I was taught we were coming out of an ice age?

Question

When I was at school about 14 yrs ago I was taught that we were still coming out of an iceage, therefore the earth would gradually be warming up, ok perhaps some global warming is down to us, but if what I was told was true are we just fighting the inevitable anyway. The earths climate has always fluctuated, why do we think we can control it? By the way this was just GCSE geography I was doing, so don't blame me if I've got the facts wrong!

Answer 1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming

Answer 2

You're correct, the earth is emerging from an ice age.



Some scientists say that we are technically sill in an ice age since our polar caps are still frozen.



The earth's temperature does fluctuate and has done so throughout it's history, but such fluctuations have also caused many mass-extinctions as a result.



The concern is whether or not, through the exploitation of fossil fuels, we have created a situation that may eventually cause another mass-extinction or a chain of events that may cause the earth to become inhospitable to any species of life. There are less serious consequences as well, such as the displacement of millions of people, food shortages, drought in some parts of the world and even another ice age for UK and Europe.



It isn't known with absolute certainty that we are causing global warming, although it would seem that our actions can adversely effect the environment. For example, we witnessed a rather sudden thinning of the ozone layer during a time of high solar activity. This is a bit alarming since solar energy creates ozone in the upper atmosphere.



Global warming may very well be inevitable, and it may very well not be caused by human activities. But regardless, the actions that are believed to be effecting the environment have other adverse effects as well.

Answer 3

You’re correct, we are coming out of an ice age.



An ice age is defined as a period where there is ice at the poles, so, technically, we are still in an ice age.



Plainly, there have been periods in the Earth’s history when there was no ice at the poles and the temperature was *much* warmer than it is today, and these periods are generally associated with phases of peak biodiversity (i.e. it was good for life).



So, the current warming we are experiencing is nothing unusual and nothing to worry about.



As ever with global warming - don't believe the hype.

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Answer 6

co2 causes global warming, and in case you don't know, it protects the earth, however, now on the atmosphere, there is a hole appearing which the sunlight can go thru easily, and that causes warming, too



we can only do so much to the nature, and most of the time, people are destroying the nature. many animals have exitinct because of what humans did, those things can never be brought back again



climate does fluctuate, but it only does little change, what people are doing now is driving the temperature up and up non-stop

Answer 7

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the situation the fact is that there is nothing we can do to change it? We maybe able to delay things by about 50 years if you think the Environmentalists are correct but to think you can halt it is a complete pipe dream.

Answer 8

Unfortunately you were a victim of the deplorable state of our schools. But, rather than rant, let me explain--



I was taught the same thing--minus the claim that the earth was going to continue to warm further--35 years ago. At that time, climatology was in its infancy. Scientists knew there were fluctuations in Earths climate--and that we had been an Ice Age up to 10-15,000 years ago--but weren't in one now. And--then--that's about all they were sure of. There was lots of scientific speculation, of course--was the earth's temperature stable now? If not, was it llikely to get warmer? or colder? (the last makes good copy and grist for artists--a bunch of popular magazines ran articles the idea that there might be another Ice Age someday). But the speculation was never labeled as anything but what it was: scientists in the very early stages of learning about something advancing hypotheses that weren't tested yet. That's normal--its part of the process of thinking and learning about the universe.



Now--with powerful computer modeling, an array of space satellites to gater high quality data, and so on--and 35 years of hard work, scientists know a whole lot more. And the bottom line you probably have already herd. But here it is, stripped of the complications AND the political rhetoric:



>the Earth is getting warmer--very rapidly compared to natural changes in Earth's past.

>Scientists have looked at a wide range of possible causes--especially since they knew early on that the speed of this change is unique

>Only one factor proved to be the cause of the global warming--an increase in the CO2 level inthe atmosphere.

>The source of the CO2 is not natural (that is, its not coming from volcanoes,e tc. There hassn't been any change in the level of volcanic activity compared to the past. Nor has any other natural phenomenon stood up as a possible cause).



>The cause is human activity--specifically the burning of fossil fuels on a massive scale.



>The problem with this is that it will (and already is, in fact) causing rises in sea level and climate changes. As these become greater, we will see coastal flooding that may last for decades, loss of much of Earth's agricultural production (not enough food to eat), and the loss of many species of plants and animals.



Most of this was already known 14 years ago--though some of the details were still under scientific debate (that is not the case now)--and a good high school science program (deplorably rare) would have taught you this. One of the problems today is that you, like many others, have been short-changed, andthus don't have the background to make an informed judgement about what, out of all the hype, is actual fact.



There's no remedy for that but education--either teach yourself, or take a few intro-level clases at a local community college, or whatever suits you. I n the meantime, here's some hints on how to tell fact from fiction:



>look at the website. If its an ".edu" site--that's a university and is almost certainly reliable. Look also for sites that are clearly legitimate science institutions.

>Until you are aware enough of what scientists are saying and how they do their work, take ANY public spokesperson with a grain of salt. Tht measns people like Al Gore as well as Push Limmbaugh. I have the science background to know Gore is a reliable reporter and Limbaugh is not. But neither is a scientists, and until you can remedy that lack of background you should have gotten in high school, its best for you to be skeptical of both.

>learn to read a bit of "scientist-ese" I don't mean the math, etc. But learn to spot certain phrases and knowwhat hey mean. For example, regardless of what pop science reprots, if the SCIENTISTS say "Further testing may show" it means they're NOT sure. If they say "a scientist consensus has been reached" then whatever the point is, it is established fact, period. If they say, "There's a strong possibility that" it means what it says, no more, no less.



Why is that important? Here's a classic example. In the 1970s some magazines (Time and Newsweek, etc) pulbished some articles with titles like "The Coming Ice Age." Sounds pretty definate. But what the scientists interviewed ACTUALLY said was something like, "There have been ice ages in th epast--its certainly possible there will be another one in the future." That IS NOT a "prediction" of an immanent ice age--it's really only stating the obvious. But many people misinterpreted it as being a "scientific conclusion or prediction" which it was not.

Answer 9

1

Answer 10

We were, but the data shows clearly we've speeded that up enormously.



"I wasn’t convinced by a person or any interest group—it was the data that got me. I was utterly convinced of this connection between the burning of fossil fuels and climate change. And I was convinced that if we didn’t do something about this, we would be in deep trouble.”



Vice Admiral Richard H. Truly, USN (Ret.)

Former NASA Administrator, Shuttle Astronaut and the first Commander of the Naval Space Command



Here are two summaries of the mountain of peer reviewed data that convinced Admiral Truly, short and long.



http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png



http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf



And the resulting effects will be very bad unless we do something about it.



http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSL052735320070407

Answer 11

An ice age is



a period of long-term reduction in the temperature of Earth's climate, resulting in an expansion of the continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and mountain glaciers ("glaciation"). Glaciologically, ice age is often used to mean a period of ice sheets in the northern and southern hemispheres; by this definition we are still in an ice age (because the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets still exist). More colloquially, when speaking of the last few million years, ice age is used to refer to colder periods with extensive ice sheets over the North American and Eurasian continents: in this sense, the most recent ice age ended about 10,000 years ago. This article will use the term ice age in the former, glaciological, sense; and glacials for colder periods during ice ages and interglacials for the warmer periods.



Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans in recent decades and its projected continuation.

Global average air temperature near the Earth's surface rose 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.3 ± 0.32 °F) during the past century. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes, "most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations,"[1] which leads to warming of the surface and lower atmosphere by increasing the greenhouse effect. Natural phenomena such as solar variation combined with volcanoes have probably had a small warming effect from pre-industrial times to 1950, but a small cooling effect since 1950.[2][3] These basic conclusions have been endorsed by at least 30 scientific societies and academies of science, including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists is the only scientific society that rejects these conclusions,[4][5] and a few individual scientists also disagree with parts of them. [6]

Climate models referenced by the IPCC project that global surface temperatures are likely to increase by 1.1 to 6.4 °C (2.0 to 11.5 °F) between 1990 and 2100.[1] The range of values reflects the use of differing scenarios of future greenhouse gas emissions and results of models with differences in climate sensitivity. Although most studies focus on the period up to 2100, warming and sea level rise are expected to continue for more than a millennium even if greenhouse gas levels are stabilized. [1] This reflects the large heat capacity of the oceans.

An increase in global temperatures can in turn cause other changes, including sea level rise, and changes in the amount and pattern of precipitation. There may also be changes in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, though it is difficult to connect specific events to global warming. Other effects may include changes in agricultural yields, glacier retreat, reduced summer streamflows, species extinctions and increases in the ranges of disease vectors.

Remaining scientific uncertainties include the exact degree of climate change expected in the future, and how changes will vary from region to region around the globe. There is ongoing political and public debate regarding what, if any, action should be taken to reduce or reverse future warming or to adapt to its expected consequences. Most national governments have signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol aimed at combating greenhouse gas emissions.



IT COULD BE EITHER

Answer 12

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Answer 13

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4623350.stm



Its more complicated than that. Have a look at this web page and if you can watch the documentary it explains things very well.



Also read about the gulf stream here:



http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4623350.stm

Answer 14

It just mother earth changing. Something she has done for millions of years. That how the dinorsaurs died. Yes we are not making things easier with Co2 gases. But without the hole in the ozone layer these gases would be trapped in our atmosphere and what would happen then?

Answer 15

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Answer 16

lol.Possibly.But I still like to save what I can.Wasting is so unessesary.Yea,we're burning up.And its pro.time for it anyway but humans don't help with the smog etc.

Answer 17

yes, we are in an inter glacial period.



It is just getting much warmer much quicker than it should. If the earth warms gradually then life adjusts, if it warms quick species die out rapidly, probably us !!



Note: do some research then you can form your own opinions, it does not matter so much if you are right are wrong, more that you have thought something out and have your OWN opinion of something.

Answer 18

You are correct, ice ages are followed by periods of warming that melts the ice. That is what is currently happening.

Answer 19

you are correct.

thank goodness you didn't have to watch inconvienient truth in school to warp your mind.

Answer 20

Global warming is just a way for scientists to get their names known. It has been proven that this has happend many times before. It's just another way to scare people and try to make money.

Answer 21

indeed we are still in an ice age or a period of long-term reduction in the temperature of Earth's climate, resulting in an expansion of the continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and mountain glaciers. The Earth is in an interglacial period now, the last retreat ending about 10,000 years ago. There appears to be a conventional wisdom that "the typical interglacial period lasts ~12,000 years. so what it causing the current period of warming that we are seeing today.apparently the most relevant change is in the quantity of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. There is evidence that greenhouse gas levels fell at the start of ice ages and rose during the retreat of the ice sheets, but it is difficult to establish cause and effect. Greenhouse gas levels may also have been affected by other factors which have been proposed as causes of ice ages, such as the movement of continents and vulcanism. William Ruddiman has proposed the early anthropocene hypothesis according to which the anthropocene era, as some people call the most recent period in the Earth's history when the activities of the human race first began to have a significant global impact on the Earth's climate and ecosystems, did not begin in the eighteenth century with advent of the industrial era, but dates back to 8000 years ago, due to intense farming activities of our early agrarian ancestors. It was at that time that atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations stopped following the periodic pattern of the Milankovitch cycles. it is a fact that methane and methane hydrates do significantly more damage to the enviroment than than carbon emissions, Methane traps over 21 times more heat per molecule than carbon dioxide.The main source of methane though is agricultural activity. It is released from wetlands such as rice paddies and from animals, particularly cud-chewing species like cows. The problem with methane is that as the world population increases, agricultural activity must increase and so emissions of methane will also increase. Since the 1960s the amount of methane in the air has increased by 1% per year - twice as fast as the build up of CO2 .

Methane hydrates occur extensively today all over the world. They consist of methane stored within unstable water bound deposits that if disturbed release the methane. They occur in major river deltas such as the Amazon delta and in old delta areas such as the Gulf of Mexico. Major rivers carry millions of tons of silt containing vegetable matter that continues to decay after the silt is deposited in the river delta. This anaerobic decay produces methane which gets trapped in the silt as methane hydrates until the conditions of water temperature and pressure change which can release the methane in vast quantities very quickly. Another form is a frozen slush/ice methane hydrate where the methane is trapped in an ice/water mixture which releases the methane when it warms up or the pressure on the ice is reduced. Frozen methane hydrates can contain 170 times their own volume of methane. These frozen hydrates occur in the seabed deposits of the Arctic Ocean as global temperatures become greater, so large quantities of methane stored in the frozen tundra of the north may be released. Also methane trapped in the sea bed may be freed by temperature rises.

In his overdue-glaciation hypothesis Ruddiman claims that an incipient ice age would probably have begun several thousand years ago, but the arrival of that scheduled ice age was forestalled by the activities of early farmers. Other important aspects which contributed to ancient climate regimes are the ocean currents, which are modified by continent position as well as other factors. They have the ability to cool (i.e. aiding the creation of Antarctica) and the ability to warm (i.e giving the British Isles a temperate as opposed to a boreal climate).The geological record appears to show that ice ages start when the continents are in positions which block or reduce the flow of warm water from the equator to the poles and thus allow ice sheets to form. The ice sheets increase the Earth's reflectivity and thus reduce the absorption of solar radiation. With less radiation absorbed the atmosphere cools; the cooling allows the ice sheets to grow, which further increases reflectivity in a positive feedback loop. The ice age continues until the reduction in weathering causes an increase in the greenhouse effect. Since today's Earth has a continent over the South Pole and an almost land-locked ocean over the North Pole, geologists believe that Earth is likely to experience further glacial periods in the geologically near future. Estimates of the timing vary widely, from 2,000 to 50,000 years depending on other factors. Some scientists believe that the Himalayas are a major factor in the current ice age, because these mountains have increased Earth's total rainfall and therefore the rate at which CO2 is washed out of the atmosphere, decreasing the greenhouse effect. The Himalayas' formation started about 70 million years ago when the Indo-Australian Plate collided with the Eurasian Plate, and the Himalayas are still rising by about 5mm per year because the Indo-Australian plate is still moving at 67 mm/year. The history of the Himalayas broadly fits the long-term decrease in Earth's average temperature since the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.

Variations in the sun's energy output also greatly effect our climate,There are at least two types of variation in the sun's energy output,In the very long term, astrophysicists believe that the sun's output increases by about 10% per billion (109) years. In about one billion years the additional 10% will be enough to cause a runaway greenhouse effect on Earth - rising temperatures produce more water vapour, water vapour is a greenhouse gas (much stronger than CO2), the temperature rises, more water vapour is produced, etc. Shorter-term variations, some possibly caused by "hunting". Since the sun is huge, the effects of imbalances and negative feedback processes take a long time to propagate through it, so these processes overshoot and cause further imbalances, etc. - "long time" in this context means thousands to millions of years. The best known shorter-term variations are sunspot cycles, especially the Maunder minimum, which is associated with the coldest part of the Little Ice Age. Like the Milankovitch cycles, sunspot cycles' effects are too weak and too frequent to explain the start and end of ice ages but very probably help to explain temperature variations within them such as we are seeing today.or possibly a return to a warmer era. the little ice age would certainly back up this theory.The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of cooling occurring after a warmer era known as the Medieval climate optimum. Climatologists and historians find it difficult to agree on either the start or end dates of this period. Some confine the Little Ice Age to approximately the 16th to the mid-19th centuries. Scientific American lists a span from the 13th to 18th centuries.It is generally agreed that there were three minima, beginning about 1650, about 1770, and 1850, each separated by slight warming intervals.

The Little Ice Age brought bitterly cold winters to many parts of the world, but is most thoroughly documented in Europe and North America. In the mid-17th century, glaciers in the Swiss Alps advanced, gradually engulfing farms and crushing entire villages. The River Thames and the canals and rivers of the Netherlands often froze over during the winter, and people skated and even held frost fairs on the ice. The first Thames freeze was in 1607; the last in 1814, although changes to the bridges and the addition of an embankment affected the river flow and depth, hence the possibility of freezes. The freeze of the Golden Horn and the southern section of the Bosphorus took place in 1622. The winter of 1794/95 was particularly harsh when the French invasion army under Pichegru could march on the frozen rivers of the Netherlands, whilst the Dutch fleet was fixed in the ice in Den Helder harbour. In the winter of 1780, New York Harbor froze, allowing people to walk from Manhattan to Staten Island. Sea ice surrounding Iceland extended for miles in every direction, closing that island's harbors to shipping. Scientists have identified two causes of the Little Ice Age from outside the ocean/atmosphere/land systems: decreased solar activity and increased volcanic activity. Research is ongoing on more ambiguous influences such as internal variability of the climate system, and anthropogenic influence (Ruddiman). Ruddiman has speculated that depopulation of Europe during the Black Death, with the resulting decrease in agricultural output and reforestation taking up more carbon from the atmosphere, may have prolonged the Little Ice Age. One of the difficulties in identifying the causes of the Little Ice Age is the lack of consensus on what constitutes "normal" climate. While some scholars regard the LIA as an unusual period caused by a combination of global and regional changes, other scientists see glaciation as the norm for the Earth and the Medieval Warm Period (as well as the Holocene interglacial period) as the anomalies requiring explanation so as you can see global warming is a very difficult matter for scientists to agree upon as we only know our recent climate as the norm, as the earths natrual temperature is effected by a multitude of things no-one knows whether we can stop the warming by reducing co2 emissions. certainly the efforts so far the kyoto agreement for instance are just pathetic attempts to apease the massesand even if it were met would have no effect on current trends of warming.