An artist
Sir Fred Hoyle Vindicated
(Via Dr. Benny Peiser of the GWPF)
According to new research to be published in Nature Geoscience (embargoed until 1800 GMT/10AM PST, Sunday 8 January 2012), the next ice age could set in any time
this millennium where it not for increases in anthropogenic CO2 emissions that are preventing such a global disaster from occurring.
The new research confirms the theory developed by the late Sir Fred Hoyle and Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe in the 1990s that without increased levels of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere ‘the drift into new ice-age conditions would be inevitable.’
Hoyle and Wickramasinghe published their controversial idea in CCNet in July 1999:
CCNet-ESSAY: ON THE CAUSE OF ICE-AGES
Sir Fred Hoyle - Image via Wikipedia
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ccc/ce120799.html
By Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe
[…] The problem for the present swollen human species is of a drift back into an ice-age, not away from an ice-age. Manifestly, we need all the greenhouse we can get, even to the extent of the British Isles becoming good for the growing of vines….
The renewal of ice-age conditions would render a large fraction of the world’s major food-growing areas inoperable, and so would inevitably lead to the extinction of most of the present human population. Since bolide impacts cannot be called up to order, we must look to a sustained greenhouse effect to maintain the present advantageous world climate. This implies the ability to inject effective greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the opposite of what environmentalists are erroneously advocating. …
Full paper available here:
http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/ccc/ce120799.html
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BBC’s Richard Black fields this story as follows:
Carbon emissions ‘will defer Ice Age
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16439807
BBC’s Richard Black fields this story as follows:
Carbon emissions ‘will defer Ice Age’
By Richard Black
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16439807
“We must look to a sustained greenhouse effect to maintain the present advantageous world climate. This implies the ability to inject effective greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the opposite of what environmentalists are erroneously advocating.”
I would characterize this as a significant change in meme. GK
Profound question indeed! You have thought up the only logical justification for Carbon micromanagement that I have ever seen.
Here’s another. In the last ice age, CO_2 levels dropped uncomfortably close to the level at which they can no longer sustain plant life (not enough partial pressure to enable diffusive plant respiration). The cold ocean is quite capable of soaking up almost all the atmospheric CO_2 in the worst case. We might want to be able to burn some then to keep the concentration from dropping below the critical point in 40,000 years or so.
Personally, as I pointed out at the very end of the
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/06/what-we-dont-know-about-energy-flow
I agree with Fred Hoyle, who is a damn smart guy BTW (although I didn’t know I was “agreeing” when I wrote it as I hadn’t yet gotten to this article:-). We have no evidence for a +5C “superwarm” chaotic attractor in the climate record. We have ample evidence — overwhelming evidence — for a -10C cold (glacial) chaotic attractor in the climate record — the Earth has spent 90% of the last million years or so in cold phase, and only 10% in interglacials like the Holocene. The Holocene is already one of the longest and warmest interglacials of the last half dozen or so, and there is evidence that — outside of the warming associated with the 20th century Grand Solar Maximum (an 11,000 peak in solar activity) — the general trend of the Holocene climate is downward, with the very recent LIA the lowest temperatures of the entire post-Younger Dryas Holocene.
CAGW is “unlikely”, as we have no reason to think that there is a warm phase to “catastrophically” transition to, and lacking that the evidence is that feedback is negative and CO_2 induced warming will be <1C over the next century, assuming doubling of CO_2. CGC (catastrophic global cooling) is something that we know perfectly well can happen as the cold phase attractor is starkly evident in the paleoclimate record. We know perfectly well that it will happen as the current interglacial cannot possibly be long term stable in a multistable chaotic system with at least two major (bistable) branches (glacial/interglacial). We cannot predict when it will happen because we don’t really have a believable model for ice ages in the first place — they are numerology, not hard science, interference between a half dozen things such that when the stars align just right maybe we make a transition. But in a chaotic bistable system, there are extended ranges of e.g. insolation that can equally well support either bistable phase (with hysteresis). The question then becomes what sorts of events can make up “critical fluctuations” that kick you from one state to the other.
I think Hoyle is right to fear that we are “close” to cold phase instability — not necessarily where it is inevitable, but to where an extended Maunder Minimum might be enough to kick us over into cold phase. In which case he is also (IMO) probably correct if he asserts that anthropogenic CO_2 might at least help prevent that from happening, or make it less likely to happen, or delay when it happens, or increase the threshold for the length of an extended cooling period (still in the warm phase) that would do it.
It won’t make much difference outside of 30-50 years anyway. In 30 years we will be well over in the move away from carbon based fuels globally, whether or not anybody does a damn thing about “carbon” (with e.g. taxes or incentives). It will just be much cheaper to get our energy from things other than carbon-based fuel, so following our miserly noses we’ll stop burning fuel to get energy in the best of capitalistic traditions. By then we might actually have a clue about climate and the sun, as well — at that point we’ll have maybe 60-80 years of good climate data (and much, much better computational models). So if Hoyle is right, by the end of the century we’ll be vulnerable to cold phase transition if CO_2 is the only thing preventing it, although it may be that the warm phase would be stable anyway for another few centuries.
Where he is dead right is that we should fear the cold way, way more than we should fear warm phase, or even a superwarm phase. Warm is good. Cold is baaaad, very very baaaaaad.
rgb
So I don’t think there any climatological evidence to think a 10C rise could occur now in this IG. A 10C drop is quite plausible, tho, if at/near the “end”. Fear the cold….
So very well said, sir, took the words literally right out of my mouth, on both counts.
The Younger Dryas stands as evidence, BTW, that a cold phase transition can occur rather quickly, possibly driven by the freshening of the Arctic Ocean (interrupting the “Oceanic Conveyor Built”. Segue to the recent WUWT post on the recent freshening of at least part of the arctic…
rgb
Nothing we can realistically do will prevent the end of the interglacial.
So it sounds like global warming is not the worse thing that can happen, an ice age is!!
I seem to recall hearing weather forecasters saying something like “It was hot today but will cool tonight because of low humidity” or “it will stay hot because of high humidity”. I have never heard an overnight or three day forecast based on high or low co2. Have you?
If somebody could find one I look forward to seeing it in Tips & Notes.
This retort is best if said in an innocent and thoughtful manner.
Ice age caused the Bushmen of Africa to have to migrate to the North, out of Africa towards the middle east (droughts forced the herds north). They went by land to Australia, but left not a trace of their tracks, because they followed the coasts to India/Indonesia/New Guinea/Australia, and those land bridged coasts are now 200 feet or so deep under water, hence the lack of tracks.
An ice age also drove some folks from Tadjikistan north east through Siberia to Alaska, to become the ancestors of ALL native Americans. It is thought that as few as 20 individuals may have survived the journey to the Americas; but their bushman ancestors of ALL of us, were survivalists, so perhaps equipped with the skills and cunning to evade the Sabre Toothed Tigers, and Dire Wolves that might have wiped a lesser people out.
The Chuckchi of NE Siberia may travel in family groups as small as 6-12 with only their reindeer herd to keep them alive, and push them along as the lichens under the snow, are depleted by the herd.
We moderns probably aren’t nearly smart enough to survive an ice age, as our Bushman or Chuckchi ancestors were.
Those Bushmen pre-Abos needed to follow the coast, as their dark skin would have done them all in for lack of Vitamin d as they moved north to lesser sunlight. Sea food provided them a rich source of vitamin D. When the East/West split came, to send them north into Europe, their skin had to get lighter once they got away from the Mediterranean and its seafood, which led to beautiful blue eyed blondes in Scandinavia. So are we really in control of our destiny, or does Mother Gaia plan it all ahead ?
LOL, not according to Yahoo!:
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/next-ice-age-not-likely-1-500-years-150925913.html
I wonder, when will they stop playing at “scientist”?
George E. Smith; says:
January 9, 2012 at 5:08 pm
“An ice age also drove some folks from Tadjikistan north east through Siberia to Alaska, to become the ancestors of ALL native Americans”
I’m not so sure about that, George.
The Clovis (stone weapon) technology has been hypothesized by some to derive from the similar Solutrian weapon technology of Europe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solutrean_hypothesis
(I know Wikipedia is not always a reliable source, but it is a good starting point. I acknowledge that the linked Wiki article, above, includes some strong counter-arguments to this hypothesis, but that’s not the end of it. Read on, please)
Beyond that, it has now been fairly reliably established that a pre-Clovis settlement of the Americas took place:
“People Were Chipping Stone Tools in Texas More Than 15,000 Years Ago.”
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=texas-stone-tools-pre-clovis
Even more startling, IMO, is the evidence from Monte Verde
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Verde
Most plausible? I dunno about that, either.
More plausible, to me at least, is that these earlier settlers arrived by boat from points unknown. Monte Verde is way down south on/near the coast of Chile. We humans have happy feet, it is true, but a journey like that – passing through some very desirable real estate in the process – seems to be, well, a traipse too far.
There are many tantalizing clues in this mystery, but at this point, I think the real answer is that we just don’t yet know whence came these early voyagers.
Food for thought.
“”””” Steve P says:
January 9, 2012 at 7:57 pm
George E. Smith; says:
January 9, 2012 at 5:08 pm
“An ice age also drove some folks from Tadjikistan north east through Siberia to Alaska, to become the ancestors of ALL native Americans”
I’m not so sure about that, George.
The Clovis (stone weapon) technology has been hypothesized by some to derive from the similar Solutrian weapon technology of Europe. “””””
Look up the PBS program: “The Journey of Man”, which documents using Y chromosome genetic markers, which propagate unchanged from father to son, (sans misteaks). The research shows that both Europeans and Americans have a common ancestor from the middle east/Iran/Turkey region, before the split that sent the NA indians ancestor to Tadjikistan, while the European ancestor took off the other way.
If Clovis points match European weapons, they must have originated with the common ancestors of both lineages.
Since “ice ages” appear to be the norm for several million years now, it would be more helpful to know exactly what causes these temporary hot spells. Then we can tax whatever it is – solar activity tax? – and ensure the Earth will freeze back to its natural state. We can’t just stop burning fuel and hope it’s enough to freeze the Earth. We could be stuck in this heat wave for another thousand years if we don’t act by 2017!
George E. Smith; says:
January 10, 2012 at 1:28 pm
Thanks for the reply and pointer to the YDNA research, which I haven’t had much time to review beyond skimming most of the Amazon comments about the DVD. I’d prefer to read the book. Possibly related is the recent (to me anyway) NOVA special on DNA switches in what once had been called “junk” DNA.
Whether or not the science is settled, or has been applied properly is an open question, imo, but beyond noting that the Clovis-Salurian connection still needs claification, I’ll let you have the last word on the matter, at least for the time being. (Iconoclasts never rest for too long.)
Cheers
-sp