does this theory make any sense

[Jim Cantore]

If "global warming"/our planets warming phase melts the Ice caps it may plunge us into an ice age with the freezing waters moving southward

some of that being freshwater mind you.

[Extremeweatherguy]

If "global warming"/our planets warming phase melts the Ice caps it may plunge us into an ice age with the freezing waters moving southward

some of that being freshwater mind you.

yes. it makes total sense. The fresh water would stop the gulf stream which is responsible for bringing mild air to Europe and North America, thus temperatures would fall in the north Atlantic and in turn, the ice caps would begin to grow again and the temperatures of North America and Europe would fall. Also, the overall climate of different areas of the country would change drastically. We would see deserts appear where they were not before and we would see lush forests form in places they were not before. Also, some places would begin seeing less precip. every year and other more precip. The hardest hit areas would be western Europe and eastern North America where winter temperatures would fall by up to 10 degrees (which would cancel out and reverse the 1 degree rise we have seen from Global Warming)...it would be a pretty drastic change...and hey may be we are already seeing signs of things like that in this day and age...just think about all the crazy weather over the last few years. The gulf stream has already been reported as "slowing"...it is only a matter of time...

[MGC]

Sure it is possible. I am not convinced that this is the trigger for an ice age though. The fresh water would slowly mix with the salt water and I doubt the fresh water would be in a sufficent amount to stop the gulf stream completely......MGC

[Extremeweatherguy]

Sure it is possible. I am not convinced that this is the trigger for an ice age though. The fresh water would slowly mix with the salt water and I doubt the fresh water would be in a sufficent amount to stop the gulf stream completely......MGC

It has happened before though. I was watching a thing on Discovery awhile back about how freshwater once stopped the gulf stream in the past and led to a mini ice age. Not saying it will happen this time, but if it's happened before; it can happen again.

[Aslkahuna]

It happened about 13000 years ago when the meltwaters created by the big warming at the end of the last Glacial stopped the Thermohaline Circulation and we reverted to near Ice Age conditions for a significant period of time. Warming doesn't always produce the results one might think or that some people say it will.

Steve

[Jim Cantore]

the pattern of the glaciers also suggests that they came down from the polar ice caps 13000 years ago

[brunota2003]

Heard of the "Little Ice Age"??? Here is when it happened:

The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of cooling lasting approximately from the 14th to the mid-19th centuries, although there is no generally agreed start or end date: some confine the period to 1550-1850. This cooler period occurs after a warmer era known as the Medieval climate optimum. There were three minima, beginning about 1650, about 1770, and 1850, each separated by slight warming intervals

Interesting huh??? Before the LIA, the earth was about as warm or warmer as now, England had grape venards...ok...and everyone was prospering...then the LIA set in and everything came to a crashing and falling hault...literally

[brunota2003]

Here is more:

With each climate change, whether global or local, ecological communities shifted north or south or were disrupted, leading to the creation of new groupings of species. Likewise, human cultures were uprooted and driven to more favorable locales, or people adapted by changing their technologies and behaviors.

About 6,000 years ago, for example, during a period known as the "Holocene Maximum," global temperatures were about 2 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than today. Rainfall patterns also were different. For example, in what is now the arid core of the Sahara desert, hippopotamuses and crocodiles thrived in lakes and swamps. Moister conditions in Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley aided the development of agriculture and humanity's first great civilizations in these regions.

Then global cooling dropped the temperatures to a little cooler than they are now, and living things shifted again. Earth didn't warm appreciably until about 2,000 years ago.

During the present millennium there was a period of relatively mild climate called the Medieval Warm Period, lasting from about 1000 to 1300 AD. As with the Little Ice Age, its timing and effects varied from region to region, and many experts doubt that the Medieval Warm Period was a truly global phenomenon. In East Asia, for example, temperatures were cooler.

Europe, though, enjoyed an undeniably balmy climate during the early medieval period. Agriculture flourished farther north and at higher elevations on mountains than is possible even in today's warmish climate, and harvests generally were good.

Farmers raised wine grapes in England 300 miles north of present limits, and in what now are icebound parts of Greenland, Norse settlers grazed sheep and dairy cattle. In his book Climate History and Modern Man, H.H. Lamb noted that the great burst of cathedral-building and population expansion in medieval Europe coincided with the peak of the Medieval Warm Period.

By about 1400, the climate had cooled to temperatures comparable to today. Over the next century or two, the world would cool still further, bringing on the Little Ice Age.

You can read the rest of this here: http://www-earth.usc.edu/geol150/evolut ... IceAge.htm

[ROCK]

Heard of the "Little Ice Age"??? Here is when it happened:

The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of cooling lasting approximately from the 14th to the mid-19th centuries, although there is no generally agreed start or end date: some confine the period to 1550-1850. This cooler period occurs after a warmer era known as the Medieval climate optimum. There were three minima, beginning about 1650, about 1770, and 1850, each separated by slight warming intervals

Interesting huh??? Before the LIA, the earth was about as warm or warmer as now, England had grape venards...ok...and everyone was prospering...then the LIA set in and everything came to a crashing and falling hault...literally

interesting stuff.....any ideas given the receding glaciers that this might be the onset of a path to a LIA. Just wondering if glaciers have receded at this rate in the past or are we treading on new territory.....

[brunota2003]

I honestly dont know...I'm not the scientists doing the research...but from my other post: About 6,000 years ago, for example, during a period known as the "Holocene Maximum," global temperatures were about 2 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than today. So evedently, the earth has been warmer, and it isnt completely our fault...it appears to happen in cycles...
From the article above:

Most of the Little Ice Age occurred well before the Industrial Revolution and the widespread burning of fossil fuels, so scientists are confident that its climatic convulsions had purely natural causes. The event fascinates scientists because it gives them a glimpse of how Earth's climate system operates when left to its own devices.

[Jim Cantore]

its ironic to think that this so called global warming could be leading to the exact opposite