Global Warming in Context

Ice Core Data

I attended a lecture on global warming this evening and did some more research on the internet. This article: Global Warming:A Chilling Perspective, puts the whole issue in the proper context. The chart above shows global temperature variations over the last 400,000 years. What is evident is that 100,000 year cycles are being repeated. Each cycle ends with extreme cold followed by a very rapid rise in temperature. Temperature hits a peak and drops sharply followed by an erratic downward temperature trend that ends at a glacial maximum, followed by another rapid rise in temperature. The peak periods are very short. The one we are currently in is much longer than the three peak periods that preceed it. The peak temperature of the last three peaks is higher than any we have seen yet. These cycles are driven by cycles in the earth's rotation and orbit eccentricity. There is nothing we can do that can change the cycles and no reason to believe we have exited the ice ages, since they are driven by plate tectonics which have now put the continents at the equator blocking global circulation and cooling the planet. The interglacial period we are in must end soon. The CO2 we have released into the atomosphere may have slowed this process, but it is unlikely to reverse it. Instead of bemoaning global warming, we should rejoice in it, because the coming ice age will result in a less habitable planet, not more. If we can hold it back, we should be happy.