<lorad...@cs.com> wrote in message

news:1174116169.928938.303860@d57g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...

On Mar 16, 11:19 pm, "Wayne H. Wilhelm" <wwilh...@neonospam.rr.com>
wrote:

http://discovermagazine.com/2002/sep/cover
Impending Ice Age Alarms Scientists (some excerpts: read the entire
article
at the above link)

"A growing number of scientists-including many here at Curry's base of
operations, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod in
Massachusetts-believes conditions are ripe for another prolonged
cooldown,
or small ice age. While no one is predicting a brutal ice sheet like the
one
that covered the Northern Hemisphere with glaciers about 12,000 years
ago,
the next cooling trend could drop average temperatures 5 degrees
Fahrenheit
over much of the United States and 10 degrees in the Northeast, northern
Europe, and northern Asia.

"It could happen in 10 years," says Terrence Joyce, who chairs the Woods
Hole Physical Oceanography Department. "Once it does, it can take
hundreds
of years to reverse." And he is alarmed that Americans have yet to take
the
threat seriously. In a letter to The New York Times last April, he wrote,
"Recall the coldest winters in the Northeast, like those of 1936 and
1978,
and then imagine recurring winters that are even colder, and you'll have
an
idea of what this would be like."

***
But first things first. Isn't the earth actually warming?

Indeed it is, says Joyce. In his cluttered office, full of soft light
from
the foggy Cape Cod morning, he explains how such warming could actually
be
the surprising culprit of the next mini-ice age. The paradox is a result
of
the appearance over the past 30 years in the North Atlantic of huge
rivers
of freshwater-the equivalent of a 10-foot-thick layer-mixed into the
salty
sea. No one is certain where the fresh torrents are coming from, but a
prime
suspect is melting Arctic ice, caused by a buildup of carbon dioxide in
the
atmosphere that traps solar energy.

The trend could cause a little ice age by subverting the northern
penetration of Gulf Stream waters. Normally, the Gulf Stream, laden with
heat soaked up in the tropics, meanders up the east coasts of the United
States and Canada. As it flows northward, the stream surrenders heat to
the
air. Because the prevailing North Atlantic winds blow eastward, a lot of
the
heat wafts to Europe. That's why many scientists believe winter
temperatures
on the Continent are as much as 36 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than those
in
North America at the same latitude.

Frigid Boston, for example, lies at almost precisely the same latitude as
balmy Rome. And some scientists say the heat also warms Americans and
Canadians. "It's a real mistake to think of this solely as a European
phenomenon," says Joyce. "You have all this freshwater sitting at high
latitudes, and it can literally take hundreds of years to get rid of it,"
Joyce says. So while the globe as a whole gets warmer by tiny fractions
of 1
degree Fahrenheit annually, the North Atlantic region could, in a decade,
get up to 10 degrees colder. What worries researchers at Woods Hole is
that
history is on the side of rapid shutdown. They know it has happened
before.

A more recent event is perhaps better evidence that a climate can cool
quickly because of thermohaline shutdown. In the late 1960s, a huge blob
of
near-surface fresher water appeared off the east coast of Greenland,
probably the result of a big discharge of ice into the Atlantic in 1967.
Known as the Great Salinity Anomaly, it drifted southward, settling into
the
North Atlantic in the early 1970s. There it interfered with the
thermohaline
circulation by quickly arresting deepwater formation in the Labrador Sea.
It
continued to drift in a counterclockwise direction around the North
Atlantic, re-entering the Norwegian Sea in the late 1970s and vanishing
soon
after.

"I believe it shut the system down for just a few years. The result was
very
cold winters, particularly in Europe," says Ruth Curry.

The above excerpts are from:http://discovermagazine.com/2002/sep/cover
Read the whole story online.

And this just in...
Artic expedition to promote Global Warming canceled because of abnormally
cold temperatures in the artic of 100 degrees below zero.

There is no 'impending Ice Age'...there is only steady annual
temperature increases.

The theory is that while we are currently experiencing an increase in
temperature of one degree, a change in the ocean currents will result in the
northern artic regions suffering a TEN degree DECREASE in temperature. This
most certainly could result in a serious reversal of climate conditions,
switching from a Global Warming to the opposite, a mini ice age. Those who
are short-sighted will be unable to see beyond the immediate concerns. You
can't say you won't look any further down the time-line simply because you
don't want to.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

There is no 'impending Ice Age'...
there is only steady annual
temperature increases.

OH DARN!

Is That ALL It Is?

MUST BE NORMAL!!!!