Ice age coming by 2030!

Hehe...good 'ol preppers, always sadly funny.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16026-humans-may-have-prevented-super-ice-age/

I have listened to both sides and have serious doubts about either's ability to predict climate change much more than a few weeks in advance.

I retired from the Air Force as a meteorologist over thirty five years ago. I have no illusions that I could be considered current in the science. However, there is one inescapable fact. There is no way to verify the accuracy of such forecasting. Without that verification, it is just a shot in the dark. They can say certain factors have an influence in one way or the other. However, the key is knowing quantifiably what will happen.

Once you get into the realm of extremely long range forecasting, say 20 years or more, the there are changes in vegetation, ocean currents and temperatures, atmospheric composition about which we can only make wild speculations. Without accurate predictions of those related factors, we are virtually clueless.

Thus we will argue for decades about things which we truly know little about.

mcstites said:

I have listened to both sides and have serious doubts about either's ability to predict climate change much more than a few weeks in advance.

I retired from the Air Force as a meteorologist over thirty five years ago. I have no illusions that I could be considered current in the science. However, there is one inescapable fact. There is no way to verify the accuracy of such forecasting. Without that verification, it is just a shot in the dark. They can say certain factors have an influence in one way or the other. However, the key is knowing quantifiably what will happen.

Once you get into the realm of extremely long range forecasting, say 20 years or more, the there are changes in vegetation, ocean currents and temperatures, atmospheric composition about which we can only make wild speculations. Without accurate predictions of those related factors, we are virtually clueless.

Thus we will argue for decades about things which we truly know little about.

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The issue of "Climate Change" and AGW have gone far beyond forecasting and into atmospheric and chemical interactions. The scientific understanding of these complexities is certainly incomplete but is sufficient for general prediction, most of which have ben primarily accurate thus far and mostly accepted in the various fields that research the phenomenon.
Real world situations also indicate validity in this but political and financial interests make it abundantly clear we humans are incapable of dealing with this obvious reality. Basically it no longer even matters if it is real because if it is we cannot stop it and if not we need not worry.
Either way I will be long dead before anything terrible happens.

I read a book by Bill Bryson that reasoned how global warming could actually lead to an ice age. I don't know how probable but it was an interesting theory.


https://www.connectsavannah.com/sav...-have-on-the-next-ice-age/Content?oid=2762424

In his book, Bryson speculates that greater warming would increase cloud cover, cooling the planet. Others posit that as the ice sheets melt and temperatures rise in the northern latitudes, the amount of vegetation will increase, resulting in reduced atmospheric carbon dioxide and more cooling.
Still others believe a sudden addition of melted fresh water into the oceans could disrupt critical ocean currents, such as the Gulf Stream, and lead to much colder temperatures in the north and the return of the glaciers. One such event occurred more than 8,000 years ago, when a giant glacier meltwater lake in the middle of North America drained into the ocean and triggered a chilling of the northern hemisphere by more than 5 degrees Fahrenheit.

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mcstites said:

I have listened to both sides and have serious doubts about either's ability to predict climate change much more than a few weeks in advance.

I retired from the Air Force as a meteorologist over thirty five years ago. I have no illusions that I could be considered current in the science. However, there is one inescapable fact. There is no way to verify the accuracy of such forecasting. Without that verification, it is just a shot in the dark. They can say certain factors have an influence in one way or the other. However, the key is knowing quantifiably what will happen.

Once you get into the realm of extremely long range forecasting, say 20 years or more, the there are changes in vegetation, ocean currents and temperatures, atmospheric composition about which we can only make wild speculations. Without accurate predictions of those related factors, we are virtually clueless.

Thus we will argue for decades about things which we truly know little about.

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Well you certainly hit the ground running. lol

The thing is climatologists aren't worried about precise weather patterns (unlike meteorologists) but larger trends. A climatologist doesn't say we'll have insane hurricanes or decade long droughts (that's what yellow journalism headlines do) becuase as you say, too many variables. What they do say is that severe weather events in general will both become the norm and more severe. Confusing climatology with metrology will only confuse people.

We are not even close to understanding other possible factors because they are not predictable.

I will give you an example. For example human behavior. Lets say that someone comes up with some kind of technology which allows humans to live comfortably in environments which were previously hostile. Previously too hot or too cold or too humid or too arid. We then get a massive shift in population which in itself is apt to change the climate. Is this going to happen short term? No. However, could it happen long term? It is not only possible, it is likely. There is absolutely to way to predict this. Yet it will have a profound effect on our climate.

This is only one small example of what could happen. The possibilities are unlimited. It could come in the form of a massive earthquake, volcanic eruption. These have all happened and all had an effect. All unpredictable.

Ralph47 said:

I've specified that concept several times here for quite some time. :smug:

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mcstites said:

We are not even close to understanding other possible factors because they are not predictable.

I will give you an example. For example human behavior. Lets say that someone comes up with some kind of technology which allows humans to live comfortably in environments which were previously hostile. Previously too hot or too cold or too humid or too arid. We then get a massive shift in population which in itself is apt to change the climate. Is this going to happen short term? No. However, could it happen long term? It is not only possible, it is likely. There is absolutely to way to predict this. Yet it will have a profound effect on our climate.

This is only one small example of what could happen. The possibilities are unlimited. It could come in the form of a massive earthquake, volcanic eruption. These have all happened and all had an effect. All unpredictable.

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Obviously outliers are an issue. Aliens terraforming the planet or a supervolcano erupting can change climate in a geological instant. But climatologists (and for that matter meteorologists) can't take such unknowns into account becuase they're, well, unknown. Models have to be based on current data and trends and they say that the planet is warming at a rate that exceeds the Permian Warming by a whopping 2K%. The planet was just about sterilized (to say nothing of Venus) by runaway warming like that thus the current concern. If this was happening over a 500k year period nobody would care, if anything it'd be a positive but at its current rate nothing will survive without technological intervention. in 50 years Miami will flood at every high tide, in 100 the mideast will be uninhabitable. These aren't baseless projections but the logical conclusion of current atmospheric chemistry. Even if we all went Stone Age overnight it would take 500 years for the current warming trend to reverse.

Obviously outliers are an issue. Aliens terraforming the planet or a supervolcano erupting can change climate in a geological instant.

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However, there are factors which will happen which we don't have the ability to quantify. CO2 is the dirty word. We know that CO2 encourages plant growth. And that plant growth consumes more CO2. I look around my house and I see nearly nothing but vegetation. Our own little forty six acres has around 20,000 trees over four inches in diameter. All converting that nasty CO2. In between those trees there is grass and other vegetation all converting that CO2.

There is most likely a stabilization point at which the increased plant life processes the increased CO2. I don't see how anyone can say with straight face that they know even roughly when this takes place.

mcstites said:

However, there are factors which will happen which we don't have the ability to quantify. CO2 is the dirty word. We know that CO2 encourages plant growth. And that plant growth consumes more CO2. I look around my house and I see nearly nothing but vegetation. Our own little forty six acres has around 20,000 trees over four inches in diameter. All converting that nasty CO2. In between those trees there is grass and other vegetation all converting that CO2.

There is most likely a stabilization point at which the increased plant life processes the increased CO2. I don't see how anyone can say with straight face that they know even roughly when this takes place.

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Anyone that actually knows what they're talking about is worried about Water Vapor and Methane, Carbon Dioxide is an oceanic (due to acidification) rather than an atmospheric concern regarding climate change. I suspect it's role in acid rain back in the 80s and 90s is how it became the lamen's goto but in terms of warming it's not what climatologist worry about beyond a baseline reference.

The reason Carbon Dioxide is a useful baseline is becuase it's both a potent greenhouse gas and a significant component of our atmosphere. All things being equal, more means warming and less means cooling. That being said, it was only the catalyst, the sudden spike during the Industrial Revolution kicking off the current warming trend. On it's own however it doesn't explain the current rate of warming, as you said, more Carbon Dioxide means more plants which eventually means less Carbon Dioxide. It's self-correcting. The problem is that that initial warming caused an increase in evaporation and Water Vapor is significantly worse if you want to avoid warming. Once the Water Vapor hit a critical mass, it in turn triggered the melting of permafrost leading to the release of Methane (which is to Water Vapor what Water Vapor is to Carbon Dioxide). If Methane levels reach critical mass as well, game over. This sequence of greenhouse gas induced warming is what caused the Permian Warming which caused the Permian Mass Extinction and wiped out 95% of all life. With the current rate of warming 2K% faster and with our already reaching the point of Methane release we have NO margin for error to stop this from killing us all. It's already too late to outright stop global warming, as soon as Methane started getting out of the permfrost the feedback loop made it unstoppable but we CAN stop Methane trapped on the seafloor from escaping and reverse the acidification of the oceans if we take serious steps to combat global warming NOW.

Our grandchildren will still curse our names for the hellscape we'll be leaving them but the end of the world is still advoidable. In 20 years with no change though? As I said before, the reality of chemistry dooms us all even if we can't say exactly HOW we'll die.

Certainly water vapor has a much larger influence than CO2. However, CO2 is the one that is discussed.

mcstites said:

Certainly water vapor has a much larger influence than CO2. However, CO2 is the one that is discussed.

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Because people are idiots. Replacing ICE with EVs and closing coal factories/power plants (while useless) can be done and create the appearance of action. Stopping the runaway melting of permafrost, not so much. It's show by politicians unwilling to make the hard choices but it has no bearing of what climatologists themselves are actually saying in their papers.

The Methane problem alone is insurmountable and will do more damage than CO2 ever could. Between our ocean sediments and permafrost its already happening somewhat but will get far more extreme.

tecoyah said:

The Methane problem alone is insurmountable

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Only on land. We can slow the warming enough to keep it frozen at sea but we are at the brink.

Ralph47 said:

Methane bio degrades when exposed to sunlight, so it is a non-issue.

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You might want to avoid this discussion to avoid embarrassment. Methane is a greenhouse gas, and so, it has been studied as such. It is 20X more effective at trapping infrared radiation than carbon dioxide but, on average, it only stays aloft for about 8 years before it reacts to the bombardment of ultraviolet radiation (a component of sunlight) and bonds with O-H (hydroxyl radical).