Quote from drjekyllus:
Our politicians haven't noticed that the problem may be that the world is not warming but cooling, observes Christopher Booker.
Does CO2 really drive global warming?
Arctic Ocean model
The postulated driver, or mechanism, developed some 30 years ago to account for the âmillion-yearâ temperature oscillations, is best known as the âArctic Oceanâ model (2). According to this model, the temperature variations are driven by an oscillating ice cap in the northern polar regions. The crucial element in the conceptual formulation of this mechanism was the realization that such a massive ice cap could not have developed, and then continued to expand through that development, unless there was a major source of moisture close by to supply, maintain, and extend the cap. The only possible moisture source was then identified as the Arctic Ocean, which, therefore, had to be openânot frozen overâduring the development of the ice ages. It then closed again, interrupting the moisture supply by freezing over.
So the model we now have is that if the Arctic Ocean is frozen over, as is the case today, the existing ice cap is not being replenished and must shrink, as it is doing today. As it does so, the Earth can absorb more of the Sunâs radiation and therefore will heat upâglobal warmingâas it is doing today, so long as the Arctic Ocean is closed. When it is warm enough for the ocean to open, which oceanographic (and media) reports say is evidently happening right now, then the ice cap can begin to re-form.
As it expands, the ice increasingly reflects the incoming (shorter-wave) radiation from the sun, so that the atmosphere cools at first. But then, the expanding ice cap reduces the radiative (longer-wave) loss from the Earth, acting as an insulator, so that the Earth below cools more slowly and can keep the ocean open as the ice cap expands. This generates âout-of-syncâ oscillations between atmosphere and Earth. The Arctic Ocean âtripâ behavior at the temperature extremes, allowing essentially discontinuous change in direction of the temperature, is identified as a bifurcation system with potential for analysis as such. The suggested trip times for the change are interesting: They were originally estimated at about 500 years, then reduced to 50 years and, most recently, down to 5 years (2). So, if the ocean is opening right now,
we could possibly start to see the temperature reversal under way in about 10 years.
Note that this was
published in May of 2001. Open the link to read the full article, it offers the best explanation of global warming that I have seen. When I was in school I was a research assistant for the professor who wrote this.