The Ice Age Cometh: Experts Warn of Global Cooling

[PORKER]

Temperatures in parts of Xinjiang China are set to plunge to minus 45 degrees by midweek, according to Xinjiang Meteorological Station forecaster Wei Rongqing.

Wei said snow was falling in the region's Altay district, where accumulations had already risen to 3 feet (94 centimeters). Altay lies in China's extreme northwestern corner, 1,600 miles (2,600 kilometers) northwest of Beijing, the capital.

"Livestock raising has been hit hard. Both wild animals and livestock haven't been able to find food, but now forage has been allocated by the central government," Wei said. Some 500,000 people in total were affected by the harsh weather, he said. The figure includes those who suffered property damage and supply shortages or were isolated by snow drifts and icy roads.

Direct economic losses were being estimated at 300 million yuan ($44 million) as of Thursday and were expected to continue rising, Wei said.

"We're taking emergency measures, including evacuating remote areas," Wei said. Calls to Xinjiang government spokesmen rang unanswered.

Parts of northern China are seeing their harshest winter in decades, with Beijing this month receiving its heaviest one-day snowfall in 59 years. Temperatures in the capital were set to rise above freezing this week.

Also Monday, Mongolia's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Zandanshatar Gombojav said most rural provinces in the poor, landlocked country sandwiched between China and Russia were covered by up to 20 inches (50 centimeters) of snow. He said nearly 1.800,000 animals had been lost while many transport routes were blocked by heavy snow.
"Though the government and the population at large are doing their best, the severity and the duration of such extreme weather could overwhelm our capacity and resources," Zandanshatar said at a press conference.

Mongolia needs emergency supplies including warm clothing, generators, heating devices and first-aid kits, Zandanshatar said.

[PORKER]

Biggest snowstorm in Washington, D.C. in modern history - A record 2 1/2 feet - or more! - for the nation's Capitol tonight and tomorrow, says this article on yahoo.com.


The storm comes less than two months after a December storm dumped more than 16 inches of snow on Washington, which has received more than a foot of snow only 13 times since 1870.


"The heaviest on record was 28 inches in January 1922," the article continues. "The biggest snowfall for the Washington-Baltimore area is believed to have occurred in 1772, before official records were kept, when as much as 3 feet fell in the Washington-Baltimore area, an epic event George Washington and Thomas Jefferson mentioned in their diaries."
See entire article:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100206/ap_on_re_us/us_winter_weather

[PORKER]

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/climategate-and-the-law-senator-inhofe-to-ask-for-congressional-criminal-investigation-pajamas-mediapjtv-exclusive/

Department of Justice backs Inhofe

Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) today asked the Obama administration to investigate what he called “the greatest scientific scandal of our generation” — the actions of climate scientists revealed by the Climategate files, and the subsequent admissions by the editors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4).

[hypocritexposer]

[PORKER]

www.iceagenow.com/Ice_ages_caused_by_orbital
_variations–Next_ice_age_now_due.htm


Ice ages caused by orbital variations –
Next ice age now due
(As I’ve been saying all along.)
__________________ 

6 Aug 09 - CORVALLIS, Ore. – Researchers have largely put to rest a long debate on the underlying mechanism that has caused periodic ice ages on Earth for the past 2.5 million years – they are ultimately linked to slight shifts in solar radiation caused by predictable changes in Earth’s rotation and axis.



The above image shows how much the Earth's orbit can vary in shape
Credit: Texas A&M University (Illustration not to scale)

In a publication released Friday in the journal Science, researchers from Oregon State University and other institutions conclude that the known wobbles in Earth’s rotation – not changes in carbon dioxide (CO2) levels – drive the ice-age cycle.

Changes in CO2 levels occurred later

“Solar radiation was the trigger that started the ice melting, that’s now pretty certain,” said Peter Clark, a professor of geosciences at OSU. “There were also changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and ocean circulation, but those happened later and amplified a process that had already begun.”

In other words, the changes are an effect, not a cause, as I’ve also
been saying all along.

“We can calculate changes in the Earth’s axis and rotation that go back 50 million years,” Clark said. “These are caused primarily by the gravitational influences of the larger planets, such as Jupiter and Saturn, which pull and tug on the Earth in slightly different ways over periods of thousands of years.”

That, in turn, can change the Earth’s axis – the way it tilts towards the sun – about two degrees over long periods of time, which changes the way sunlight strikes the planet. And those small shifts in solar radiation were all it took to cause multiple ice ages during about the past 2.5 million years on Earth, which reach their extremes every 100,000 years or so.

Earth should now be shifting toward another ice age

Sometime around now, scientists say, the Earth should be changing from a long interglacial period that has lasted the past 10,000 years and shifting back towards conditions that will ultimately lead to another ice age. But these are processes that literally move with glacial slowness, and due to greenhouse gas emissions the Earth has already warmed as much in about the past 200 years as it ordinarily might in several thousand years, Clark said.

Glacial slowness? Cores drilled into the ice by the Greenland
Ice-Core Project (GRIP) show that all – all! – ice ages in the
past quarter-million years began incredibly fast. The climate
switched from conditions as warm as today – or even warmer -
into full-blown glacial severity in less than 20 years, sometimes
in as little as three years.

And look at this graph!


Changes in global ice volume during the last 500,000 years, as determined from
CLIMAP isotopic measurements. Chart is from John and Katherine Imbrie's book
Ice Ages: Solving the Mystery, by permission of Enslow Publishers.
Data from J. D. Hays et al., 1976, by permission J. D. Hays.

The graph shows that – even without us (we horrible humans) -
the earth has warmed prior to each major beat of the ice-age
cycle. The warming that occurred on our planet up until 1998
was simply a natural part of the process.

[PORKER]

Winter in Mongolia is 'an unfolding disaster'
Updated 2d 19h ago
FRIGID FEBRUARY

The average low temperature this February in the Mongolian capital, Ulaanbaatar, is the coldest of the past five Februarys.

2010: -25

2009: -19

2008: -21

2007: -9

2006: -18

Source: The Weather Underground

By Calum MacLeod, USA TODAY
BEIJING — When even Mongolians complain, you know it's cold.
As Americans shiver through lower than average temperatures this winter, the people of Mongolia and the animals they rely on suffer from temperatures that are extreme even by their standards.

Officials in Ulaanbaatar, the snowbound capital, have declared disaster status in more than half of Mongolia's 21 provinces, and more are set to follow across the vast, sparsely populated nation, roughly the size of Alaska.

After weeks of heavy snowfalls, fierce winds and temperatures as low as minus-58 degrees, 2.3 million livestock have perished and an additional 3 million may die by spring, according to the Mongolian government.

Mongolians use the term "dzud" for the combination of summer drought and severe winter that has hardened snow and ice into an impenetrable layer and makes it impossible for livestock to feed.

"The snow and cold are the worst I have ever seen," surpassing the last major dzud in 2000-2001, says Nyamaa Delegnyam, 48, foreign relations officer for the Khovd province in western Mongolia.

The human cost among Mongolia's population of 3 million remains difficult to quantify because of inaccessibility and limited communication. But infant mortality in the 12 hardest-hit provinces jumped by up to 60% in January compared with the previous five-year average, says Rana Flowers, Mongolia representative for the United Nations Children's Fund.

"This is an unfolding emergency, and we won't see the worst of it until further into spring," she says.

Though the focus is on aid, the disaster has recharged a long-running debate over the country's reliance on livestock herding, which accounts for up to 40% of all employment. Mongolia's 46 million head of livestock overgraze, but there is little agreement on how better to manage a nomadic lifestyle that defines the national psyche.

"Too many people have been involved in herding, which has resulted in massive exploitation of pastureland that can't cope with the huge numbers," says Akbar Usmani, Mongolia representative for the U.N. Development Program. Mongolia "needs quality not quantity, but that needs a mindset change that requires a lot of effort and support."

With official encouragement, livestock herds, notably cashmere-producing goats, have sharply increased since the country shed Soviet control two decades ago, says conservationist Batbold Dorjgurhem, director of international cooperation at the Ministry of Nature, Environment and Tourism.

"Many people recognize the problem, but when it comes to the solutions, there are many, many disputes," says Batbold, who blames overgrazing for depleting pastureland. Although the constitution defines pastureland as free, public land, "there should be a price to be paid for its use," Batbold says.

It may take weeks to get to the worst-affected areas, given the snow and underdeveloped road network. Even close to the provincial capital, "there are many, many dead animals everywhere," Nyamaa says.

To prevent disease outbreaks as warmer weather arrives, burial of dead livestock is a priority for the U.N. Development Program, Usmani says.

The U.N. will soon launch an emergency '"flash appeal" for Mongolia, he says, similar to its Haiti earthquake response, in addition to a UNICEF appeal, for $750,000, launched earlier this month.

Another problem that could follow is mass-migration. After the last dzud, many nomads abandoned the grassland to look for work in poor, urban fringes. "The great fear at the moment is that this will happen again, in greater numbers, and the cities cannot support them," Flowers says.

In Khovd, one of Mongolia's poorest areas, Nyamaa doubts many herders will switch livelihoods.

Worse may be yet to come at winter's end. "When the snow melts, it is 'dzud 2,' a flood like an ocean, which is a very big problem for gers [yurts used by nomads] and animals," Nyamaa says.

[PORKER]

http://www.iceagenow.com/Geology_professor_forecasts_abrupt_cooling.htm

The lack of sun spots

during the past solar cycle has surpassed all records since the

Dalton Minimum and some solar physicists have suggested we may

be headed for a Dalton or Maunder type minimum with severe
cooling.

[PORKER]

How volcanoes can change the world and How Global warming is lost overnight with out Cap and Trade

By Rosanne D'Arrigo, Special to CNN
April 16, 2010 7:40 a.m. EDT

Ash from Iceland volcano has grounded much of western Europe's air traffic
Rosanne D'Arrigo says Iceland volcano in 1783 had drastic effects
She says it killed many, stunted agriculture and led to starvation
A similar event today could prevent some air travel for five months, she says


Editor's note: Rosanne D'Arrigo is a senior research scientist at the Tree-Ring Laboratory of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York. She is also the associate director of the Biology and Paleoenvironment Division at the observatory.

Palisades, New York (CNN) -- The recent volcanic eruption in Iceland is stranding hundreds of thousands of air travelers at Heathrow Airport in the UK and other airports across northern Europe, due to its voluminous clouds of volcanic ash that can clog airplane engines and limit visibility.

However, this is by no means the first such volcanic eruption in Iceland to affect human activities. Long before the advent of air travel, the eruption of Iceland's Laki volcano in 1783-84 had profound effects on climate, not just in Iceland but around the globe.

Volcanologists Thorvaldur Thordarson and Stephen Self estimated that a comparable event in the modern era would release enough ash and other eruptive materials into the atmosphere that the resulting ash cloud and sulfuric haze would probably disrupt air travel over much of the Northern Hemisphere for about five months. But there were impacts well afield of Iceland and Europe at the time of Laki.

Besides releasing clouds of ash into the atmosphere that can disrupt visibility and damage airplane engines, eruptions can cool the climate with the reflection of incoming solar radiation from the troposphere by volcanic sulfur-rich ash, which can decrease temperatures significantly for months or years in some cases.

Just such an aerosol effect is believed to have disrupted the Earth's thermal balance during the Laki event, cooling some Northern Hemisphere regions by as much as 1 or more degrees Celsius below the long-term average.

Highly unusual conditions were described in the summer of 1783 after Laki, including poisonous volcanic fumes that killed perhaps 25 percent of the population of Iceland, persistent haze and oppressive heat in Europe, and blood-red sunrises over North America, Europe and other locations. The Laki eruption was believed to have caused thousands of deaths because of unusual conditions in Europe that summer, along with the severe cold of the following winter.

Benjamin Franklin was one of the first to suggest that the extreme cold of 1783-84 over much of the Northern Hemisphere was connected to the Laki event. In North America, Laki has been blamed for the starvation of Inuit populations from severe cold in northwestern Alaska, based on Inuit oral history as well as tree-ring density data investigated by Gordon Jacoby and others, who estimated that conditions were about 4 degrees Celsius colder than the mean.

The density record of temperature-sensitive white spruce for this region showed extremely low values in the summer of 1783, known in Inuit lore as "the summer that did not come".

This observation was used to infer that this was the coldest summer in at least the past 400 years.

Such tree-ring records, along with other so-called proxy archives, can provide a wealth of information about volcanic events and their varying impacts around the globe because of resulting shifts in atmospheric circulation and other climate changes, dating for centuries prior to the period of instrumental record.

The effects of major volcanic eruptions such as Laki can also be felt elsewhere on the globe, often far from their actual location. For example, significant cooling and strong dynamical effects after the Laki event and other high-latitude eruptions are believed to have caused decreased flow of the Nile River in Egypt and weakened African and Asian monsoons based on climate model simulations, with potentially very significant impacts on food and water supplies.

Tree-ring, coral and ice core records also indicate the effect of major volcanic events in the tropics of monsoon Asia for low-latitude eruptions such as that of Tambora, Indonesia, in 1815 and other such events of the past several centuries, although this climate signal is also complicated by the El Niño-Southern Oscillation.

Although the current eruption of Eyjafjallajoekull in Iceland appears not to be comparable in intensity to those of Laki and Tambora, it will have effects, such as those on air travel, that were never realized back in those simpler times. Colder growing season Too!

[hypocritexposer]

More bs. Their excuse being that the weight of melted ice causes the volcanoes to erupt, as you watch the ice melting as the lava flows down the moutainside.

I read today that they have "misplaced" the heat that they were expecting from AGW.

Next time it warms up, they will probably claim they found the "lost" heat at the library in the lost and found, and that the cutting down of trees to make the paper for the books was the cause.

[PORKER]

Global Warming WingNuts have a big problem, It's just been reported that The Arctic is froze completely OVER! Russian scientist says Arctic getting colder
23 Apr 10 - Forget your thoughts of a balmy Northwest Passage. An Arctic
cold snap that began in 1998 could last for years, freezing the northern marine
passage and making it impassable without icebreaking ships.

Daily image update
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_daily_extent_hires.png

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

[burnt]

Well PORKER, there are those who won't let a few facts get in the way of a good story!!

[PORKER]

Projection of climate changes of the last century and past 500 years
into the future. The black curve is temperature variation from 1900 to
2009; the red line is the IPCC projected warming from the IPCC
website in 2000; the blue curves are several possible projections of
climate change to 2040+ based on past global cooling periods (1945 1977; 1880 to 1915; and 1790 to 1820).

The lack of sun spots or no sun spots during
the past solar cycle has surpassed all records since the Dalton
Minimum and some solar physicists have suggested we may be
headed for a Dalton or Maunder type mimimum with severe cooling.

http://www.iceagenow.com/Abrupt_warming_and_cooling-Easterbook.htm