I guess this would explain the blizzard this past earth day, a day set aside to call attention to global warming.
Thanks.

jm


>
> From: Wirt Atmar <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: 2002/05/15 Wed PM 02:17:27 EDT
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] OT: Global Warming Called 'Fairy Tale'
>
> Jim asks:
>
> > I remember reading artciles in the 70's that stated that we were heading
> for
> > another ice age if we did not start taking steps to preserve the
> environment.
> > One of my grade school teachers even brought it up in an ecology lesson.
> > Now, the same groups who were projecting an ice age are clamoring about
> > global warming.
> >
> > So which is it?  Is it getting colder or hotter?  They can't decide.  But
> > over the last 30 years, temperatures have slightly declined.  Although the
> > past few have seen milder winters.
>
> Actually the two outcomes are interrelated, only making the task of
> prediction all the more difficult. The notion of an ice age following global
> warming (or vice versa) is called a "catastrophic cusp." In any system where
> feedback processes exist, the possibilities of catastrophic cusps also exist,
> and the earth's biosphere, heat budget, solar albedo and geochemical balance
> are filled with such feedback loops. Predicting which one of the features of
> these loops will predominate at any one point in time is like trying to
> predict which way a piece of falling paper will flutter.
>
> An idea that appeared from disparate lines of evidence in the early 1990's
> was one called, "Snowball Earth." (see:
>
>      http://www.sciam.com/2000/0100issue/0100hoffmanbox1.html
>
> This idea that the earth was frozen over (with ice covering the oceans to
> perhaps a mile depth) for millions of years was a surprise to almost everyone
> involved with geophysics at the time, and the end of the snowball earth may
> well be linked to the evolution of multicellularity, one of the most
> pervasive mysteries left in the elucidation of life on earth. This was global
> warming on steroids.
>
> But to answer your original question, Robert Frost wrote this in 1923:
>
> "Some say the world will end in fire,
> Some say in ice.
> From what I've tasted of desire
> I hold with those who favor fire.
>
> "But if it had to perish twice,
> I think I know enough of hate
> To say that for destruction ice
> Is also great
> And would suffice."
>
> Wirt Atmar
>
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