What prompted the ice age to start melting ?
OH NO ! THE WORLD IS ON FIRE !!!---jackass
Answer:
The earth's orbit goes through long cycles of revolving more closely to the sun and then farther away. The sun also goes through cycles when it's heat output increases or decreases. The changes are small, but when they coincide, they are enough to cause dramatic climate shifts.
Among the differences between that time and this were that the changes happened relatively slowly. Animals (and people) were able to migrate toward more favorable climates, away from rising coastlines, etc. Of course the world is much more heavily populated now. Most Africans can't migrate north to Europe, Australians can't abandon their country and move to New Guinea, and Mexicans can't all move to the US (much as they'd like to). Things will be especially hard for island nations which will find more and more of their territory underwater.
Of course the effects are already being seen. The greater frequency, range and destructiveness of hurricanes is one example. Melting of glaciers all over the world will soon lead to major water shortages in many countries. Polar bears are going hungry in the arctic, and farmers and herders in Asia and Africa have been forced to abandon their lands to the desert. Things will get far worse than you think far faster than you belive possible. Enjoy your skepticism while you can.
I'd call it heat.
It took thousands of years to melt. Not decades, like today. Sudden shifts like what is happening today will provide you OBVIOUS results. I hope you live inland.
The Sun.
There are three cycles of solar interaction with Earth called Milankovic cycles. They cause the amount of solar radiation on Earth to vary. When they peak together it creates enough warming to get us out of an ice age.
How do we know that's not the cause of the present warming? Three independent reasons.
The cycles are in a phase which should cause the climate to be relatively steady.
Scientists all over the world measure the Sun, and know it's not heating up enough to cause most of the warming, just about 10% of it.
The climate models don't match the observed data unless you put greenhouse gases in. When you do that, the match is pretty good.
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/ima...
The bottom line (note the source):
"While evidence suggests fluctuations in solar activity can affect climate on Earth, and that it has done so in the past, the majority of climate scientists and astrophysicists agree that the sun is not to blame for the current and historically sudden uptick in global temperatures on Earth, which seems to be mostly a mess created by our own species."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,2583...
More details here:
http://environment.newscientist.com/chan...
Edited a few words to remove 3DM's semantic quibble.
once the atmosphere started to clear after the meteors wiped out the dinasaurs etc.& the sun was able to break through again & the world heated up again,probably the first global warming.melting the ice & glaciers
Moses plugged in a central air conditioning unit.
all you need to go spiraling into an ice age is a drop of temperature, about 3-6 degrees. When that happens less water evaporates. Water vapor is an opaque gas, meaning that it absorbs heat from the sun and warms the atmosphere therefore warming the earth. When you lose some of the water vapor, you lose more heat, which means less water vapor etc. To get out of an ice age, once again you only need a slight change in temperature. Of course the topic is much more complex than this, but if you are really interested in the topic i would read THE DISCOVERY OF GLOBAL WARMING- by Spencer R. Weart, or some other book that will help you become informed. hope this helps!
NASA would differ on the Suns impact on climate change than what the scientists are say now..
Greenland is also warmer than it is now.
"NASA Study Finds Increasing Solar Trend That Can Change Climate" and
7/6/07 http://www.knowingtruth.com/
The earth's orbit goes through long cycles of revolving more closely to the sun and then farther away. The sun also goes through cycles when it's heat output increases or decreases. The changes are small, but when they coincide, they are enough to cause dramatic climate shifts.
Among the differences between that time and this were that the changes happened relatively slowly. Animals (and people) were able to migrate toward more favorable climates, away from rising coastlines, etc. Of course the world is much more heavily populated now. Most Africans can't migrate north to Europe, Australians can't abandon their country and move to New Guinea, and Mexicans can't all move to the US (much as they'd like to). Things will be especially hard for island nations which will find more and more of their territory underwater.
Of course the effects are already being seen. The greater frequency, range and destructiveness of hurricanes is one example. Melting of glaciers all over the world will soon lead to major water shortages in many countries. Polar bears are going hungry in the arctic, and farmers and herders in Asia and Africa have been forced to abandon their lands to the desert. Things will get far worse than you think far faster than you belive possible. Enjoy your skepticism while you can.
bye bye
al gore
Bob, please stick to whatever it is that you know:
"There are three cycles of solar activity called Milankovic cycles. When they peak together it creates enough warming to get us out of an ice age."
Milankovic cycles have NOTHING to do with solar activity. They are cycles of orbital variation that DO affect the amount of solar energy reaching Earth - perhaps that is where you screwed up. And while Milankovic only studied three types of cycles, a fourth orbital variation, orbital inclination, is traditionally included to make up the orbital component of solar forcing.
The Sun has cycles of its own, and you could even argue that tidal forces from the Earth and other planets, especially larger ones like Jupiter have an effect on the Sun's surface, much like the Sun and moon have on the Earth...and the cumulative effect alters solar activity, but that is not a Milankovic cycle.
What do you think happens to bio-matter when it lies long enough?
Do you think, that maybe it might start to decay even if slowly, producing more and more heat as it does so, releasing CO2 and methane?? What do you think an entire planet of the stuff would be capable of?
After all, decaying biomass is one of the arguments that people like you, use to claim nothing can be done to combat greenhouse gas emissions.
then what do you suppose happens when more and more water vapor is liberated from ice, mixing with the CO2 and methane in the atmosphere.
Please do remember, that even during an ice age, not every area on the planet is covered by ice, nor is energy constantly removed from the system to prevent some of the ice from melting.
then once a volcano starts preparing to erupt heating more and more land mass, it causes even more water vapor to be released, and more bio-matter to decompose.
Do you think during an iceage, the earth freezes clear to the core??
heat and sun...
oh, and btw, we are not going through an ice age now [jackass], so your little argument just failed. and the last [mini] ice age was during the middle ages not thousands of years ago.
grow up
Dinosaur methane gas emmisions?
When Fred and Barny traded in the foot-mobile, for the Humvee, but then they elected, Hillery Bedrock, and they went back into a "little ice age" where only the bed rooms were cold, because some people had to live with their stupid votes for 4 years.
It's starting
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