The world might never witness an ice age again, thanks to global warming
Global warming could tip the Earth into a completely new climate state in which cycles of freezing and thawing are switched off, assert two Belgian scientists. If true, this would crash the hopes of all those escapists who peddle another ice age as a reason for not worrying about the soaring temperatures.
About 30 years ago, climatologists had theorised that because the previous two warm spells between ice ages had lasted for about 10,000 years, the present one termed the Holocene should have been over till now. However, this has not happened.
According to the Belgian scientists -- Andr Berger and Marie-France Loutre of the Catholic University of Louvain, the present atmospheric conditions are not like those of Eemian, the last warm period. The ice age cycle is caused by slow, periodic changes in the shape and position of the Earth's orbit around the Sun. This time around, these changes are less pronounced than they were during Eemian. On top of this, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today is already almost one-third more than during any recent interglacial period. Over the next two centuries, it could rise to double the present day value, the researchers assert. The outcome of this could be very dramatic. High levels of carbon dioxide could lead to temperatures that might melt the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets completely. Consequently, another ice age might not get underway at all, locking mankind into an irreversible global warming process.
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