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Incredible that this research from 60 years ago explains much of our current weather events. The Article ice shrinks, northern North America gets more snow. It

by chrisau 12y ago

Incredible that this research from 60 years ago explains much of our current weather events. The Article ice shrinks, northern North America gets more snow. It also explains why both global warming and impending ice age are linked. This doesn't deny, of course, that mankind hasn't done his bit to accelerate the natural ebbs and flows of the global climate and the pace at which they are occurring.

kr4 12y ago
A related belief which is found in both Greek and Asian cultures that proovs cycle of ice and warm ages purports that world goes through cyclical but not linear progress. The ice age is typically considered an age of golden times. In the Timaeus, Plato talks of the mythical island of Atlantis, which was swallowed up by the sea in a “single day and night of misfortune” in c about 11000 years ago which matches with the time ice age is considered to have ended. Following article goes in length on this cyclical theory, most concretely defined in Hindu's yugas cycle and provides several geological, archaeological and historical evidence to back the research presented. http://bibhudev.blogspot.in/2012/07/end-of-kali-yuga-in-2025-unraveling.html http://bibhudev.blogspot.in/2012/07/end-of-kali-yuga-in-2025...
krylon 12y ago
I was thinking the exact same thing. :) If someone had told me this article had only been published in the last couple of years, it would not have been implausible. The basic idea that melting of of the polar ice caps could result in drastically colder weather in Europe and the northeastern part of America not really new to me, but the idea that this might at the same time mean much warmer weather around the arctic circle is certainly fascinating.
- dalke 12y ago
  The hypothesis is that 1 million years ago the "North Pole [was] in the middle of the Pacific, and the South Pole in the open southern Atlantic", and that the Ice Age cycles started because of a sudden shift that brought the poles to the current alignment. If someone presented that scenario now, it would be considered very implausible, because it goes against the evidence and mathematical models of the physics of the Earth. Pollen studies carried out within 10 years of the publication of the hypothesis shows that the Arctic was colder during glaciation. See https://books.google.com/books?id=N0mzl3c6g6kC&lpg=PA83&ots=p_CA7XOcE1&dq=arctic%20ice%20age%20pollen&hl=sv&pg=PA83#v=onepage&q=arctic%20ice%20age%20pollen&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=N0mzl3c6g6kC&lpg=PA83&ots=... , http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17754671 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17754671 and https://books.google.com/books?id=8OWQTJP8oFkC&lpg=PA230&ots=nrgyBsxcwD&dq=arctic%20ice%20age%20pollen&hl=sv&pg=PA230#v=onepage&q=arctic%20ice%20age%20pollen&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=8OWQTJP8oFkC&lpg=PA230&ots... , which say the evidence was enough to make the hypothesis implausible. This research was done after the model was published. While it was viable in the 1950s, it no longer fits the evidence.
  - krylon 12y ago
    True enough. But I am not a geophysicist or a geologist or anything even remotely close to that. Is the article talking about the geographic poles (the rotational axis of earth) or the magnetic poles? Because I think I remember reading that the magnetic poles of earth have been moving around quite a bit over time, that the magnetic poles are (slowly) moving today at a speed that scientists can measure, and that at some point, the magnetic north pole was rather close to the rotational south pole. (Although I do not know if the location of the magnetic poles has any impact on climate.)
    - dalke 12y ago
      The hypothesis is that the geographical North Pole was in the Atlantic 1 million years ago, and rapidly shifted to where it is now. The problem with the hypothesis is it doesn't answer the question (quoting from page 7): > What started off the first Ice Age cycle? > “We know that during the past million years, the world has swung back and forth between ice ages and weather like today’s,” Ewing and Donn told me. “Before then, the whole earth was much warmer. There were no zones of extreme heat or cold; palms and magnolias grew in Greenland, and coral around Iceland; subtropical plants thrived within eleven degrees of the North Pole. Why didn’t the Arctic Ocean-glacier ‘thermostat’ work then? What suddenly turned it on one million years ago? (We now know there have been multiple periods of glaciation. We are now in the Pliocene-Quaternary glaciation, which started 2.5 million years ago. The previous, the Karoo Ice Age, was 360–260 million years ago.) It only explains why there are cycles, but if the planetary conditions were the same 3 million years ago, and there were no cycles, then the hypothesis would be in error. Remember, in the 1950s the new theory of plate tectonics was only just coming into wide acceptance. The quote from the Harper's piece assumes that the crust moves a lot faster than the evidence found though the successive decades of research.

by chrisau 12y ago

kr4 12y ago

A related belief which is found in both Greek and Asian cultures that proovs cycle of ice and warm ages purports that world goes through cyclical but not linear progress. The ice age is typically considered an age of golden times. In the Timaeus, Plato talks of the mythical island of Atlantis, which was swallowed up by the sea in a “single day and night of misfortune” in c about 11000 years ago which matches with the time ice age is considered to have ended. Following article goes in length on this cyclical theory, most concretely defined in Hindu's yugas cycle and provides several geological, archaeological and historical evidence to back the research presented. http://bibhudev.blogspot.in/2012/07/end-of-kali-yuga-in-2025-unraveling.html http://bibhudev.blogspot.in/2012/07/end-of-kali-yuga-in-2025...

krylon 12y ago

I was thinking the exact same thing. :) If someone had told me this article had only been published in the last couple of years, it would not have been implausible. The basic idea that melting of of the polar ice caps could result in drastically colder weather in Europe and the northeastern part of America not really new to me, but the idea that this might at the same time mean much warmer weather around the arctic circle is certainly fascinating.

dalke 12y ago
The hypothesis is that 1 million years ago the "North Pole [was] in the middle of the Pacific, and the South Pole in the open southern Atlantic", and that the Ice Age cycles started because of a sudden shift that brought the poles to the current alignment. If someone presented that scenario now, it would be considered very implausible, because it goes against the evidence and mathematical models of the physics of the Earth. Pollen studies carried out within 10 years of the publication of the hypothesis shows that the Arctic was colder during glaciation. See https://books.google.com/books?id=N0mzl3c6g6kC&lpg=PA83&ots=p_CA7XOcE1&dq=arctic%20ice%20age%20pollen&hl=sv&pg=PA83#v=onepage&q=arctic%20ice%20age%20pollen&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=N0mzl3c6g6kC&lpg=PA83&ots=... , http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17754671 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17754671 and https://books.google.com/books?id=8OWQTJP8oFkC&lpg=PA230&ots=nrgyBsxcwD&dq=arctic%20ice%20age%20pollen&hl=sv&pg=PA230#v=onepage&q=arctic%20ice%20age%20pollen&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=8OWQTJP8oFkC&lpg=PA230&ots... , which say the evidence was enough to make the hypothesis implausible. This research was done after the model was published. While it was viable in the 1950s, it no longer fits the evidence.
- krylon 12y ago
  True enough. But I am not a geophysicist or a geologist or anything even remotely close to that. Is the article talking about the geographic poles (the rotational axis of earth) or the magnetic poles? Because I think I remember reading that the magnetic poles of earth have been moving around quite a bit over time, that the magnetic poles are (slowly) moving today at a speed that scientists can measure, and that at some point, the magnetic north pole was rather close to the rotational south pole. (Although I do not know if the location of the magnetic poles has any impact on climate.)
  - dalke 12y ago
    The hypothesis is that the geographical North Pole was in the Atlantic 1 million years ago, and rapidly shifted to where it is now. The problem with the hypothesis is it doesn't answer the question (quoting from page 7): > What started off the first Ice Age cycle? > “We know that during the past million years, the world has swung back and forth between ice ages and weather like today’s,” Ewing and Donn told me. “Before then, the whole earth was much warmer. There were no zones of extreme heat or cold; palms and magnolias grew in Greenland, and coral around Iceland; subtropical plants thrived within eleven degrees of the North Pole. Why didn’t the Arctic Ocean-glacier ‘thermostat’ work then? What suddenly turned it on one million years ago? (We now know there have been multiple periods of glaciation. We are now in the Pliocene-Quaternary glaciation, which started 2.5 million years ago. The previous, the Karoo Ice Age, was 360–260 million years ago.) It only explains why there are cycles, but if the planetary conditions were the same 3 million years ago, and there were no cycles, then the hypothesis would be in error. Remember, in the 1950s the new theory of plate tectonics was only just coming into wide acceptance. The quote from the Harper's piece assumes that the crust moves a lot faster than the evidence found though the successive decades of research.