“The Guardian 20 Nov 1974, Wed -Page 17
the facts have emerged, in recent years and months, from research into the ice ages of the past. They imply that the threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind.”
My wacko, unsupported theory is that they were right back then and wrong now. The Little Ice Age had only a short hiatus.
When I look at the Vostok lake ice core graph, and I see our present on the far right of the red rectangular box in the upper right of the page, I tend to agree with you.
https://climate4you.com/images/VostokTemp0-420000%20BP.gif
This Holocene interglacial’s life may not be dissimilar to those of many of the readers and contributors to these threads – closer to its end than its beginning. The fall off the cliff could begin in a few decades or a few thousand years. That’s my wacko theory, with a wee bit o’ support.
That is a cool graph, no pun intended. I like the coloration. It makes you feel like you were born in a tiny island of warmth, and gives you the perspective as to how rare that is. Somewhere I read that we are living in one long Ice Age that has lasted about a million years. The events, which we call Ice Ages, are just glaciation cycles within the greater Ice Age. This graph tends to support that interpretation. It also furthers the idea that we need more CO2, even more so, if it is a strong greenhouse gas.
Conrad, I like your unintended pun – it is perfect for what we’re seeing there! I’m sure you noticed the Holocene is cooler than the previous four major interglacials. If the past cycles are a guide, we are living near its end before the planet goes back into another deep glaciation. Yes, we are very fortunate to be living during an interglacial.
So, if you like that first graph, I think you will appreciate this next one also – the red rectangle box in the first graph is this entire graph (the Holocene): https://climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif
You will immediately see the past 10,000 years has had many periods much warmer than today – and that none of them correlate with atmospheric CO2 levels (the lower [red] graph in the link.
just think in 50 years historians will list the GW era as the STUPID AGE when we went from Stone to Iron to Oil age we moved into the STUPID
Disillusioned, thanks for the second graph. If you follow the trends in the peaks and valleys: It got warmer for the first period coming out of the glaciation, then it leveled, and recently, 3000 years or so, it has been getting colder. There is no guarantee that the pattern means anything, it could just cycle like that for another 12,000 years, but the past says otherwise.
Totally agree that the past says otherwise. IIRC, the +/-100,000-year glaciations fit into two +/- 100,000-year cycles, one of which was hypothesized by Milankovitch. Also, it appears that the imperfect glaciations are getting longer, perhaps from another, larger cycle. Dunno, it’s been over a decade since I studied that stuff. Suffice to say, we know that just as the sun comes up in the east and sets in the west, cycles keep repeating – unless acted upon by a force to change their course.