When the ice returns

Today's modern warm era started about 2000 AD but it will probably prove to be just another short warm reprieve.

As the warmth fades and the ice returns, the threatened generations will gaze in wonder at the snow-covered solar panels and blizzard-damaged wind turbines and power lines that this generation littered over the landscape at such great cost. Future wars will be fought for access to oil, coal, gas and nuclear energy, and herds of cattle, sheep, goats and reindeer will be valued and protected. Australians will also discover why the Snowy Mountains got that name.

Only two conditions are needed for a sudden return of the ice – increased volcanic heat under the oceans and cold cloudy skies. Evaporation from heated oceans will provide the moisture and the cold skies will cause the precipitation of snow and ice on land.

Ice ages can start frighteningly fast and appear to be triggered by magnetic pole reversals which trigger massive volcanism especially in the oceans along the mid-ocean trenches. This under-sea heating drives evaporation from the oceans, increasing cloud cover and reducing surface temperatures.

Once the winter snow is not all melted by the heat from the next summer, the ice age tipping point is reached. The extra snow will reflect more solar energy so that ice sheets grow and sea levels fall. Coral reefs will be left stranded and island nations will expand as sea water is locked up in ice sheets.

Carbon dioxide plays almost no part in this drama except with plant life. When the seas warm up, the dissolved CO2 is driven into the atmosphere and plant life flourishes. But when the oceans cool down, carbon dioxide is re-dissolved and plants suffer. (Only fools like Queensland mining company Glencore would try to win green points by promising to bury the gas of life by forcing it into underground aquifers.)

So let us be relieved from the daily dirge about imagined global warming disasters and plan what we need to do to ensure reliable energy and food supplies as the next ice age approaches.