
Rutgers University Climate Lab : Global Snow Lab.
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/table_area.php?ui_set=0&ui_sort=1
Climate experts tell us that declining snow and ice cover is an essential ingredient of global warming.

The albedo will have increased consequently temperatures will fall. Doesn't say whether it is early in the season for this to have happened. If it is a colder winter is coming.
Go to this link:
[Link]
and observe that the center of the snow and ice has shifted towards Alaska/Siberia. That would be the same general direction that the North Magnetic Pole has been shifting rapidly to. Interesting, yes?
Ice Caps Are Moving in Tandem With The Shifting Magnetic Pole
[Link]
I don't believe there is a global warming effect going on because of man-made induced climate change.
Yea it's obvious this sort of talk in the media is all about politics and big business ( very big business).
But I see people go the extreme in the opposite direction "Oh we are heading for major cooling, ice age etc."
I have yet to see data that is comprehensive enough to really to say anything one way or another. Frankly in my opinion there is not enough data to make such conclusions one way or the other.
Another thing is that most people don't study the data or the research itself, somehow if someone just starts compiling records from government/private agencies that monitor weather related events and stats then in turn publish on journals/websites, that somehow we have a complete picture. Do we really? I don't think so.
Funny about that little quip in above article stating almost all of Canada is now under snow.
Well, having lived in Canada for decades I would certainly hope that most is covered in snow by November - that's quit normal actually. But it is quit misleading to infer any meaning from that ( the article ).
But alas, and although I understand my looking at my own personal local region day after day of weather events over months and years can not be used to reflect the overall state of climate for the world, it is getting warmer overall where I live.
It is amusing only about a week ago we had the highest temperatures ever on record for a November - I was outside in a T-shirt ( and this is Canada ).
I guess I just lucked out and lived in the area of Canada that happened to not be covered in snow.
No need to cherry pick any data. The ice Core records tell one everything they need to know about how much interglacial vs glacial.
Eventually, Ice Age will get here, and the ratio is 15,000 years of interglacial for every 90,000 years of glacial, give or take 7,000 years.
This has held true for the last 1.8 million years.
It's simply a matter of time. Having spent 14,000 years in interglacial, it could be tomorrow. The Dark Ages and the Little Ice Age are the 1st signs of an impending falloff. They are but cold noise in the overall shape of the Interglacial. The warm noise is the Medieval Warm Period and the Modern Warm Period. The overall slope is back down, gently at first (at present). If one wants to bet on the basis of a hypothesis that this natural curve is somehow negated by a trace gas, then so be it.
It would take 200 to 400 years to prove that out, and the proof would be a rise of at least 1 sigma above the noise level. But, even then, there are examples of at least 2 Ice Age cycles that have a 1 sigma rise followed by a 2 sigma drop at or near the summit of the corresponding interglacials. They didn't last long.
And how are ice core records really a strong indication as to what did or did not happen.
I bet if you study the "science" of ice core records that there is much built in assumptions, hence in turn very misleading conclusions that can be derived from such records.
Yes, it is simply a matter of time...give just about anything enough time and we are sure to experience that, but no need to get all bunged up about it ( this part is not directed at you rbateman- part of my response before was noticing peoples responses in general that comes close to a self-imposed level of anxiety not much away from little chicken crying the sky is going to fall ).
As for Dark Ages and Little Ice Age being signs of a fall off...we don't know that either...that's pure conjecture...there could be a myriad of complex ways that climate "congeals" to produce an ice age and also both slow and quick transitions. Dark Ages and Little Ice Age could very well be blips related to other processes;
"It's simply a matter of time. Having spent 14,000 years in interglacial, it could be tomorrow."
Or it could be 1-5,000 years from now.
Those are nice neat numbers you use of 15k and 90k...but natures cycles don't fall in step like a man-made time clock.
Everyone who was screaming Global Warming made a hell of a lot of money or acquired a job where they never would have got one. I know pollution sucks and I'm against the Capitalists who don't care about "Mother Earth" or about their "Fellow Man". These people should be rounded up and dealt with. But the Earth goes through these cycles and we as a species went the wrong direction and the planet has her own defences to deal with the "Human Virus" that leaves its trash every where because they just don't care about anyone but themselves.