Ice doom of DOOM!

[james_davis_nicoll]

The previous ice age lasted some 110,000 years and ended about 11,000 years ago. In other words, some 4,000 generations of humans knew of nothing but harsh winds and eternal snows. The apparently "normal'' periods between ice ages, like the present one, have averaged between 8,000 and 12,000 years. In short, the next ice age is overdue. The key question is when it will come. Can space be colonised by a sufficiently large population so that, when the next ice age strikes, it will not threaten the survival of the race?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Before orbital forcing was accepted as the principal natural driver of glacial cycles there was a theory that they were driven by an internal oscillation - warming of the oceans leads to greater snowfall at high latitudes leads to growth of icesheets leads to increased albedo leads to atmospheric cooling leads to cooling of the oceans leads to less snowfall leads to retreat of icesheets leads to decreased albedo leads to atmospheric warming leads to warming of the oceans, and round the cycle again.

I was taught this as a hypothesis in the early '70s.

As I recall, in the '90s there was concern about global warming kicking off a Scandinavian icesheet. But the climate has warmed too much for snow accumulation in Scandinavia.