period?

How does that work then?




Sorry, but putting forward an argument in which something you don't believe is happening at all could potentially help in this theoretical way doesn't help the argument that CO2 emissions should be allowed to continue without any action.
If there is any merit in the idea, then the oil companies, and others who don't want to take action on emissions are free to fund the research (...oh sorry, they don't want to spend money on anything that will affect their profits do they?).
I doubt any one will want to put money into this sort of research until there is better evidence than "another glacial period is due" to suggest that we will shortly be in another cold period.

[Dorts]

Roy, I like to look at things from both sides of the tracks, to look at all sides of the argument, anything wrong in that?
I am putting forward what I think could, I say just could, be a dilemma for those who honestly believe in man-made global warming, and perhaps should be considered.
Dorts.

[Richard Baber]

I am one of those you describe as a 'warmist' or a 'green', though I don't understand your need to pigeon-hole people with different beliefs to your own in this way. There is, in my opinion, far too much evidence of man's deleterious impact on our climate to ignore. The clincher for me is the rate of change in recent years of CO2 in the atmosphere and the acidity of our oceans. These facts, and others, prevent me from believing that we are experiencing part of a natural cycle. The thought of pro-actively working to increase global warming worries me more than just a little.

As for attempting to raise the planet's temperature, your suggestion may have merit if we knew we were on the threshold of the next downturn, but we don't. It could be three thousand years away or more. I, for one, believe that we must focus on undoing the damage we have caused and are continuing to wreak on this planet and this includes reining in our greenhouse gas emission.

I seriously doubt that planet Earth has anything like the technological or political infrastructure required to counter the sudden onset of an ice age and won't have for a very long time. Funding research into this area now would simply be money wasted in my opinion, which is, of course, just my opinion.

[RoyW]

Originally Posted by Dorts

Roy, I like to look at things from both sides of the tracks, to look at all sides of the argument, anything wrong in that?

But are you really looking at this from another side here?

On one hand you are saying that "Global warming isn't caused by man, so we shouldn't reduce carbon emissions".

And here you are suggesting that "Anthropomorphic global warming could help prevent glaciation, so we shouldn't reduce carbon emissions".



You're not looking at the issue from the "other side", you're just trying out an alternative argument to support the same view point.

[hank]

I think part of the answer is the rate of change.
It's O.K. to speculate when glaciers grow/receed by feet per year, but when the units are hundreds of yards per year, or an ice shelf half the size of Wales breaks off, then you have to start listening to 'the experts'.
We may expect to hear that the Polar Bears are in danger, but in reality, we may see their extinction in our lifetime.
You really have to be naive to think that we can continue to pollute at the levels that we are, and not to have any consequenses.

[Dorts]

Originally Posted by RoyW

But are you really looking at this from another side here?
On one hand you are saying that "Global warming isn't caused by man, so we shouldn't reduce carbon emissions".
And here you are suggesting that "Anthropomorphic global warming could help prevent glaciation, so we shouldn't reduce carbon emissions".
You're not looking at the issue from the "other side", you're just trying out an alternative argument to support the same view point.

Roy, I'm simply playing Devil's Advocate. Trying to encourage debate, (not too serious I hope).
Dorts.

[Dorts]

Originally Posted by hank

I think part of the answer is the rate of change.
It's O.K. to speculate when glaciers grow/receed by feet per year, but when the units are hundreds of yards per year, or an ice shelf half the size of Wales breaks off, then you have to start listening to 'the experts'.
We may expect to hear that the Polar Bears are in danger, but in reality, we may see their extinction in our lifetime.
You really have to be naive to think that we can continue to pollute at the levels that we are, and not to have any consequenses.

Hank, although you didn't actualy say it; it is very important that pollution and CO2 are not thought to be one of the same. CO2 is a rare gas, not a pollutant.
I totally agree that we cannot go on polluting our planet in the way that we are, that surely goes without saying.

As for Polar Bears, recent surveys have shown that populations are increasing in all but one large area of Northern Canada, where they are indeed decreasing. But overall the world populations are still very robust.

Very large sheets of ice have always been braking away from large areas of sea-ice, it's just that now they make great news.
Dorts.

[Richard Baber]

Originally Posted by Dorts

; it is very important that pollution and CO2 are not thought to be one of the same. CO2 is a rare gas, not a pollutant.

Dorts, you need to check your definitions. Just because CO2 is a naturally occurring gas does not mean that humans cannot pollute the planet with it. We have increased its levels way above normal. It is now approaching 400ppm, never having risen above 300ppm in the 800000 years before the industrial revolution, and levels continues to rise. CO2 generated by man is, therefore, very much a pollutant.

[Richard Baber]

Originally Posted by Dorts

As for Polar Bears, recent surveys have shown that populations are increasing in all but one large area of Northern Canada, where they are indeed decreasing. But overall the world populations are still very robust.

Very large sheets of ice have always been braking away from large areas of sea-ice, it's just that now they make great news.
Dorts.

Unless I'm misreading your quote, I think you've got your facts back to front. At the 2009 meeting of the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group, scientists reported that of the 19 subpopulations of polar bears, 8 are declining, 3 are stable, 7 had insufficient data to determine a trend and only 1 is increasing. I would be grateful if you would quote your source of information.

As for ice sheets, you are right that they have always broken away from the land mass. It's a seasonal phenomenon. However, you are completely ignoring the massive loss of sea ice in recent years, another example of extremely rapid change in recent history.