Mini ice age coming?

[womble]

Spot on. Human activity has already pushed us so far out from the 'norm' that there is no chance of a mini ice age.

Actually, that is not quite true. The mild climate you have in the UK and the warm summers in this subartic region, is due to the Gulf stream. Saltwater weighs more than fresh water, and lets say that the global warming would melt a glacier or two and all that water leaked out in the Atlantic, the Gulf stream would flow under it or completly change it's direction, leaving us freezing our b***s of and a new ice age would be upon us.

How long this manmade ice age would last? No idea, it will be the first one in history, so it might well be an mini ice age, as well as a real one.

It'd last until we'd pumped enough CO2 into the atmosphere to warm the globe in general up enough that "sub polar" climates no longer required long johns...

[CynicalSurvival]

Spot on. Human activity has already pushed us so far out from the 'norm' that there is no chance of a mini ice age.

Actually, that is not quite true. The mild climate you have in the UK and the warm summers in this subartic region, is due to the Gulf stream. Saltwater weighs more than fresh water, and lets say that the global warming would melt a glacier or two and all that water leaked out in the Atlantic, the Gulf stream would flow under it or completly change it's direction, leaving us freezing our b***s of and a new ice age would be upon us.

How long this manmade ice age would last? No idea, it will be the first one in history, so it might well be an mini ice age, as well as a real one.

That would not be an ice age, it would be a change in local conditions in the UK. Ice ages are global. From Wikipedia:
"An ice age is a period of long-term reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers..."

[CynicalSurvival]

Also, I agree with this from the comments on the original article:

"The conclusion that we are heading into a new ice age was drawn by the reporter, not a scientist. The dead giveaway is that she does not quote any scientist or cite any scientific paper."

Yes there will be a solar minimum, yes this did happen in the past during cooler times, but it won't lead to a mini ice age in the C21st because carbon levels are much higher globally today than they were 600 years ago. While it remains true that solar activity (and volcanic activity) can have an effect, even the low points in the solar cycle will be warmer now then past temperatures (globally). This doesn't mean that the Uk won't get a cold winter, though! There is an important difference between weather and climate.

Unfortunately it's true also that the massive accidental experiment we are conducting on the global climate could also have local implications, with more extreme temperatures both high and low, and different rainfall patterns. This could impact on agriculture. See https://www.skepticalscience.com/extrem ... ediate.htm

It's very important in my view that we inform ourselves, know what we are dealing with and don't hand ammunition to climate change deniers. Knowing what to expect from the climate is a form of prepping - but only if we go with the best available evidence.

[MissAnpassad]

That would not be an ice age, it would be a change in local conditions in the UK. Ice ages are global. From Wikipedia:
"An ice age is a period of long-term reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers..."

So, if the Gulf stream changed direction, you think that other major systems in the world would be unaffected? And mini Ice ages do not affect the climate globally.

Also, I agree with this from the comments on the original article:

"The conclusion that we are heading into a new ice age was drawn by the reporter, not a scientist. The dead giveaway is that she does not quote any scientist or cite any scientific paper."

Yes there will be a solar minimum, yes this did happen in the past during cooler times, but it won't lead to a mini ice age in the C21st because carbon levels are much higher globally today than they were 600 years ago. While it remains true that solar activity (and volcanic activity) can have an effect, even the low points in the solar cycle will be warmer now then past temperatures (globally). This doesn't mean that the Uk won't get a cold winter, though! There is an important difference between weather and climate.

Unfortunately it's true also that the massive accidental experiment we are conducting on the global climate could also have local implications, with more extreme temperatures both high and low, and different rainfall patterns. This could impact on agriculture. See https://www.skepticalscience.com/extrem ... ediate.htm

It's very important in my view that we inform ourselves, know what we are dealing with and don't hand ammunition to climate change deniers. Knowing what to expect from the climate is a form of prepping - but only if we go with the best available evidence.

Well, have you been looking for any scientific papers on the subject? Most reporters do not write their articles as scientific reporters do. And John Cook studies psycology, not climatology or geology. You yourself should really check your sources. I also see that he is the one that runs the MOOC course you went to. Why don´t you take a course in Geology on a University, there are several online. Just so you get your information from people with degrees on the matter?

[AspieRunner]

Actually there are in the thousands of scientists that believe in an ice age event, or mini ice age event.

There is loads of science behind it too, but the media suppresses this as the global warming scam is all about money.

For a start, saying the temperature is above average, average numbers are abstract, not measurements of reality. From a list of numbers you can get an average that does not exist in the original list, so technically all actual reality numbers that exist in the list are above or below average. University teaches students to be wary of anyone pushing the Mean numbers as they are used to deceive. For example, average is supposed to represent the middle, the norm as you say. however, the Median would be a better representative of the middle as is truly is the middle, however, the mean can differ to the median as it can be skewed by single readings that are drastically bigger or smaller than most numbers. This skews the average number.

Then, so when you consider the average can be warped by single numbers in a dataset you can appreciate the significance of the hottest days on record malarky. The hottest days in the UK have mostly been set at airports, despite the science behind weather station placement being well understood, the establishments behind the scandal insist on using weather stations in cities and in airports. The problem with cities you get the urban heat effect, something paragliders may recognise, the urban heat effect is the result of the materials holding heat for longer, just walk on tamac or concrete on a hot day and then on grass and see the difference between natural surfaces and man made surfaces, paragliders can ride this heat like a thermal on the side of a mountain, this is why any data from cities should not be used, yet almost all stations originated in cities until this was discovered, yet they continue to use the data that came from within the urban heat effect.

Then the airports records are just ridiculous, last year the hottest day on record was set literally inside of Heathrow airport, one of, or the busiest airport in he world, all those jet engines pumping out heat and all the concrete runways holding onto heat for longer than usual, hence most of the surrounding areas never experienced the same heat, heat comes up from somewhere, when it is the southern hemisphere like spain, then it hits England first and loses energy as it crossed the country, which means the hottest should be furthest south, yet the record was only set at Heathrow in an airport and not in the towns before it, coincidence?? think not, then many other hot records and their previous records are at airports, this year we had some at two RAF airports, what is the statistical odds of so many records at airports?

So all of this dodgy data from years of city weather stations and airports weather stations will dramatise the average temp compared to the past.

Then there is the issue, like I said that average can be skewed, one hot day can bring up the average a lot despite many many cold days before, and this is what we often see, the UK and Europe suffered many bad winters over the last 10 years, England had 16 ft snow drifts and millions of pounds worth of dead cattle, UK had record setting low temps in 2010, 5 winters on a trot of good snow from about 2008, despite being told due to global warming we'll never see snow from 2006, the the majority of months in the UK being below average for about 6 years on the trot, the wettest summer on record in 2012 and a separate summer was coolest in about 100 years I believe, yet we have record highs from so called averages, why, because a few dodgy airport records can wipe out much of the colds influence on the average.

It is also funny, that despite your claims that the suns low activity has had no influence, yet we had record cold, major snow events, wettest and coolest summers in a very very long time at the same time the sun hit zero activity. The global warming camp admit that the average temps had stopped rising for 15-18 years until the 2015 hottest year on record rubbish, how could the temps have stopped rising with the highest level co2 on record, only to backtrack and deny the pause in global warming because they couldn't find a rational explanation, while many scientists were saying it was because the suns activity was decreasing.

Then we actually had two decent summers 2013-2014 which funnily enough was when the sun peaked after its low in 2008-2010 when we had all that cold and snow, then the sun goes to sleep again, and now in the UK we have had weeks of temps hitting 7 degrees below average, in the last week I had highs of 14 degrees which is 7 degrees below average for this area, defies reason, I know you could argue its weather but as I follow the data even Met Office data shows that most months in the last 10 years average below normal.

Then the issue is, we are not averaging far back enough in history to get a fair reading, ice cores, science and history shows it was a lot hotter in the past, likes 100s a years ad 1000's in the past, before the industrial revolution, how could these temps have been so high without all the man made warming? If they averaged older data as people challenged then the they would find out so called warm temps now are actually cool in comparison.

You say the sun plays less of a role than man, how come it is the sun that still dictates the seasons then? After all our summer temps are still significantly different from our winter temps which doesn't make sense, we're still polluting as much as at summer yet winter cools down, why? because our position in relation to the SUN has changed, cooling the earth! Even between night and day we can feel a temp change, how? our pollution still exists the same, yet temps drop, because we can't see the sun. These are actually questions raised by anti global warming 'scientists' to the US government, how can we still differentiate between summer and winter temps if pollution has a bigger influence than the sun.

Then there is the issue that scientists have brought up about average, they we could never produce an average temp to be able to make fair comparisons in the first place. Why, because local climate can vary significantly, and we would have to have weather stations everywhere, like a km in all directions all over the world, but they dont. Why do we need this, well you wouldn't have a fair average, for example, to say it is the hottest year on record is deceitful without weather stations everywhere, because air masses move around, so if you only measure part of the globe and pretend its the global average, one year can appear cooler but not because it is, but because the contrasting warm and cold air masses shift around and if the warm has shifted into a area not measured for longer than in previous measurements the warmth would seem to have disappeared and the average would change although really nothing has changed its just moved. Yet, much of the globe goes unmeasured, while the UK has many many weather stations up and down the country, america has thousands of them etc, Antarctica, the biggest land mass on the planet, is almost entirely unmeasured, soo all that cold was hugely reduce the average temps, those record years would not exist, they are already insignificant in size, less than half a degree.

That issue raised to US government I mentioned earlier, as to how the sun is still dictating summer and winter temps, well, they went ass far as saying, even if you pretend the temp data is correct, then it has still only resulted in tiny changes like half a degree over years, while the sun changes the temps by multiple degrees in a single day, again, night and day here can be as much as 10 degrees different, as a result of the sun, winter can be as much as 15 to 25 degrees different and greater in some countries, yet all man made warming has amounted to is half a degree, so how can you pretend our actions are stronger than that of the sun.

Then you have the climategate scandal which adds to the skewed average issue, that emails were hacked that showed that those involved had faked the temps, this actually went to court, the emails are legit, and were never proven wrong but the court case never went anywhere for some reason.

This is just a few tiny issues, if you open your eyes and not pretend there is no science behind the alternative, you realise there is an alternative view.

For example, natural variation, climate has always oscillated, the warming was real, but it was a part of the natural variation that has ALWAYS existed, but they cherry pick the climb in the oscillation to make it look as though it is unprecedented and extreme, hence scientists argue for better quality data that goes back further.

The US government had received enough denial from Scientists to put together a senate report, this report had nearly a 1000 top scientists that were against global warming, this report is still available from the US government website which proves its authenticity, it lists all the scientists by name, qualification, employment and their reasons for denying, a exceptionally interesting read as they are all top scientists in their relevant fields employed by all of the related companies like NASA, NOA, Met Office and their equivalents etc

One of those scientists made the point, why is it in all the data, the rise in temps came first and then the rise in pollution, this would not make sense as the cause has to come first, so while the data seems to correlate, which is enough to fool many people, the order matters, pollution should rise and then warming, but it is the other way round, which actually makes sense, because, when temps rise, it creates a more hospitable environment for wildlife which then booms and creates the rise in co2. No scientist has satisfactorily explained this gaping hole in global warming theory but heck, when you control the media you don't need truth or evidence, you just need PR... Edward Bernays style.

Just some food for thought

[grenfell]

Interesting post AspieRunner although I do have a few issues with some of the content. As you say a couple of warm summers doesn't prove global warming but by the same logic a few cold winters doesn't prove an ice age is on the way. There are an awful lot of scientists and evidence to back up the warming side and finding a peer reviewed paper saying the opposite is difficult.
You mention a pause in the rise of global temperature in the last 15-18 years and this is one commonly picked up by deniers . Why not choose 25 years ? Because then the evidence doesn't add up.
The climate gate email you refer to has been explained as well. It was a clumsy simplification of the maths rather than any real effort to decieve , again another straw for the deniers.
When the argument that it's just a scam to make money is used that too really weakens it. If anything it has put a brake on growth rather than raising global wealth and considering the money that could be made if we didn't have envoiromental regulations I think it speaks volumes that the deniers haven't come up with anything that can categorically prove global warming to be a myth.
We may very well be heading for a period of cooler weather but a bit more snow and a few more frosts isn't the greatest threat . We'll be in worst straits if the deniers pounce on it to say it gives us carte Blanche to carry on burning more and more fossil fuels and sod the grandkids.

[MissAnpassad]

One of those scientists made the point, why is it in all the data, the rise in temps came first and then the rise in pollution, this would not make sense as the cause has to come first, so while the data seems to correlate, which is enough to fool many people, the order matters, pollution should rise and then warming, but it is the other way round, which actually makes sense, because, when temps rise, it creates a more hospitable environment for wildlife which then booms and creates the rise in co2. No scientist has satisfactorily explained this gaping hole in global warming theory but heck, when you control the media you don't need truth or evidence, you just need PR... Edward Bernays style.

I can give you an explanation. Temperatures fluxuate on regular basis without human interference. This is due to things like sunspots etc. So the global warming is real, we just decides to start poluting the atmosphere in a warm part of the cycle, the problem is that if we continue, we won't have the decline in temperature later on.

[grenfell]

Maybe a bit alarmist but perhaps a bit of cooling might just be a good thing ,
http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-me ... n-siberia/

[featherstick]

Actually there are in the thousands of scientists that believe in an ice age event, or mini ice age event.

There is loads of science behind it too, but the media suppresses this as the global warming scam is all about money.

......

Just some food for thought

Classic denialist nonsense.

First of all, "climate change" is a far more useful term than "global warming", as the effects will changes in local and regional climate, not uniform warming. Neither "climate change" or "global warming" imply that the long, lazy hot summers of our childhood are about to return, but rather that long-established weather patterns, which have influenced the development our our society, infrastructure, agriculture and business, are about to change dramatically. You outline this yourself in your point about changes in weather patterns.

Secondly, hottest, coldest, wettest etc. datasets are drawn from weather stations all over the UK, not just airports and cities, so focusing on these examples to somehow "disprove" the usefulness of averages is spurious.

Thirdly, you ask why does the sun still influence temperature if pollution is having more of an effect. This is unutterable rubbish which doesn't deserve an answer, but I'll give you one - pollution is intensifying the effects of the sun's warming by trapping heat in the earth's atmosphere and oceans, disrupting weather patterns, intensifying tropical storms, dumping 3 months' worth of rain in 20 minutes in local areas, etc. etc.

You mention that rises in temperature are small. They are, but you are leaning on average rises which you so despise elsewhere. The average rises are small but the local rises can be much larger, as we are seeing, pushing fragile ecosystems into crisis - southern Africa is in its third or fourth year of drought, Arctic and Antarctic ice loss is increasing, ocean acidification is almost irreversible, glaciers are disappearing. These are facts on the ground, not semantic quibbles about the difference between "average" and "mean".

You assert that the cold temperatures in Antarctica would lower the global average if included, a complete red herring. Antarctica is well-researched and the climate change phenomenon is well-advanced there.

You try to draw a link between increased CO2 and increased wildlife and greenery as a result - where is all this increased wildlife and greenery, tell me please? and we are in the middle of another mass species extinction event.

The world's temperature has always fluctuated and reached equilibrium - after the Black Death there was a mini Ice Age as a result of reduced population. This is a natural phenomenon. It has NEVER happened in the context of us releasing most of the prehistoric carbon back into the atmosphere creating multipliers and runaway change effects. This is not natural.

[tolerance]

Interesting read OP, (thanks for sharing)
Not really sure what to make of it.


I think just being mentally aware of this scenario potentially happening one day is the biggest prep you could have.

I think with changes in Weather it is quite often more of a mental battle than a physical one especially for (how can i word this without sounding pretentious or rude) people who are not as well informed on global issues and the threats that face us.

(about to go off on a tangent/rant so be warned)



The majority of people especially in the UK have a very strange affinity when it comes to the Sun and Hot weather.
So psychologically i think a mini ice age of sorts would really cause huge problems for peoples mental health in our country.

I know Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is often portrayed in society these days as being far more common than it actually is (but surly the numbers would grow tenfold)
much like OCD its almost seen as a 'trendy' health issue to have....
So that a real concern to me.

But more worrying to me is Societies almost dependency on going where The Sun is, People will travel hundreds if not thousands of miles just to lay in the sun for a week.
Now i am not saying that is wrong ya know different strokes for different folks.
But i strongly believe there is a social dependency/addiction/expectation these days on being in the sun, getting a tan, and only being able to do stuff/activities when the weather is hot/sunny.

So i worry that a mini ice age could really cause a mass migration of people to leave The UK and head towards hotter climates because i really believe there is a kind of Sun dependency in this country,
I know it sounds like a complete tinfoil hat theory
but i do believe i am onto something here

Also how would a mini ice age affect our farming procedures, I don't know nearly enough about the industry to comment but longer colder winters and cooler summers would that be a positive or negative for food suppliers.

The mini ice age is much like any other force of nature or natural disaster, I hope it does not happen
but it probably will
so i will adjust and assess when the time comes, Until then what really can we prep for.....?
Because we don't know how bad it is going to be.

Will it be as easy as turning the thermostat up a click or chucking another log on the fire or will it be more serious like food shortages, being snowed in for weeks and the likes.

Peace of mind and accepting that this a potential possibility in our future is by far the most important prep we have.

We could have start a mini ice age then to only be told in 10 years time on the 19/9/2029 a 50 mile long asteroid is going to hit the earth....

The mini ice age will seem like a penny dropping in the ocean.


Its all perspective,

As preppers i like to think we are pretty educated and globally aware which is quite rare in society,
We understand that not everyday is a sunny day,
Yes we can prepare for the rainy days,
but most importantly...

We are smart enough to know that the rainy days need to happen to so we can really appreciate the sunny ones.

That is a concept a lot of un prepper folk don't understand.

Because they expect everyday to be sunny and the world just isn't like that, No matter how much we all would like it to be.