Related: The next ice age may have
been triggered in 2008

The Cause of Ice Ages and the Present Global Climate
 

September 3, 2009

1. There has been much information accumulating on global climate, and it explains the cause of ice ages and the present climate situation. The most significant and reliable information is observation of large scale weather patterns and how they change from year to year. Added to these observations, basic science principles show cause and effect relationships. Then some of the detailed climatology measurements sharpen the focus. However, the more complex the measurements, the more prone they are to unexplained influences, while bias and exploitation carry the results into the nether world.

2. From the basic science of the subject, it is clear that oceans control the climate, not the atmosphere. Atmospheric influences are so weak that they are overwhelmed by oceanic influences. The main reason is because oceans have a thousand times as much heat capacity as the atmosphere. Then the liquid state of the oceans holds heat much longer than the gaseous state of the atmosphere. Heat would accumulate in the oceans for thousands of years, while it escapes from the atmosphere into space in a few weeks.

3. Adding up all of the effects of climate shows that an ice age is caused by oceans heating. Warmer ocean water causes more evaporation and increases humidity and precipitation in the atmosphere. The increased precipitation creates clouds causing more sunlight to reflect into space; and eventually, increased snowfall also causes more sunlight to reflect away. All the while, the oceans keep increasing in temperature putting more water vapor into the air. During an ice age, the oceans sort of boil away, figuratively speaking, moving water onto the land as increasing snow and ice.
 
4. The source of the heat in the oceans is geothermal heat. The source of geothermal heat is heat which constantly moves up from the core of the earth to the surface and escapes into space. This process has been occurring for billions of years, because the core of the earth has always been hot. As the earth cools, the crust on the surface gets thicker. A billion years ago, the earth's crust was much thinner, and therefore mountains were fewer. Three or four billion years ago, the earth's crust was so thin that the forming tectonic plates would weld together as they collided instead of going over and under each other to form mountains.

5. In today's time, as heat comes up from the earth's core, it must now pass through hundreds of miles of hard, rocky material. Passing through the hard material results in a very constant rate of heat flow. As the geothermal heat enters the oceans, it accumulates and creates a water clock. The oceans heating at a constant rate causes ice ages to occur at extremely precise intervals. When the oceans get hot enough to put enough water vapor into the air, another cool-down is triggered in a precipitous manner. The past ten ice ages have been occurring at exactly 100,000 year intervals.

6. The usual explanation for the precise interval of ice ages is the Milankovich cycles. This means that variations in the earth's orbit have some repeating cycles to them. A lot of scientists do not accept that explanation, because the yearly average exposure to the sun stays unchanged. So rationalizers will say the orbital motion of the earth becomes asymmetrical due to influences from Jupiter and Saturn. But those patterns only last a few months, which is not enough to explain ice ages. Apart from the Milankovich cycles, scientists do not have an explanation for the precise cycling of ice ages. The water clock caused by geothermal heat does explain the precise cycling of ice ages. The reason why the cycles have been occurring in their present form for only one million years would be that shifting tectonic plates change geology in such a way as to alter ocean currents and the way the water clock works. It appears that Pacific ocean water flowing over the Bering Strait and melting Arctic ice is a critical part of ice age cycles, which means ocean currents are critical.

7. Present climatology shows much evidence for the geothermal explanation of ice ages. Present climate change is observable more as an increase in precipitation than an increase in temperature. The Sahara Desert is turning green because of the increased precipitation. There has been an increase in precipitation in areas such as the plains of the USA which moved the corn belt further west into wheat growing areas. The centers of Antarctica and Greenland have been increasing in snow and ice due to the increase in precipitation. At the same time, the edges of Antarctica and Greenland have been melting more rapidly, though variably, due to warming ocean temperatures. The global sea level has stopped rising over the past few years due to the increased accumulation of ice in the center of Antarctica and Greenland.

8. Arctic ice has been melting rapidly over the past few years, which shows the increase in ocean temperatures. There is no land under Arctic ice, so ocean water can circulate under the ice and cause it to melt rapidly. The claim by climate alarmists that a warmer atmosphere caused the melting of Arctic ice is absurd. Seasonal melting of Arctic ice is due to an air temperature change about 100°F or 55°C. Adding a 0.6°C global temperature increase is a small percent change; and the global temperature was decreasing while the recent increase occurred in Arctic ice melting.

9. The general increase in precipitation shows that greenhouse gasses are not involved in the changing climatic conditions. If the atmosphere were heating more than the oceans due to greenhouse gasses, there would be less precipitation, because warm air has more holding capacity for water vapor. Warming air reduces precipitation, and cooling air increases precipitation.

10. Increased precipitation should have caused temperature reductions due to more reflection of sunlight off clouds and evaporative cooling. However, the temperature increase has been primarily occurring in the Arctic (and perhaps the Antarctic), which results in warmer winters in the north. In fact, the summers have been cooler in North America. Then the claimed global average of a 0.6°C temperature increase is unreliable due to poor quality thermometer measurements with obvious upward bias in corrections by propagandists, while satellite measurements showed very little global temperature increase.

11. There is no scientifically valid mechanism for greenhouse gasses causing global warming, because greenhouse gasses absorb all radiation available to them in a few meters of distance. Increasing the amount of a greenhouse gas only shortens the distance, which is not an increase in temperature. Since scientists know this, propagandists contrived a fake mechanism high in the atmosphere, where more greenhouse gasses can slow down the rate of escape of radiation into space or the stratosphere. But the effect is too miniscule to be taken serious. Again, an increase in the amount of greenhouse gas only shortens the distance radiation travels before being absorbed, which has almost no effect on the rate of radiation escaping the atmosphere.

12. Satellite measurements show that the planet is cooled by long wave infrared radiation which is not influenced by greenhouse gasses. Greenhouse gasses absorb narrow bands of radiation and convert the energy into heat. The heat is transferred rapidly to all molecules in the atmosphere. Then the heat causes radiation to be re-emitted, but the re-emission is in all wavelengths particularly in longer wavelengths than those absorbed by greenhouse gasses.

13. Graphs of total global temperature over the past million years show that temperatures rise to a peak before the beginning of each ice age. The global temperature is now at about the same level as at the beginning of the last ice age. And the last ice age began exactly 100,000 years ago. This means the next ice age is scheduled to begin at any time. It will begin when humidity in the air increases to a point where clouds and snow reflect away enough sunlight to cool the planet and prevent snow from melting. The humidity will reach that point when oceans get warm enough to put that much humidity into the air. Will it occur anytime soon? It's impossible to say. Arctic air was colder than usual over the past two years, and it did not warm up as much as usual when it moved south over the northern USA. The inability of Arctic air to warm was due to a constant, thin layer of cirrus clouds which reflected away sunlight. Whether this two year trend will be reversed or continue is impossible to say.

14. This graph shows global temperature changes over the past 800,000 years. The large cycles are ice ages, which appear to be caused by oceans heating due to geothermal energy. The smaller blips may be due to variations in solar energy or maybe variations in ocean currents. Perhaps both.

Here are some absurd claims by climatologist which contradict the obvious science and observable events in nature:

• That the only thing melting ice in the Arctic is CO2 induced global warming (0.6C) with no mention of ocean currents.

• That all heat in the oceans can be accounted for, and it all comes from CO2 induced global warming, with no mention of solar and geothermal energy accumulating in the oceans.

• That cold air in the upper atmosphere can heat a warmer lower atmosphere, as CO2 traps more radiation in the upper atmosphere.

• That 300 parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere is normal, delicately balanced and desirable, while the amount has been 5 to 20 times higher throughout most of biological history.

• That a global temperature increase is killing people, while most human migration has been toward warmer climates, and a few hundred miles of latitude variation produces more temperature change than claimed or expected global warming.

• That humans are upsetting a delicate balance, while ice ages occur every 100,000 years, and the next one is scheduled to begin at any time.

Satellite studies show that ice is melting around the edges of Greenland and Antarctica due to warmer ocean water. Supposedly, humans warmed the ocean with carbon dioxide. Traces of atmospheric heat don't have the slightest ability to warm the oceans, because the atmosphere has a miniscule heat capacity compared to the oceans. Solar and geothermal energy heat the oceans.

Here's a satellite study showing it's ocean heat, not atmospheric heat, melting the ice: Guardian, September 23, 2009

Related: The next ice age may have been triggered in 2008