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Quote by: Winter wind  Wait wait. I'm no expert at this, but weren't the last ice ages, well, frosty? Last one had a glacier drive through America. |
Are you under the impression that the glaciers covered most of N. America over night somewhere back in the tertiary period? It took quite some time for them to cover most of the northern hemisphere and it is taking quite some time for them to melt back. So far, it has taken about 14,000 years and the estimates are that it is going to be some time yet before it all melts.
The chart that I provided is accurate. Clearly, some ice ages are colder than others and as you can see, when the present ice age began in the ladder half of the tertiary period, it didn't become "frosty" overnight. It was a long decent from the balmy 71degree F mean temperature to the icy 53 degree mean which represents the coolest part of the present ice age. The present average temperature of somewhere in the 58 degree range is hardly a giant leap out of the present ice age. You can clearly see that the rise out of this ice age is taking longer than previous ice ages.
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Quote by: Winter wind This ice ages seems rather tame in comparison. |
Does it? If you look at the chart, the ice age we are in seems to be lasting longer than previous ice ages. We are on the warming side now. Too bad you can't ask your ancestors of about 20,000 years ago their opinion of how "tame" the present ice age is. I am sure that from their perspective, there was nothing tame about it. You seem to be under the impression that the ice age we are presently in the process of exiting is a different ice age than the one that began in the ladder tertiary period and reached its coldest point in the pleistocene period. It isn't. If you look at the chart that I provided, you will see that it was warm then it began to cool, then it got real cold, and now it has begun to warm again. It is still relatively cold, but it is warming.
We should expet that exiting an ice age would be much like exiting winter. Warmer then colder. Melting snow, then some more snow, then warmer, then colder. But always an overall warming trend and as is the case with exiting winter, the further we move along the overall warming trend, the faster we should expect the temperature to rise. Once again, refer to the chart I provided. Does it not show exactly that?
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Quote by: Winter wind And the other part that is alarming is the relative speed which the earth is warming right? Again i haven't done a ton of research, but the earth is warming at a speed beyond usual, right? |
Relative to what? Your life time? The life time of a tree? The life time of a mountain? Again, refer to the chart. If anything, it is taking much longer to get out of this ice age than it took to get out of previous ones.
If you want to make a logical argument, that is supported by the evidence, argue that somehow human beings are keeping the earth un-naturally cold. At least you could point to the historical record as an inarguable example.