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Are there any climatologists who have written about Gribbin's Ice Age idea? Not that I think he's necessarily wrong, but I am a little extra skeptical when an e

Are there any climatologists who have written about Gribbin's Ice Age idea? Not that I think he's necessarily wrong, but I am a little extra skeptical when an expert in an adjacent area of research is positioned as a contrarian to the mainstream of another field. For whatever reason (overconfidence? credentialism? inexperience?) this always seems to produce sketchy science.

api 5y ago
> a little extra skeptical when an expert in an adjacent area of research is positioned as a contrarian to the mainstream of another field. Thanks for putting words to something I've always noticed. I think it comes from overconfidence borne of expertise in one or a few other fields. A pop culture example would be Elon Musk thinking he understands virology and epidemiology because he knows a lot about rockets, computers, and other non-living engineering systems.
neffy 5y ago
I think there is a reluctance to discuss this, given the politicisation of the entire problem, and inevitable confusion. But note that global warming did get changed to "climate change" a decade or so back. Unfortunately this particular aspect gets very geopolitical, very fast, on any contemplation about which regions benefit from the two states. The ice core record itself is very clear, we´re towards the end of an interglacial period of the dominant 100k year ice age cycle, caused by small cyclic differences in the earths position vis a vis the sun over that period. As to what happens next, the generally accepted theory at the moment is that the rise in CO2 combined with differences in the orbital inclination this cycle make an ice age onset unlikely. However know enough to read between the lines, the known unknowns if you like, and it's clear we don't know nearly enough about what actually causes glacial onset, or why it appears to happen so quickly. One could also go a bit further and comment that all interglacials seem to have a pattern of increasing CO2 (although not nearly to the extent we have triggered), until an abrupt drop. The Ocean Circulation theory originated out of the Wood´s Hole Research Lab a few years back. The wiki page is good, and has the relevant papers linked: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age

api 5y ago

> a little extra skeptical when an expert in an adjacent area of research is positioned as a contrarian to the mainstream of another field. Thanks for putting words to something I've always noticed. I think it comes from overconfidence borne of expertise in one or a few other fields. A pop culture example would be Elon Musk thinking he understands virology and epidemiology because he knows a lot about rockets, computers, and other non-living engineering systems.

neffy 5y ago

I think there is a reluctance to discuss this, given the politicisation of the entire problem, and inevitable confusion. But note that global warming did get changed to "climate change" a decade or so back. Unfortunately this particular aspect gets very geopolitical, very fast, on any contemplation about which regions benefit from the two states. The ice core record itself is very clear, we´re towards the end of an interglacial period of the dominant 100k year ice age cycle, caused by small cyclic differences in the earths position vis a vis the sun over that period. As to what happens next, the generally accepted theory at the moment is that the rise in CO2 combined with differences in the orbital inclination this cycle make an ice age onset unlikely. However know enough to read between the lines, the known unknowns if you like, and it's clear we don't know nearly enough about what actually causes glacial onset, or why it appears to happen so quickly. One could also go a bit further and comment that all interglacials seem to have a pattern of increasing CO2 (although not nearly to the extent we have triggered), until an abrupt drop. The Ocean Circulation theory originated out of the Wood´s Hole Research Lab a few years back. The wiki page is good, and has the relevant papers linked: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age