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Earth may be headed into a mini Ice Age within a decade

theregister.co.uk

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Re: Earth may be headed into a mini Ice Age within a decade

#41

Post by run4yourlives »

lftl wrote: post #39
run4yourlives wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably easier to just colonize other planets than it is to go farting around with something as delicate as Earth's climate.

It's obviously easier to "fart around with" the Earth's climate considering we're doing it now to some extent. Assuming you meant the much higher bar of improving the Earth's climate (sidestepping the obvious question of what we mean by improve), I'm still not convinced colonizing another planet is easier. There's a number of theoretical plans for reducing CO2, or decreasing surface temperature by reflecting some of…

Point being that making a mess on another planet is more preferable than making a mess of the only one we have - and I have much more faith in our ability to make a mess of things than I do in our ability to "improve" the Earth's climate.

Re: Earth may be headed into a mini Ice Age within a decade

#42

Post by run4yourlives »

nathanb wrote: post #35
run4yourlives wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably easier to just colonize other planets than it is to go farting around with something as delicate as Earth's climate.

Wouldn't this then require us to "fart around" with the climate of the planets we colonize to make them more like Earth's?

The difference being that there is nobody living on a planet like say, Mars.

Last I checked, there are a whole bunch of people with nowhere else to go on Earth as it stands.

Re: Earth may be headed into a mini Ice Age within a decade

#44

Post by scorpion032 »

mkr-hn wrote: post #27
scorpion032 wrote: post #18

Relevant: http://www.ted.com/talks/david_deutsch_on_our_place_in_the_c... As David makes the point (at the near end of the video), the best available science in the 1970's predicted that the climate was cooling down. The best available science of today (not the least, with the help of best marketing) would predict Global Warming. The same best scientific estimates of the day also predict that our best projections to…

Our capacity to study the Earth's climate has improved dramatically since the '70s. We barely had an idea of what the weather on other planets looked like. And I was under the impression that the global cooling folks were a fringe minority of the scientific community (like the AGW people today).

David doesn't say global cooling fyi.

He just points out that, if our best measures to prevent Global Warming, Kyoto Protocol (which itself will not be implemented) themselves intend not to solve the problem, but just to postpone by a decade, we should probably start looking for solutions to live at higher temperature.

Too bad that it is not informing a public debate.

Re: Earth may be headed into a mini Ice Age within a decade

#46

Post by hyperbovine »

scarmig wrote: post #19

The Maunder minimum argument has been around awhile. A useful counterbalance from NASA 2008: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/ -------------------------- "Solar irradiance: The solar output remains low (Fig. 4), at the lowest level in the period since satellite measurements began in the late 1970s, and the time since the prior solar minimum is already 12 years, two years longer than the prior two cycles. This h…

> that's a godsend.

You're saying that if the problem disappeared tomorrow, people would suddenly become more serious about combating global warming? Pardon the pun, but what on Earth makes you believe that?

I don't think an ice age is really imminent, but its occurrence would be a outright calamity. We'd continue merrily down the present course, and be seventy years more fucked when the pendulum came swinging back.

Re: Earth may be headed into a mini Ice Age within a decade

#47

Post by nice1 »

scorpion032 wrote: post #18

Relevant: http://www.ted.com/talks/david_deutsch_on_our_place_in_the_c... As David makes the point (at the near end of the video), the best available science in the 1970's predicted that the climate was cooling down. The best available science of today (not the least, with the help of best marketing) would predict Global Warming. The same best scientific estimates of the day also predict that our best projections to…

I beg to differ: the best available science does NOT predict global warming. GW is predicted by a bunch of 3rd rate bullshit artists. Please use the internet and get a clue.

Re: Earth may be headed into a mini Ice Age within a decade

#48

Post by lupatus »

josefresco wrote: post #5
zheng wrote: post #4

For those who don't have time to read the article, "mini Ice Age" literally means that winter will last longer, and be more prevalent at lower altitudes/latitudes. Mildly sensational, but an interesting read.

As seemingly benign as a "slightly longer winter" seems, I would venture the consequences of this will be larger than we anticipate.

Agreed! Some of my favorite vegetables (spicy peppers) have long growing seasons of 100+ days. If winter starts lasting longer, then those vegetables can no longer be grown in high latitudes/altitudes.
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