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Fact brief - Are we heading into an 'ice age'?
Posted on 21 December 2024 by Guest Author
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with members from our team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline.
Note: Technically we are currently in an ice age (there is ice at the poles) and what we're really discussing here is the glacial cycle. We are in an inter-glacial and the question is if we could be heading for another glacial period. However, since the myth typically refers to this as an "ice age", we decided to stick with that term.
Are we heading into an ‘ice age’?
The planet has been getting warmer since the Industrial Revolution, not colder.
Historically, ice ages have followed changes in the Earth’s relationship to the sun. Natural cycles affect the tilt of Earth’s axis and its orbit around the sun. As Earth’s axis becomes less tilted, and its orbit more elliptical, it receives less solar radiation.
These “Milankovitch” cycles occur over thousands of years. Currently, Earth’s tilt is halfway between its maximum and minimum while its orbit is nearly circular.
In the absence of human activity, Earth may have gradually cooled in the coming centuries with phases corresponding to a decreasing tilt and an increasing orbital eccentricity.
However, fossil-fuel burning and other actions have raised CO2 levels to 420 parts per million—far above the 180-280 ppm seen during past ice ages. This extra CO2 has made it harder for heat to escape the atmosphere, overpowering the natural cooling trend.
Go to full rebuttal on Skeptical Science or to the fact brief on Gigafact
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
NASA Milankovitch (Orbital) Cycles and Their Role in Earth’s Climate
Cornell University Understanding long-term climate and CO2 change
UC San Diego The Keeling Curve Hits 420 PPM
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Are we heading toward another Little Ice Age?
NASA Global Temperature
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Fact briefs are short, credibly sourced summaries that offer “yes/no” answers in response to claims found online. They rely on publicly available, often primary source data and documents. Fact briefs are created by contributors to Gigafact — a nonprofit project looking to expand participation in fact-checking and protect the democratic process. See all of our published fact briefs here.
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TODAY!......... Climate Shift. ..??.. DID the “NEW ICE AGE”, Climate Fanatics of the 1970’s CAUSE the so-called, “Climate Shift” Crises of Today?
(Scientists say sprinkling diamond dust into the sky could offset almost all of climate change so far — but it'll cost $175 trillion)
Story by Sascha Pare 12-19-2024
Sprinkling diamond dust into the atmosphere could offset almost all the warming caused by humans since the industrial revolution and "buy us some time" with climate change, scientists say.
[This is Funny as the ''Climate Craze'' back in the 1970's was the New Ice Age..... Yes ''they'' said that Pollution (partials) were being thrown up into the upper atmosphere and causing the suns light to be reflected back into space., This was causing a New Ice Age to destroy the Earth.
Note; To STOP this New Ice Age, the USA went 'seriously' into protecting the 'Environment' way back in the 1970's with President Nixon signing the Environmental Protection Act (EPA) into law.
Today the USA only produces as much steel as it did in 1950, this is as an example of those EPA efforts.
High Gas Prices?.. EPA will Not allow a New Oil refinery to be built in America.
Etc. Etc.
And this is also a major reason for the loss of Millions of very good paying jobs, I might add. 'clean', comes with a very steep 'price'.]
Continued.
New research indicates that shooting 5.5 million tons (5 million metric tons) of diamond dust into the stratosphere every year could cool the planet by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) thanks to the gems' reflective properties. This extent of cooling would go a long way to limiting global warming that began in the second half of the 19th century and now amounts to about 2.45 F (1.36 C), according to NASA.
The research contributes to a field of geoengineering that's looking for ways to fight climate change by reducing the amount of energy reaching Earth from the sun.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/scientists-say-sprinkling-diamond-dust-into-the-sky-could-offset-almost-all-of-climate-change-so-far-but-it-ll-cost-175-trillion/ar-AA1w6MuP?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=2dfb5c2f1669448799854ec819ce98bf&ei=43
[BL] Reposting stuff that has already been cut out by moderators is a violation of the comments policy.
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[BL] Empty, incorrect claims without supporting evidence.
The deleted contents represented a link to a web search of images, and is unacceptable content.
Skeptical Science asks that you review the comments policy. Thank you.
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The New Ice Age was Promoted and a 'Fact' back in the 1970's to get President Nixion to Create the EPA. Enviromental Protection Agency.
https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=a708972a8ba8ce15990b406eec8dd8eeef261a471c38752311e038ee709c5666JmltdHM9MTczNDgyNTYwMA&ptn=3&ver=2&hsh=4&fclid=1c8ee8b9-4b23-6ade-3488-fbd14a996bb8&u=a1L2ltYWdlcy9zZWFyY2g_cT1waWN0dXJlcytzaG93aW5nK3RpbWUrbWFnYXppbmUrY292ZXJzK3dpdGgrdGhlK25ldytpY2UrYWdlJnFwdnQ9cGljdHVyZXMrc2hvd2luZyt0aW1lK21hZ2F6aW5lK2NvdmVycyt3aXRoK3RoZStuZXcraWNlK2FnZSZGT1JNPUlHUkU&ntb=1
[BL] Also material previously posted and deleted by a moderator.
Your unsupported assertions are a violation of the Comments Policy. As is posting links without an explanation of what they contain. And a link that is a search will change contents over time (and likely change depending on who does it) and is particularly useless as supporting evidence of your claim.
No link or picture only. Any link or picture should be accompanied by text summarizing both the content of the link or picture, and showing how it is relevant to the topic of discussion. Failure to do both of these things will result in the comment being considered off topic.
The Time magazine cover from 1977 featuring a photo of a penguin with the headline, “How To Survive The Coming Ice Age” was a fake:
apnews.com/article/fact-check-time-magazine-global-climate-fabricated-cover-944714514495
In the 1970s a small number of scientists thought there might be a flat or cooling trend in coming decades but the majority of published research around the 1940s - 1970s predicted there would be a global warming trend in coming decades (which there was)
skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s.htm
I actually did a couple of papers in physical geography at university back in the early 1980s. One of the textbooks was Atmosphere ,Weather and Climate by Barry and Chorley, a 1971 edition, and the chapter on climate change did not say the scientific community was predicting a coming cooling trend or ice age. It said global temperatures had been flat from the 1940s to 1970, and it was uncertain what would happen in the coming decades. I still have this textbook.
[BL] You are responding to a comment from AdriantheHistorian that has had its contents deleted. Although all you may have seen was "text", his last two comments consisted of links to images that were the result of web searches. Rather than actually bothering to type the contents, or get a direct link to an image, he has simply put the web search into his comment.
For other readers, AdriantheHIstorian has been repeating myths about the 1970s cooling trends.
For an "Historian", Adrian seems strangely challenged in checking the validity of his sources.