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New Ice Age Maps Point to Climate Change Patterns


PhysOrg
Tue, 20 Jan 2009 01:27 UTC
Ice Age Map
© Dr Timothy Barrows/Elsevier
New Ice Age maps point to climate change patterns.
New climate maps of the Earth's surface during the height of the last Ice Age support predictions that northern Australia will become wetter and southern Australia drier due to climate change.

An international consortium of scientists from 11 countries has produced the maps, which appear in this week's issue of Nature Geoscience.

Dr Timothy Barrows of the Research School of Earth Sciences at The Australian National University was responsible for the Australian sector of the reconstruction.

"During the last Ice Age - around 20,000 years ago - sea surface temperature was as much as 10 degrees colder than present and icebergs would have been regular visitors to the southern coastline of Australia," Dr Barrows said.

The temperature was estimated by measuring changes in abundance of tiny plankton fossils preserved on the sea floor, together with chemical analyses of the sediment itself.
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Igloo

On the Brink of Climatic Disaster: the Coming Ice Age

Selwyn Duke
The John Birch Society
Thu, 15 Jan 2009 19:44 UTC
Politicians can't talk enough of carbon taxes and credits and cleaner technologies, but are they just fiddling while Rome freezes?

If the climate were a sentient adversary with a will, he might be laughing right now. Because while mankind is doing a Chicken Little worrying about anthropogenic global warming (AGW), nature just might be preparing an attack we least expect: another ice age.

For sure, many Americans feel like we're already in one. While last winter's frigid temperatures - with record cold in many parts of the world (South America experienced its coldest winter in 90 years) - might seem a tough act to follow, Old Man Winter has risen to the occasion. Parts of Alaska have experienced temperatures reaching 78 degrees below zero, North Dakota had record December snow, a Minnesota sled-dog race was actually canceled due to heavy snow, and Ohio ski resorts have called a recent winter storm "a stimulus package for their industry." Yet, critics may point out that this is anecdotal evidence and thus not scientifically significant. This would be true, only, in this case the science happens to coincide with the anecdotes. As Gregory F. Fegel at Pravda.ru tells us:
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Question

UK: Crab riddle on Thanet beaches


Your Thanet
Sat, 17 Jan 2009 00:19 UTC
Velvet crabs
© Unknown
Velvet swimming crabs
Mysterious circumstances surround the beaching of thousands upon thousands of crabs on the isles beaches.

Last week the bodies of velvet swimming crabs were washed up on shores all around the Thanet coast but no definitive reason can be found.

Some think the sudden death of the velvet swimming crabs could be due to the cold weather.

Tony Child of the Thanet Coast project said: "It does seem to be linked to the weather, as it's been particularly cold.

It is something which happened three or four years ago. It's very strange."

However, he added that some crabs have been taken away to test for disease and "it was odd that no other species had been affected" by the cold.

Crab numbers had just started to recover from the last wave of deaths.
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Binoculars

Hundreds of birdwatchers turn out to see rare snowy owl

Richard Savill
The Telegraph
Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:19 UTC
Hundreds of birdwatchers have gathered in a Cornish village to catch a glimpse of a rare snowy owl.
british snowy owl
© SWNS
The owl was first spotted in Cornwall on Dec 21

The bird, which is a native of the Arctic Circle, and is usually found in Greenland, Canada and Russia, has been seen at Zennor, near St Ives.

It is the first time in 60 years one has been seen in Cornwall.

In Britain, the snowy owl is usually only a rare winter visitor to Shetland, the Outer Hebrides and the Cairngorms. On average there are between one and four seen each year in the United Kingdom.

The young owl was believed to appeared in Cornwall after being blown off course by storms. Birdwatchers said it appeared to be content, and at home in the freezing temperatures.
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Bizarro Earth

Greenhouse gases could have caused an ice age, claim scientists

Richard Alleyne
Telegraph
Thu, 01 Jan 2009 04:14 UTC
Filling the atmosphere with Greenhouse gases associated with global warming could push the planet into a new ice age, scientists have warned.

Researchers at the University of Birmingham found that 630 million years ago the earth had a warm atmosphere full of carbon dioxide but was completely covered with ice.

The scientists studied limestone rocks and found evidence that large amounts of greenhouse gas coincided with a prolonged period of freezing temperatures.

Such glaciation could happen again if global warming is not curbed, the university's school of geography, earth and environmental sciences warned.
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Network

Sunspots, Global Warming, And An Ice Age


Investor's Business Daily
Tue, 30 Dec 2008 02:46 UTC
The Earth has been warming ever since the end of the Little Ice Age. But guess what: Researchers say mankind is to blame for that, too.

As we've noted, 2008 has been a year of records for cold and snowfall and may indeed be the coldest year of the 21st century thus far. In the U.S., the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month of October.
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Magnify

Study: Climate change during ice age did not happen at once


Sindh Today
Wed, 10 Dec 2008 23:44 UTC
Major climatic events during past global ice ages did not occur at once or with the same intensity everywhere, according to new data.

The research by Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation's (ANSTO), which used sophisticated nuclear dating techniques on rocks from Mongolian glaciers, could impact future climate change forecasts.

The research shows that Mongolian glacier advances during the last ice age were not synchronised with alpine glaciers in Europe and North America, suggesting that climate varied significantly between continents.
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Hourglass

Danish Arctic research dates Ice Age

Julian Isherwood
Politiken
Thu, 11 Dec 2008 21:41 UTC
The result of a Danish ice drilling project has become the international standard for the termination of the last glacial period. It ended precisely 11,711 years ago.

A Danish ice drilling project has conclusively ended the discussion on the exact date of the end of the last ice age.

The extensive scientific study shows that it was precisely 11,711 years ago - and not the indeterminate figure of 'some' 11,000 years ago - that the ice withdrew, allowing humans and animals free reign.

According to the Niels Bohr Institute (NBI) in Copenhagen, the very precise dating of the end of the last Ice Age has made Denmark the owner of the "Greenwich Mean Time" of the end of the last glacial period and beginning of the present climate - the so-called International Standard Reference.
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Target

Cave bears killed by Ice Age, not hunters: study

Alister Doyle
Reuters
Fri, 05 Dec 2008 15:52 UTC
Giant cave bears froze to death during the last Ice Age in Europe about 28,000 years ago, according to a study on Wednesday that cleared human hunters of driving them to extinction thousands of years later.

The largely vegetarian bears, weighing up to a ton and bigger than modern polar bears or Kodiak bears, apparently died off as a sharp cooling of the climate led to a freeze that killed off the fruits, nuts and plants they ate.

The bears vanished 27,800 years ago, or about 13,000 years earlier than previously believed, the scientists in Austria and Britain said in a study of bear remains using radiocarbon dating including at hibernation sites in the Alps.

"There is little convincing evidence so far of human involvement in extinction of the cave bear," they wrote in the journal Boreas. Some past reports have suggested that the cave bears' demise was linked to over-hunting.

Comment: But don't mention comets.

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Frog

Sudden cold weather endangers sea turtles; many being rescued


Associated Press
Thu, 27 Nov 2008 04:39 UTC
Jacksonville - Recent cold weather caught sea turtles off-guard before they could reach warmer Gulf Stream waters, and that has led to nearly 25 rescues along the North Carolina coast in the past week.

Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center on Topsail Island has rescued numerous cold-stunned sea turtles since Thursday, said Jean Beasley, the hospital's executive director.

"We're overwhelmed, this has never happened before -- at least not since the turtle hospital has been in existence," Beasley said. "We had 11 turtles come in last Thursday, 12 on Saturday and six (Sunday). We're frantically trying to make more space."
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