Expert: Tom Whiting - 11/28/2009

Question
is global warming a hoax and that we should burn more fuel to prevent a next ice age? when volcanoes erupt, it releases thick smoke and dust into the atmosphere, thus blocking heat from the sun to the earth, is this a cause for the spark of the previous ice age?(assuming that the volcano is a massive one)

Answer
There have been more ice sheets than megavolcano eruptions, the last being Yellowstone some
640,000 years ago.  No one is sure what ushers in another repeat ice age, as there are too many
variables and factors, ranging from incoming solar radiation, the Milankovich Cycle,
(See http://www.homepage.montana.edu/~geol445/hyperglac/time1/milankov.htm
precession of axis from 21.5 to 24.5 degrees, and the aphelion/perihelion points in our
orbit; also location of the land masses on the Earth's surface, also massive lava flows.
Even incoming large asteroid impacts may affect the Earth... the current warm spell was
beginning 13,000 years ago, but was delayed some 2000 years by a possible comet impact on
the N. American ice sheet, and might have been partially responsible for the megafauna
extinction at the end of the last Wisconsin ice age...see Younger Dryas event.
There may not even be a 'trigger' mechanism required as ice ages have been so prominent over
the last 2 million years, it might just be a naturally occuring event during our current Epoch.

We do know that during the past one million years, 90% of that time have been ice sheets over
the Northern Hemisphere, and only 10% warming periods over that time. Ice sheets last some
100,000 years followed by interglacial warm periods of about 10,000 years. We're currently in
the 11,000 years of the Holocene, a warm period between the ice sheets.
(So we may be on borrowed time). We're only 4 or 5 degrees F. above average ice age temperatures. The Earth is attempting to warm up (on it's own) to give us some insurance against
the next onset of ice age.  Us humans can help it by burning more fuel.
The carbon dioxide content of today (0.035%) is the lowest in Earth's history, not counting our beginning some 4.6 billion years ago.  During portions of the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods, a CO2 content of 1-2& with a global average temperature of 80 degrees with vegetation from pole to pole (read that- lots of food) was our standard for some 50 million years, with runaway- nothing. (That's 30-60 times more CO2 than todays levels). True, there was far less
land mass with high sea levels with all the ice melted, but we were very stable, with no ice
ages. (Take a historical geology course when you get some time.)

I don't like the word "hoax" but overstating the cause would be a better word. It's all for government money, for all the different "green" projects. I'm all for cleaner air, cleaner
environment, less trash, cheaper energy, etc. but using false anthropological global warming as an excuse is nearly criminal in my opinion. Should we spend trillions of dollars to keep the
CO2 content at it's lowest historical level in history just to maintain current sea levels and our current coastal land masses? That borders on... insanity.
Will the polar bear go extinct? Perhaps. Hey, it's adapt or die...it's been that way for over
3 billion years on this planet for every life form; Just ask any T-Rex or Neanderthal you see walking around.
Clear Skies,
Tom  
Erie, PA