One of the most common complaints is how some can claim warming while others claim a coming Ice Age. This conflict has been explained numerous times on TV specials and in scientific articles but seems quickly forgotten.
Let's just take the Atlantic Ocean cycle. The Gulf Stream brings
warm saltly surface water up the east coast of the U.S., across the northern Atlantic and down the west coast of Europe, affecting climate of those areas to a huge degree. "Normal" rates of ice melt from the north Atlantic ice sheet introduces
fresh cold water into the ocean which drops to deep levels that flow down the west coast of Europe and Africa. Eventually, as it approaches the equator it warms sufficently to rise to the surface becoming more salty and thus repeats the cycle heading west and becoming the Gulf Stream again. If a global rise in surface temperatures cause a drastic increase in northern ice sheet melt rates, the increased amount of fresh water that is introduced to the ocean can so dilute the amount of salt in the Atlantic that it could shut down the normal flow described above. I'm not certain how this happens but apparently the entire cycle is heavily dependant on maintaining a certain level of salt held in solution. Once you dilute that salt solution the entire cycle breaks down. If the Gulf Stream is eliminated the resultant effect is a temporary return of an ice sheet advance adversly affecting all of North America and Europe. Eventually, the long term trend of global warming would reverse an advancing ice sheet and several such devastating cycles may follow, but that strays into the area of speculation.
Note that this entire process is preceded by rising temperatures averaged over hundreds of years, not 10 or 20. Right now we are seeing a rapid melting of the northern ice sheet. Rapid ice melt is caused by rising temperatures!!!!! Anyone claiming otherwise fails grade school physics. As interesting as all this is, it can also not be looked at in isolation. There are so many other factors around the globe, including solar activity, that have to be examined. Is solar activity part of it? Of course it is. The Sun has a roughly 11-year cycle from peak-to-peak high magnetic storm activity (sunspots). Right now it is at a trough of such activity. Peak periods produce slightly lower solar output. Trough periods produce slightly higher solar output. To blame the Sun alone for rising temperatures however is pure folly. Ignoring human's massive introduction of fossil fuel carbons into the atmoshere over the last 80-100 years is not an option. It's part of the entire picture. How much? We don't know. We do know that it correlates with a warming over the last 100 years that can not be explained by normal historical temperature trends.
Jim
