Progress....

Singh_5

A global perfect storm if you will may have contributed to the "little ice age"

Explaination #1
Increased northern hemisphere volacanic activity (1500-1800) , ashes then blocked some sun light, causing cooler temps.
#2
In the same time period the sun went thru what is called the Maunder Minimum.
That is decrease in solar intensity and solar flares.
#3
At the same time Milankovitch cycle occurred, earth does not orbit the sun in perfect circle, but oval, and just so happens, furthest away during that time.
#4
Ocean currents stalled
Cold water in the North near Greenland sinks and flow south ,warmer water from south rides along top surface flowing north, creating a nice little circulator. If it did stall, then that warm water can no longer provide enough warm air , directed by wind currents, caused by the earth's rotation toward Europe.Now what cause the stall is interesting, that Medeval warming period(1200-1500), melted ice and snow in Greenland,causing fresh water to mix
with that current, saltier water is then diluted, stalling the natural convection of the oceanic stream.
#5
Surface reflection, as this little ice age progresses, it actually reflected more of the sun back, causing it to get even colder.
Is'nt science amazing !
Well you ask for an explaination , there you go. BTW the only reason I can remember this, is because just last week I watched a show on the History channel, called "The Little Ice Age"an its impact on European history. I watch to much TV.
My opinion however the little ice age was just a blip in time >300 years, a fluke, compared to even the second shortest ice age which lasted 6000 years.
Over all the climate is changing, warming or cooling, it does not matter. How can it not, when in 1946 there were 2 billion people on Earth, today 6 billion, and in 40 years 10 billion. And that is not a theory, but a discussion some other time , on some other thread.

Have a Happy New Year , Mark
Peace, Devan


<A HREF="http://www.heatinghelp.com/getListed.cfm?id=377&Step=30">To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"</A>

[Deleted User]

Comes one step at a time....

(CNN) -- Polar bears may be listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act because of a loss of habitat that jeopardizes their survival, the Interior secretary said Wednesday.

"Polar bears are one of nature's ultimate survivors, able to live and thrive in one of the world's harshest environments," said Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne in a teleconference with reporters.

"But we are concerned the polar bears' habitat may literally be melting," he said. (Watch an interview debating the "threatened" status of polar bears )

After a public comment period and additional study, the Department of the Interior will make a final decision on the polar bear's status in 12 months.

The announcement by the Bush administration comes in response to a lawsuit filed by three conservation groups, who sued the Department of the Interior in an effort to protect the polar bear from the effects of global warming. (Learn more about polar bears)

"The science is extraordinarily clear: Global warming in the Arctic threatens polar bears," said Kassie Siegel, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity based in Tucson, Arizona.

Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council are the other groups that were part of the lawsuit.

Kempthorne said the proposal to consider polar bears threatened involved the receding sea ice that the animals use for hunting. While he acknowledged that the melting ice is the result of climate change, Kempthorne stressed that the broader aspects of global warming are beyond the scope of the Endangered Species Act and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency that enforces it.

"We'll be evaluating sea ice models and polar bear models, to see what's reliable and what isn't," said Dale Hall, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

"There is only one factor that is relevant, the range and extent of their habitat," said Hall, also during the teleconference.

Polar bear numbers
The Department of the Interior says there are between 20,000 and 25,000 polar bears in 19 different Arctic populations. One group, the western Hudson Bay population in Canada, has suffered a 22 percent decline in population from 1987-1994.

The reduction of sea ice has led to drownings and starvation of some animals, and weight loss and reduced cub survival in other populations. There has been a thinning of sea ice in some parts of the Arctic of 32 percent from the 1960s to the 1990s, according to the department.

While the officials from the Department of the Interior did not want to get into much detail about climate change, the conservation groups did.

"Science has triumphed over bad policy," said Kert Davies, research director for Greenpeace U.S, "Bush has been the Scrooge, Bah Humbug on global warming, but there's rising pressure among public opinion and scientists to do something about this."

"We can't save polar bears without the reduction of greenhouse gases," said Siegel.

"We need new federal legislation that caps and reduces greenhouse gas emissions," she said.

The charisma of the polar bear may also be a factor in its ties to the issue of climate change.

"People can relate to polar bears," said Siegel. "They can't relate to abstract threats. People think it is unacceptable for them to drown, to starve to death or to go extinct," she said.

The decision on whether to list polar bears as threatened will not come for another year. Over the next 90 days the Fish and Wildlife Service will accept information and comments on the proposal.

That proposal is available on the Service's Marine Mammal Web site, http://www.fws.gov/endangered/12mo_finding_polar_bear.pdf

NOTE: I meant nothing political in posting this message. Please keep it this way. Keep the Wall clean...

Thanks

ME

gerry gill

weren't the great lakes

created by melting glaciers? me thinks its all part of the natural order of things.

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

S Ebels

Supposedly

But the Great Lakes are currently at historically LOW water levels. That don't add.

Rob_32

ah, geology and climate

Carved by glaciers. Filled by the meltwater.

Future of the water level depends a lot on what happens to precipation patterns in a changing climate. Nearly all models predict a warmer and drier climate in the Great Lakes region. This would likely lead to long-term (50-100 yr) lake level fall. IIRC, the current drop (since ~1998 with some wiggles) is the largest since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

Interesting report on potential climate changes and impacts in the Great Lakes region is here:

http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/GL-Exec-Summary-Update-05-doc.pdf

S Ebels

Happy lot aren't they?

Might as well get used to selling more A/C systems and heat pumps. I have to say the weather this fall has been very strange to say the least. October 12 saw about 10-12" of snow which all melted, then rain, rain, rain, then more snow the first of December which all melted again. Had a solid inch of rain over the last two weeks and I have flowers (violas) blossoming in my flower garden as of today. Currently 33*. For the end of December, that's goofy. We should be at 10-15* with white stuff a foot or more deep by now. I don't think you can find a place to ski, ice fish or snowmobile in the entire state of Michigan. By this time of the year, we used to be able to drive cars and trucks out on the local lakes.

Rob_32

indeed

Actually, Kling is a pretty good guy to have a beer with.

I'm no expert on the Great Lakes region, but from what I do know, there are some "no regrets" mitigation options that would provide some benefits in that area regardless of what the climate ultimately does.

Could be worse. You could be a polar bear.

S Ebels

And what would they be?

The "no regrets" mitigation options that is?

What field of endeavor are you involved with?

Darrell

Global warming and glaciers retreating comes with at least one issue that is hard to reconcile with my Chevy Suburban or my Chevy Van destroying the earth...all those retreating glaciers reveal a fossil record...of tropical plants and animals. Maybe we are going back to what used to be.

We've got a "dormant" volcano just across the Inlet from us...and it puts out more CO2 on an HOURLY basis than all of the industrial revolution to date has. Somehow they gotta control that hummer.

I work for a couple that for over twenty years now has filed a yearly report asking for federal funding for ongoing study. They study the "Effect of the Swanson River Oil Field on the Reproductive Habits of the Arctic Vole." And they get nearly a quarter million every year for it. There are no Arctic Voles on the Kenai Peninsula...none in the Swanson River Field. And, if there were, they do it frequently and reproduce a bunch...a twenty five year fraudulent study. They take the money and lobby for issues like global warming and green peace...while us working stiffs go to work every day. By the way...their boiler is a thirty year old hydrotherm...dry base, natural draft, no damper, zone valves, no reset no nothing. Seems like they'd put their money where their mouth is...and yes, they are aware of the options.

I spent a winter working at the Valdez Terminal of the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline. That winter a sow and two cubs...that would be brown bears...made a den under mile 800 of the pipe...inside the terminal, within 50 yards of the noisiest building there and maybe 3o feet from the main road. We couldn't get any pictures or stories printed...

Don't believe everything you read or hear...they are selling something to customers unawares...and they are bankrolled heavily. They have a vested interest in ongoing studies and paranoia...that's how they buy groceries.

Mark Hunt

Darrell


I just put you on my Christmas card list.

Who wants to explain this?

Mark H

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

CC.Rob_2

recollection

My specific recollection, fuzzy, is the suggestion to start planting trees as windbreaks between large agricultural fields, and one or two other crop/soil practices to reduce potential negative impacts of a drier (and windier) climate. The idea being to pre-plan for drier, more mobile soils at a suitably large scale to have an impact. Plant lots of trees now so that if and when the area becomes drier and windier, the trees are big and dense enough to mitigate at least some of the dusty/windiness and impacts on soil quality, mobility, moisture, etc. And if the climate doesn't change, then harvest them.

There are some big-picture suggestions in the boxed area toward the end of this:

http://www.nap.edu/html/climatechange-brief/abruptclimatechange-brief.pdf

In real life I'm a geoscientist who does research on coastal and marine geological processes, especially coastal hazards. A good part of that involves understanding paleoclimate (sea-level, ice ages, etc.), potential future climate changes, hurricanes, coastal erosion, that sort of thing.

Mitch_4

thing is

the weather man can not reliably tell me the weather for the weekend, but we are sure the polar caps are going to be gone.

These are the same scientists that told us CFC's are harmless as is asbestos, as is cigarette smoke ad hoc ad nauseum.

Geological information has shown that the earths temperature has always fluctuated

Brad White

Not to mention

The Medieval Warming Period (MWP) when crops grew in Greenland. Some scientists into GW theory wanted to get rid of that part for it discredited the "hockey-stick graph" promoted by Professor Mann at UVA and made the upward tick look like the other side of the bathtub. Hard to look at a narrow band of time, geologically speaking and call it a trend. Ebbs and flows are the norm. We flatter ourselves that we have that much to do with it.

As posted above, we cannot predict the weather more than a week out yet deign to say what happens 30 years hence.

jp_2

2006 bad hurricanes?

i thought i remember during the katrina thing that all those experts on CNN were predicting this year to be worse than last? and its all due to the last two presidential terms???

my favorite comment came from a scientist that proudly reported the weather is following "ALL" their software models prefectly.

Mitch_4

that's good!

>my favorite comment came from a scientist that proudly >reported the weather is following "ALL" their software >models prefectly

HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA

jp_2

lake superior

this lake was mainly formed by a sunked valcano. that is, if my memory serves me correct.

S Ebels

Darrell

This quote rang like a bell in my head.

"By the way...their boiler is a thirty year old hydrotherm...dry base, natural draft, no damper, zone valves, no reset no nothing"

Can't tell you how many times I've seen the same thing. People that get all wigged out about the environment, global warming, ozone layer and whatever else is in the news, seldom, very seldom want to invest in a heating system that helps to alleviate those things. There's a disturbing disconnect there in that they always seem to feel it's somone else's job to "bite the bullet".

Reminds me of an article I read about a guy in California that has placed over 10,000 wood duck nest boxes all over the state. He loves to hunt, shoot and yes, eat the ducks that he kills. He has single handedly done more for wood duck habitat and propogation than any of the PETA types running around out there. When one of those people heckle him at a habitat seminar he puts on, he calmly asks the person how many nest boxes they have put up. Case closed.

Put your money where your mouth is couldn't be more correct. Until they do tell them to kindly shut their pie hole.

Rob_32

yup

Superior is located in part of the rift that formed about a billion (billion with a b) years ago in central N America. The variable geology was more/less erodible than the surrounding rocks and subsequently eroded/shaped by the glaciers that advanced and retreated over the past several million (with an m) years, giving rise to the "modern" basin shape.

Rob_32

atmospheric predictions

Planning and budgeting a research program around those predictions can be a real headache. I wish they'd get better, but they're not there yet.

Brad White

JP- Your Memory

You are not that old to remember the volcano. Get off it.

scott w.

Singh, I saw the same show on the history channel. Very interesting. They called the mixing ocean currents the thermal halide effect.I think thats what it was called? At the current rate of melting of ice caps the gulf stream, which keeps europe and north america warm could start to disapear within our life time.

Salt water is heavier than fresh water so as ice caps melt, the ocean loses its salinity, the gulf stream sinks before it can reach the North Atlantic. The climate in Europe and most of the northern east coast turn into a sub artic climate. We all will need oversize boilers.

I quess GW won't matter as the Histroy Channel did a show on the Mayans and their calender which was more accurate by 1/10,000 of day than our current calender. The Mayans predicted the end of the world comes Dec. 21, 2012. That is when their calender stops.
What was the name of that bird who said the sky was falling?

Tony_23

Hopefully

Let's hope cooler heads will prevail

Next thing you know, we'll be adjusting industry to correct the normal 11 year population cycle of the Cottontail Rabbit.

Does anybody remember EVER seeing a report stating positive effects, with proof, that refrigerant recovery is making anything better with the environment ? After all, since it's been a practice about 14 years, and studies cover 30, shouldn't we be seeing results ?

Mark, you or I should share that e-mail I sent you last week with Darrell. I think he'd enjoy it

Rob_32

term

Thermohaline circulation (THC). Google it and there's some good images and the obligatory link to wikipedia.

Rob_32

too much TV?

Good summary. IMHO, worthwhile TV. And it would appear the TV got it pretty right for a change. Having worked with the media to produce educational TV on scientific topics, I can say it is alternately humorous and totally frustrating to see what can happen to scientific information and viewpoint between the background research phase and final airing. Sometimes they get it right, sometimes totally wrong, and sometimes very unbalanced where two or more sides of an issue are worthy of equal time.

MWP and LIA are just a couple examples of rather small wiggles in the otherwise very pleasant climate that has prevailed for the past 4000-5000 years.

Rob_32

yes

Seen it somewhere (benefits of fewer CFCs). Will try to find it.

[Deleted User]

Whle we were enjoying

a float plane ride over Alaskan Glaciers last summer, the pilot pointed out which glaciers were receding, and which were advancing. I inquired as to why we never hear about the advancing ones. His reply was quite revealiing. "There's no money in those."

Singh_5

history channel

One of my favorite channels.
I like modern marvels, extreme engineering, and engineering an empire.

Its hard not to believe the anthropogenic effect does not change the planet in some way. I say again, Six Billion.

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

Darrell

And then there is the glacier that retreated hastily after millions of years, because of my Suburban, and uncovered the tin roof of a miners cabin...

Strikes me odd that glaciers and ice ages are being credited with the land mass features, such as the Great Lakes that we enjoy here on Earth, while we spend billions of dollars sending rovers to Mars to investigate the exact same land mass features that were made by water flooding on a global scale. Ice cannot be made to do the things it is credited with...it melts under pressure and thus appears to flow around rocky masses...it does not carve. Water, on the other hand, does a marvelous job of eroding, carving, and reforming land masses...

Millions and Billions of years...kinda like a contractor I used to work for...didn't know how to bid, or do a take off...so he'd just add zeros! Add enough years to an equation and I s'pose anything can happen.

CC.Rob_2

I'll differ somewhat

I'm sitting on a land mass (Cape Cod), nearly all of which was pushed, gouged (to a depth of several hundred feet), plucked, rolled and carried here by a large glacier a mere 20,000 years or so ago. The boulders outside my office window came from New Bedford. Just to the south, there are two fairly sizable islands (Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket) that owe their origin to the same glacier (although water was involved, too). Same with most of the hills on Long Island, NY. Old moraine deposits.

I absolutely agree that adding water to the mix makes things a lot more exciting. About 14,000 years ago, for instance, there was a huge quantity of water impounded in lakes in the lower Hudson River Valley. The "cork" holding it all in was the plug of terminal moraine sediment where the Verrazano Narrows Bridge is located today. The cork popped around 13,350 years ago.

Must have been a pretty impressive flood. About 770 cubic miles of water. Flow rates on the order of 120 million gallons per *second* for about 3 months. It carved a big channel all the way across the continental shelf and left some very cool landforms out there. Very much like the Channeled Scablands out west.

Personally, I'd love to see a chunk of the money we're spending on Mars used to do more here on Earth.