# The next Ice age has been postponed, or not? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [July 13, 2015, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-ice-age-has-been-postponed-or-not/725007 "2015-07-13T03:03:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2015, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-ice-age-has-been-postponed-or-not/725007/41 "2015-07-14T21:57:28Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > Wait a week … we’ll have headlines saying the opposite … Just a comment here, as The Bad Astronomer reported before in his headline, that it was in 2011 that the idea that solar activity would counteract the warming caused by greenhouse gases was debunked. Several years and the headline is about the same now. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2015, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-ice-age-has-been-postponed-or-not/725007/42 "2015-07-15T14:14:58Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > [Here’s](http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2015/07/14/global_cooling_no_were_not_headed_for_a_mini_ice_age.html) **The Bad Astronomer** ’s take on this. Note how horrible the news synopses are compared to the start of the actual paper. There’s another Slate article debunking it [here](http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/07/13/sunspot_cycles_won_t_cause_a_mini_ice_age_by_2030.html). > > Much of the previous ballyhoo about the Maunder Minimum being such a cold era as well as it being linked to sunspot cycles has been debunked. E.g., the Thames freezing over may have been more due to narrow bridge pilings than cold temperatures. > > Remember, we just went thru a very low sunspot cycle. And things continued to get warmer. So, in short, Phil Plait says exactly the same things I said in posts [#2](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18512412&postcount=2) and [#6](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18512989&postcount=6). The work isn’t peer-reviewed and is highly speculative, Zharkova isn’t a climate scientist, and even if it were true it wouldn’t have much significance to climate change. What I find perhaps the most amusing is that the latter point is right in the paper’s abstract. If any of the media that published the “mini ice age” nonsense had just read a couple of sentences in the abstract, it would have told them they were publishing utter bullshit. This thread should stand as yet another reminder of how horribly bad popular media coverage of climate change issues is, and why there’s so much misinformation about it. As I said, I wish I had a dime for every time this happens! > [@pool](#): > > The Sun may not be the only factor in this, I’ve been reading about the effects of global warming on the Greenland Ice Sheets and how this could actually exacerbate and cause global cooling especially in the Northern Hemisphere. Kind of just makes you wish this was like an episode of Futurama and if we could just heat up the globe enough through inaction that will counteract some impending ice age. :rolleyes: > > [http://www.livescience.com/7981-big-freeze-earth-plunge-sudden-ice-age.html](http://www.livescience.com/7981-big-freeze-earth-plunge-sudden-ice-age.html) Ah, another “deep freeze” story! If this was intended to be sarcastic it’s great, because it’s actually another perfect example of the above. But if it’s intended to be taken seriously a few words are in order… Any assumption that a Younger Dryas type event is going to send us into a global “deep freeze” is wrong on so many levels that it’s hard to know where to begin. But here are a few points. [ul] [li]Let’s first of all understand that climate change will continue to be responsible for a lot of _ **regional** _ changes – droughts in some places, floods in others, extreme weather, much higher temperatures in some places but possibly unusually cold ones in others. But all this is going on against a background of unnaturally rising average global temperatures. That’s why it’s called “global” warming, even if it’s not uniformly homogenous.[/li][/ul] [ul] [li]The Younger Dryas occurred in conditions very different from the present day, when the earth was transitioning from the last ice age to the present interglacial, and was part of a series of rapid changes that occurred during that process. Among the many differences from today is that major circulation systems like the thermohaline were just starting to get established and were likely much more subject to disruption. Indeed, just a few thousand years after the YD, there was a similar freshwater influx that failed to disrupt the Atlantic MOC and had no such effect on climate.[/li][/ul] [ul] [li]Even so, the YD wasn’t a globally synchronous event, but was scattered mainly through the northern hemisphere more or less in proportion to latitude. The YD is invisible in paleoclimate reconstructions from Antarctic ice cores because it didn’t occur there – in fact the Antarctic was warming at the time. It is posited to have probably been caused by changes in ocean heat transports, which are internal processes rather than external forcings. The factors I mention in the above posts are _ **external** _ forcings – strong radiative forcings caused by GHGs, which add huge amounts of net new heat energy to the earth’s net energy budget – and in the present circumstances these are never going to be overtaken by purely internal processes which simply move heat around.[/li][/ul] [ul] [li]There are also credible hypotheses that the YD was really nothing more than a pause between two rapid warming events called Dansgaard-Oeschger events that preceded and followed it as the earth recovered from the last glacial maximum. Yet even during the extraordinary circumstances of the YD, the drop in average global temperature between the two D-O events was significantly less than the GHG induced warming of even the last century. There is so much lag in temperature equilibrium for any given increase in CO2 due to all the feedbacks that even if we stabilized it tomorrow, the warming is barely getting started.[/li][/ul] [ul] [li]The most important object lesson in the Younger Dryas, Dansgaard-Oeschger events, and other events like them is the fact that the climate system really does have tipping points that can lead to very sudden changes and, in fact, in the right circumstances of accelerating feedbacks, can lead to runaway climate change. Indeed, Dansgaard-Oeschger events are named after the late Hans Oeschger, the climatologist who first discovered evidence of climate tipping points in ancient ice cores, and whose discovery informed his views on the risks of anthropogenic climate change for the rest of his life.[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2015, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-ice-age-has-been-postponed-or-not/725007/43 "2015-07-15T15:39:55Z")
I think the honest answer to the OPs honest question is … No … although the double dynamo is an important discovery in the field of solar physics, it’s not particularly relevant to climate change. Sure, some very slight reduction in solar output would have a very slight effect on global warming. Sure, commercial media will pay people to say “The Ice Age cometh”. We’re just not seeing anything here that rebuts **The Master’s** claim “the next [glaciation] in all likelihood has been postponed until further notice.” ---
**Author:** ![MrQwertyasd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@MrQwertyasd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrQwertyasd)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2015, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-ice-age-has-been-postponed-or-not/725007/44 "2015-07-18T02:46:59Z")
Hello what’s this ? [Sun's activity controls Greenland temperatures -- ScienceDaily](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150716124403.htm) "The new research also suggests weak solar activity, like the sun is currently experiencing, could slowly fire up the ocean circulation mechanism, increasing the amount of warm water and air flowing to Greenland. Starting around 2025, temperatures in Greenland could increase more than anticipated and the island’s ice sheet could melt faster than projected, " No mini ice age in Greenland then. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2015, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-ice-age-has-been-postponed-or-not/725007/45 "2015-07-18T15:25:09Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > because in contemporary climate science there’s no debate at all about the fundamental basics surrounding greenhouse gases :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2015, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-ice-age-has-been-postponed-or-not/725007/46 "2015-07-18T15:46:38Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > :rolleyes: Message boards are not “contemporary climate science.” ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-ice-age-has-been-postponed-or-not/725007/47 "2015-07-19T09:05:03Z")
A short article by Berger and Loutre that suggests that the next glacial period might not occur for 50,000 years [http://campus.udayton.edu/~physics/rjb/PHY399Winter2007/Berger%20-%20Long%20Interglacial.pdf](http://campus.udayton.edu/~physics/rjb/PHY399Winter2007/Berger%20-%20Long%20Interglacial.pdf) I doubt that there will be enough fossil fuels available to extend AGW until that period. Mind you, in 50,000 years time there might be a completely different type of global warming - waste heat from human civilisation in that era could be just as bad as CO2 forcings, or even worse. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-ice-age-has-been-postponed-or-not/725007/48 "2015-07-19T13:04:41Z")
Orbital mechanics is hard to understand. So many variations and considerations, but it’s there and it effects global temperatures directly. ---
**Author:** ![user\_hostile](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/user_hostile/32/474_2.png) [@user\_hostile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/user_hostile)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-ice-age-has-been-postponed-or-not/725007/49 "2015-07-19T17:39:31Z")
As soon as I saw the paper hadn’t been peer-reviewed, my skepticism went to “Cold Fusion” mode. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-ice-age-has-been-postponed-or-not/725007/50 "2015-07-19T18:19:19Z")
How odd … Fleischmann, Martin; Pons, Stanley (1989), “Electrochemically induced nuclear fusion of deuterium”, Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry 261 (2A): 301–308, doi:10.1016/0022-0728(89)80006-3 Cold fusion _was_ published in a peer-reviewed publication … but point taken, _Science_ magazine is better viewed as commercial media on par with _SciAm_. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-ice-age-has-been-postponed-or-not/725007/51 "2015-07-19T19:07:54Z")
The weather here is below 95° today and yesterday, and forecasted to remain so for at least the coming week. The new Ice Age is upon us indeed! ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-ice-age-has-been-postponed-or-not/725007/52 "2015-07-19T19:14:13Z")
They have also published peer-reviewed articles on the same subject, but I can’t find any which are free to view. However it should be noted that Berger and Loutre are not skeptical about anthropogenic climate change; far from it. They simply think that we would probably not have a full glacial period for several tens of thousands of years, whether we were pumping CO2 into the atmosphere or not. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-ice-age-has-been-postponed-or-not/725007/53 "2015-07-19T21:14:34Z")
92ºF right now, which is completely normal … 28% relative humidity, which is triple anything remotely close to normal … impossible for continued human life; it might not kill us, but we’re gonna wanna be dead … ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2015, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-ice-age-has-been-postponed-or-not/725007/54 "2015-07-19T21:39:35Z")
The results of a new model (that is very good at explaining/predicting the sun’s behavior) were presented at the National Astronomy Meeting, which is put on by the [Royal Astronomical Society](https://www.ras.org.uk/news-and-press/2680-irregular-heartbeat-of-the-sun-driven-by-double-dynamo). (The NAM 2015 also incorporates the annual UK Solar Physics (UKSP) and Magnetosphere Ionosphere Solar-Terrestrial physics (MIST) meetings.) It’s not like this new discovery is a matter of contention, and subject to peer review. Of course one should be skeptical of wild claims with little or no peer review behind them. Like the claims made by the top experts in 2006, > [@](#): > > March 6, 2006 > > BOULDER—[The next sunspot cycle will be 30-50% stronger than the last one](http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2006/sunspot.shtml) and begin as much as a year late, according to a breakthrough forecast using a computer model of solar dynamics developed by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Yes, that’s right. The experts (with no peer review) did predict the current solar cycle. [The next solar activity cycle will be 30 to 50 percent stronger than the previous one, and up to a year late in arriving, according to a breakthrough forecast by Dr. Mausumi Dikpati and colleagues at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo](http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2006/solar_cycle.html). They predicted it completely wrong. > [@](#): > > Like most experts in the field, Hathaway has confidence in the conveyor belt model and agrees with Dikpati that the next solar maximum should be a doozy. But he disagrees with one point. Dikpati’s forecast puts Solar Max at 2012. Hathaway believes it will arrive sooner, in 2010 or 2011. > > “History shows that big sunspot cycles ‘ramp up’ faster than small ones,” he says. “I expect to see the first sunspots of the next cycle appear in late 2006 or 2007—and Solar Max to be underway by 2010 or 2011.” > Who’s right? Time will tell. Either way, a storm is coming. [http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/10mar\_stormwarning/](http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/10mar_stormwarning/) You have to love the way it was put. “Who’s right? Time will tell. Either way, a storm is coming” Of course that they were as wrong as it’s possible to be doesn’t bother most people. You can even take a look back into the past and see how science works. [Predictions 2007!](https://web.archive.org/web/20070307151538/http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml) (not peer reviewed) You can compare the graphics with [Predictions 2015](https://web.archive.org/web/20150207095915/http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml) to see why it’s good to be skeptical. ---
**Author:** ![Powers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Powers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Powers)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-ice-age-has-been-postponed-or-not/725007/55 "2015-07-21T14:18:39Z")
The real problem is that as soon as these “Mini Ice Age” headlines came out, 3/4 of the population said “See, scientists can’t make up their minds. They said ice age in the 70s, then global warming, now ice age again. They’re just guessing!” Powers &8^] ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-ice-age-has-been-postponed-or-not/725007/56 "2015-07-21T14:31:09Z")
> [@Powers](#): > > The real problem is that as soon as these “Mini Ice Age” headlines came out, 3/4 of the population said “See, scientists can’t make up their minds. They said ice age in the 70s, then global warming, now ice age again. They’re just guessing!” Powers &8^] Of course they’re just guessing, we’re not very good guessing four days out, let alone 4,000 years out … ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-ice-age-has-been-postponed-or-not/725007/57 "2015-07-21T15:48:27Z")
> [@Powers](#): > > The real problem is that as soon as these “Mini Ice Age” headlines came out, 3/4 of the population said “See, scientists can’t make up their minds. They said ice age in the 70s, then global warming, now ice age again. They’re just guessing!” > Powers &8^] > [@watchwolf49](#): > > Of course they’re just guessing, we’re not very good guessing four days out, let alone 4,000 years out … The problem here is that this is silly because in reality the majority of experts did predict that warming was coming, even if aerosols were cooling the atmosphere back then. > **[Classic Climate Crocks Repost: “In the 70s, They Said There’d Be an Ice Age”](https://thinc.blog/2014/02/08/classic-climate-crocks-repost-in-the-70s-they-said-thered-be-an-ice-age/)** > > I’d been doing the Crock series for only a year when I cranked this one out – I really learned a lot on this one, and had great fun doing it. Still a favorite for many, so I hear. As pointed many times before, the models of modern scientists (and it has to be pointed out that models are not the only reason why scientists are telling us what the excess of CO2 in the atmosphere is bound to do) like James E. Hansen came close to what took place, there was a lot of unwarranted criticism of “not being accurate enough” for deniers to dismiss the evidence. But the problem for deniers out there is that the guess was indeed a bit wrong about the most likely sensibility of how CO2 and other global warming gases was. Once the most likely sensibility was applied to the model it was found that Hansen would had predicted the current temperatures even better. > **[What do we learn from James Hansen's 1988 prediction?](https://skepticalscience.com/Hansen-1988-prediction-advanced.htm)** > > \Subsequent comparison of observations with predictions find that Hansen's Scenario B (which most closely matched the level of CO2 emissions) shows close correlation with observed temperatures.\ And that is why scientists like Hansen got the Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal, the highest honor bestowed by the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and misrepresenters and small numbered contrarian scientists like Pat Michaels get bupkis. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-ice-age-has-been-postponed-or-not/725007/58 "2015-07-21T18:27:43Z")
> [@](#): > > Does that mean the glaciers are about to return? No, but we’re pumping enormous amounts of energy into a system with few safety valves. Did that cause the distortion of the jet stream that poured polar air into northern cities, causing the recent catastrophic winter in Boston? It’d be foolish to make such a claim now. Only in hindsight will we be able to say: that was the year the future arrived. This is the Straight Dope, as **Chronos** pointed out, we won’t know _for sure_ what the average global temperature will be in 100 years for another 100 years. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-ice-age-has-been-postponed-or-not/725007/59 "2015-07-21T18:35:38Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > we won’t know _for sure_ what the average global temperature will be in 100 years for another 100 years. But we will still be arguing about it. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2015, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-ice-age-has-been-postponed-or-not/725007/60 "2015-07-21T19:02:05Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > This is the Straight Dope, as **Chronos** pointed out, we won’t know _for sure_ what the average global temperature will be in 100 years for another 100 years. Sticking with the context, what I have found is that in reality predicting solar activity is not a reliable enterprise, some scientists at NASA thought that they had it with a new theory, but they missed the mark. Now here is where the item from Zharkova (that once again she is not a climate scientist) gets silly. 1. Since predictions of solar activity are not reliable it is really not reassuring that we should expect a big reduction in the solar activity on the next cycle. 2. The slowdown in solar activity was pointed before as one of the important bits of evidence that points at CO2 and other greenhouse gases as the reason why we are observing the current increase in temperatures. (In other words the sun is not driving the observed increases now) 3. But the most important item stands: Others that investigated how big this factor will affect the temperature of the earth reported many times before that it will not change things much. We can not depend on an unreliable factor that is not going to change things much \*\*if \*\*it appears to save us from what we need to do. We have to control our emissions and we will have to spend a bit in adaptation. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-ice-age-has-been-postponed-or-not/725007.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-next-ice-age-has-been-postponed-or-not/725007.md?page=4)