Global Warming - Forgotten Science

A couple of years ago a friend of mine (who is a true believer in man made global warming) asked me if I believed. Shocked when I said "No", he asked why. I explained to him why it wasn't physically possible in a summarized form of my previous posts on this topic and he listened patiently. His question: "OK, why are the glaciers melting?"

I had to think for a couple of minutes on how to phrase my response and finally told him "Because they are supposed to!". Needless to say, he needed another explanation.

In September of 1958, almost 60 years ago, Harper's Magazine published the article "The Coming Ice Age A true scientific detective story". The article details the list of clues put together by Maurice Ewing and William L. Donn to put together their article "A Theory of Ice Ages" that was published in the June 15, 1956 edition of Science Magazine.

The earth has an ocean current being driven by the melting of the glaciers. This current transports cold water from near the artic into the southern hemisphere and returns warm water from the southern hemisphere back to the artic glaciers. The transport of heat along this current tends to warm the northern hemisphere and cool the southern hemisphere, acting as a thermostat for the planet. So what happens when our artic glacier ice cubes are gone?

As the glaciers are melting, the ocean level is rising and the surface area of open water for evaporation is increasing. With the increase of open water more water evaporates from the ocean to become water vapor in the atmosphere. This melting has been going on since the end of the last ice age, 11,000 years ago.

Once the artic glaciers are gone the Arctic Ocean is actually an ocean with water flowing freely between the Arctic Ocean and the Atlantic ocean. This free flow of water between the Artic and Atlantic will warm the Arctic Ocean and cool the Atlantic Ocean. In addition, the global current in the ocean distributing energy around the planet will not exxist. With the cooling weather in the northern hemisphere and the increased water vapor in the atmosphere, sooner or later it's going to start snowing. And when it starts snowing, sooner or later the snow is going to stick around all summer until it starts to snow again on last year's snow.

The article referenced above goes on to talk about people living near the arctic circle once the Arctic Ocean was free of ice. Before reading this article I had never thought of the glaciers during the ice age having a northern border, I had always assumed they started at the north pole and moved south.

Now let's apply some common sense to all this:

What happens as the artic glaciers melt? We get more water vapor into the atmosphere. If you read the previous post you already know that water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas, so you know the planet is going to warm. Some might call this "global warming". Trees are not the only way the planet harnesses carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide is also absorbed into ocean water. The trouble is, warmer ocean water can hold less carbon dioxide than colder water, so the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is going to increase. It's been documented that before each of the several ice ages the planet has had (yes, there's been more than one, could start a whole string of Ice Age movies) the level of carbon dioxide increases in the atmosphere.

With the rise in temperature from the increased water vapor, as the global warming alarmist are telling us, we will have more intense storms. You have to admit, some of the hurricanes we've had over the past few years have been amazingly strong and large.

Once the snow starts sticking around all summer in the northern hemisphere, what's the impact? Remember the post on the albedo? Snow doesn't absorb the energy from the sun, not much anyway. So most of the energy during the northern hemisphere summer will be reflected out into space. This is really going to accelerate that coming ice age.

How long will it snow? The article referenced above says it will snow until the water in the Arctic Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean can no longer mix. Currently they say this is until the oceans levels drop 300 - 400 feet. Think that will never happen? Think back to documentaries on underwater cities complete with houses and street, statues, etc. It's happened before.

Will this happen overnight? Unfortunately the answer is no way this happens overnight. Unfortunately? Yes, unfortunately. As the earth starts to cool there will be many years going by as the growing seasons get shorter and shorter. Billions upon billions of people will die of starvation rather than freezing to death. I'd rather be flash frozen in my sleep than to have to witness that.

When will this happen? The article, in 1958, suggested this could happen as quickly as within 100 years meaning we would only have about 40 years left. Fortunately we are entering into a period of time when the sun will be putting out less energy than normal which will slow the melting of the glaciers.

Related posts (newest to oldest):
Greenhouse Effect - Energy Trapped by the Atmosphere
Explaining the Earth's Albedo
Carbon Dioxide Saturation in the Atmosphere
Greenhouse Effect
Are Plants Starving for Carbon Dioxide
Global Warming