8 ms·

This was a really interesting read. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find any followup information about the underlying theory. In the grip of record snows in Bo

This was a really interesting read. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find any followup information about the underlying theory. In the grip of record snows in Boston, and an extra long winter here in NY its easy to imagine being on the cusp of another ice age, but at the same time the theory seems at odds with the idea of global warming. On the one hand we have global warming as a one way operation of sorts accelerated by mankind, on the other hand we have temporary warming followed by a super ice age, powered by the Arctic Ocean. I really want to know if this fascinating theory has been investigated further for confirmation or if it has been debunked in the 50+ years since this article was published.

nkoren 12y ago
The former: http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/98jan/climate.htm http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/98jan/climate.ht...
- tbrownaw 12y ago
  I wouldn't call that confirmation, it looks like it suggests a completely different mechanism.
saalweachter 12y ago
The key thing to remember is 'global': while the East Coast of the US has had one of the colder, snowier winters in recent history, the West Coast has just come out of a hot, dry winter. Local weather is a terrible guide to global climate.
- chris_va 12y ago
  Adding to this, my (limited, apologies climatologists) understanding of one theory is that global warming reduces the temperature gradient between the temperate zone and the arctic. This destabilizes the jet stream, causing bifurcation. That builds a high pressure zone over the northwest, sending weather north and then down through Canada to the eastern seaboard, bringing a brutal winter and leaving California dry. Weather is complicated, and hard to prove anything about.
  - msandford 12y ago
    > Weather is complicated, and hard to prove anything about. Which is why not all people skeptical of AGW are right wing anti-science nutjobs. A great many are I'm sure, but scientific skepticism may well be warranted when the system is so complex.
    - chris_va 12y ago
      Well, being skeptical of an entire field of study is different than being skeptical of the predicted outcome. One often sounds like the other, and it is 99.99% likely that something is happening, even if we don't do a good job understanding it. For example, regardless of "warming", we'll still have to deal with ocean acidification and all of the fallout from that.
      - kuni-toko-tachi 12y ago
        Something is happening, its called weather. And before weather was co-opted by political agents with an agenda to control people to enrich themselves, that's all it was.
    - saalweachter 12y ago
      Well, you have to be careful where you place your skepticism. Some science is complex, but some science is simple. So when most people -- including most experts -- say "global warming", they're referring to the observed and predicted increase in the average temperature measured at the surface of the Earth. The observed trend, both the direct measurements and the inferences made about historical temperatures, is pretty solid science. But there's another way to think about global warming, and that is the heat content of the Earth. The Earth generates a little bit of heat itself, from its radioactive core, receives a boatload more from the sun, and then radiates most of it off into space. And we're also pretty confident that a little surplus is left over. That little surplus of heat goes to heat the oceans, melt the ice caps, and also towards the atmospheric heating that we commonly refer to as "global warming". Now, this underlying change in heat content is relatively simple. It's a lot of work to measure -- you need to keep track of how much ice there is, measure the temperature of the oceans at various places and times and depths, track atmospheric temperatures. It's also not guaranteed to be constant -- if the albedo of the Earth changes (like through there being more or less ice, or lots of dust going into the air) or the composition of the atmosphere dramatically changes, Earth will gain or lose heat at a different rate than it is now. But it's still relatively simple. Where it gets complex is how this change in the heat content of the Earth relates to climate. There, you've got a million variables. If the oceans heat faster or slower, the atmosphere will heat faster or slower. If it affects wind currents, you can get warmer or or colder air pushed into places it doesn't normally go. If it affects the ocean currents, the climate in some parts of the world could get dramatically colder, even as the heat content of the Earth continues creep up. If it somehow magically melted all the ice first, without changing the surface or ocean temperatures, you'd have no climate change at all for about a thousand years, but the oceans would rise dozens of feet over that same time. If the atmosphere heats first, the climate would get dramatically worse but the ocean levels would stay the same. So I think it's quite reasonable to be skeptical about any specific predictions of how the climate or the conditions on Earth will change as the Earth continues to warm -- that is complex. But I hope you aren't terribly skeptical that the Earth is warming, that its total heat content is going up -- that is much simply, much more definite. It may not be certain how this will affect the climate, but so far none of the options look good.

nkoren 12y ago

The former: http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/98jan/climate.htm http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/98jan/climate.ht...

tbrownaw 12y ago
I wouldn't call that confirmation, it looks like it suggests a completely different mechanism.

saalweachter 12y ago

The key thing to remember is 'global': while the East Coast of the US has had one of the colder, snowier winters in recent history, the West Coast has just come out of a hot, dry winter. Local weather is a terrible guide to global climate.

chris_va 12y ago
Adding to this, my (limited, apologies climatologists) understanding of one theory is that global warming reduces the temperature gradient between the temperate zone and the arctic. This destabilizes the jet stream, causing bifurcation. That builds a high pressure zone over the northwest, sending weather north and then down through Canada to the eastern seaboard, bringing a brutal winter and leaving California dry. Weather is complicated, and hard to prove anything about.
- msandford 12y ago
  > Weather is complicated, and hard to prove anything about. Which is why not all people skeptical of AGW are right wing anti-science nutjobs. A great many are I'm sure, but scientific skepticism may well be warranted when the system is so complex.
  - chris_va 12y ago
    Well, being skeptical of an entire field of study is different than being skeptical of the predicted outcome. One often sounds like the other, and it is 99.99% likely that something is happening, even if we don't do a good job understanding it. For example, regardless of "warming", we'll still have to deal with ocean acidification and all of the fallout from that.
    - kuni-toko-tachi 12y ago
      Something is happening, its called weather. And before weather was co-opted by political agents with an agenda to control people to enrich themselves, that's all it was.
  - saalweachter 12y ago
    Well, you have to be careful where you place your skepticism. Some science is complex, but some science is simple. So when most people -- including most experts -- say "global warming", they're referring to the observed and predicted increase in the average temperature measured at the surface of the Earth. The observed trend, both the direct measurements and the inferences made about historical temperatures, is pretty solid science. But there's another way to think about global warming, and that is the heat content of the Earth. The Earth generates a little bit of heat itself, from its radioactive core, receives a boatload more from the sun, and then radiates most of it off into space. And we're also pretty confident that a little surplus is left over. That little surplus of heat goes to heat the oceans, melt the ice caps, and also towards the atmospheric heating that we commonly refer to as "global warming". Now, this underlying change in heat content is relatively simple. It's a lot of work to measure -- you need to keep track of how much ice there is, measure the temperature of the oceans at various places and times and depths, track atmospheric temperatures. It's also not guaranteed to be constant -- if the albedo of the Earth changes (like through there being more or less ice, or lots of dust going into the air) or the composition of the atmosphere dramatically changes, Earth will gain or lose heat at a different rate than it is now. But it's still relatively simple. Where it gets complex is how this change in the heat content of the Earth relates to climate. There, you've got a million variables. If the oceans heat faster or slower, the atmosphere will heat faster or slower. If it affects wind currents, you can get warmer or or colder air pushed into places it doesn't normally go. If it affects the ocean currents, the climate in some parts of the world could get dramatically colder, even as the heat content of the Earth continues creep up. If it somehow magically melted all the ice first, without changing the surface or ocean temperatures, you'd have no climate change at all for about a thousand years, but the oceans would rise dozens of feet over that same time. If the atmosphere heats first, the climate would get dramatically worse but the ocean levels would stay the same. So I think it's quite reasonable to be skeptical about any specific predictions of how the climate or the conditions on Earth will change as the Earth continues to warm -- that is complex. But I hope you aren't terribly skeptical that the Earth is warming, that its total heat content is going up -- that is much simply, much more definite. It may not be certain how this will affect the climate, but so far none of the options look good.