The Apocalypse Times Blog: Ice Age?

“Global warming” has become the buzz/fear phrase of the 21^st century, tossed around much like “flower power” was in the sixties. Few give the concept much credence now as it has devolved from a science to a philosophy to a cult. While many climate scientists feel that the impact of man's exhaust fumes is evident as the cause of current rapid melt-off of ice in both polar regions of the globe, others dispute the theories in many ways including:

Espousing that the biosphere of the Earth is just too powerful and dynamic for tiny, little us to have a tangible effect.

Denying the claim altogether as a conspiracy of left-wing tree huggers.

Claiming this rapid warming is a precursor event to a whiplash of global cooling or new Ice Age.

Of interest to us at the Apocalypse Times is the changes themselves, especially the rapid melting of ice cover at both poles. No matter the cause, the phenomenon is occurring! The argument is about what will be the consequences? We fear that Mother Earth is way smarter than we assume and will sustain herself by balancing things out with cold wave, an ice box or a quick fix for global warming...In other words an Ice Age.

This winter has been extremely strange around the globe, most notably the freakish weather occurring in China where millions were herded like cattle in apocalyptic scenes. Train stations in China turned into prisons guarded by the military. Millions of people unable to go anywhere because of mass transit chaos created by the worst winter weather in the region in decades.

In a recent story from NASA's Earth observatory it was noted that this winter in SW Asia has, in many places, been 20 degrees Celsius cooler.

“The extreme winter conditions were the worst in decades in both Afghanistan and Tajikistan. In Afghanistan, the cold left more than 750 people and 230,000 cattle dead, reported Reuters. Many families rely on cattle for food security, and their loss will likely cause great hardship. Tajikistan was similarly taxed by the severe cold. Even as cold temperatures increased the demand for electricity, power production decreased when inlet streams feeding hydroelectric power plants froze, said the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs on February 11. Tajikistan derives 76 percent of its electricity from hydropower, said the UN. The power shortages left urban areas without heat.”

The winter weather also devastated crops in China and, with world food supplies teetering on the edge already, we are predicting food shortages and food price inflation to continue and to spread to even the First World. When a major player in global food production has problems, we all have problems.

Another oddity, the current solar cycle is off to a very slow start. The sun has been blank for days or weeks, no sunspots at all. For quite some time now scientists have been warning that the upcoming solar cycle will be the most active in recorded history, cautioning that satellites vital to our communication and security could be damaged by massive streams of solar particles smacking into Earth's atmosphere. (See: Scientist's Predict Big Solar Cycle)

So what if they're wrong? What if the dependable solar cycle we have recorded as repeating every 11 years just doesn't happen? If the sun were to take a cycle off, the result might well be an Ice Age. There has been a correlation with sunspot cycles and Earth's climate in the past. To enlighten yourself on the topic please read this article on sunspots and climate.

"Incidentally, the Sporer, Maunder, and Dalton minima [sunspot cycles] coincide with the colder periods of the Little Ice Age, which lasted from about 1450 to 1820. More recently it was discovered that the sunspot number during 1861-1989 shows a remarkable parallelism with the simultaneous variation in northern hemisphere mean temperatures (2)."

Whatever the outcome, it certainly seems that climate models, predictions and estimates made by experts are all over the place. The Earth it seems has a mind of its own and defies attempts of her stewards to control or predict her. It's best just to be prepared for anything in The Apocalypse Times!

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