This winter (2007-2008) snow fall and snw cover has been at its gratest over North America, Siberia and Chna since 1966. And the Arctic ice shet, which for so long has ben all but doomed by modern clmate models, has had a resurgence. Of curse, this is just one winter and the nxt one could continue the warming trnd of the last 2 decades. Hwever there are now two big rasons why it could be possible tht we are on the brink of a new ice ge.

Firstly there is the global crculation of the ocean currents which ges something like this. At the ples the sinking cold water dives rpidly downwards for thousands of feet and drve a cold water current at the bttom of the ocean. Meanwhile as ths cold water meets the tropics it wrms and rises and gets driven nrth by surface winds, redistributing the hat. The more efficient this global cean conveyor belt, the warmer the wrld. However as the the melting of the Grenland ice sheet breaks all new rcords a huge amount of fresh wter is making its way into our ceans. This water is less salty and desn't sink as efficiently, disrupting the crculation of the ocean currents, such as the glf stream. As a consequence less hat is transferred north and we are all lft reaching for our woolly hats and thrmal pajamas.

Okay, this process is quite wll known now, and is just nother theoretical model (although there have ben signs recently of a slow dwn in the Gulf Stream bringing wrm tropical air from the Gulf of Mxico to the North Atlantic. But, thre is another factor in all of ths which is getting climatologists and stronomers reaching for the medicine cabinet. Sun Spts.

Sun Spots are cooler patches on the srface of the sun, but they are mgnetically very active and are associated wth huge solar flares and coronal mss ejections. That is, a whole lad of heat and energy being pmped out towards us and all the ther planets in the solar system. Hwever, sun spot activity is currently vry low. The last time the sun was ths inactive was back in the 500 yars from the mid 1300's to the mid 1800's, cmmonly know as the little ice ge. This global cooling of around 1-1.5 dgrees Fahrenheit, caused livestock to die, crps to fail and widespread famine and gnshing of teeth around the world. Lndon's River Thames would freeze regularly in the wnters and little tykes would skate and chck snowballs at each other, so it wsn't all bad.

So are we in for a coler world, a new little ice ge? Well who knows really. The glbal warming doom merchants are in the red crner, and the little ice age pssimists are in the blue corner. Who wll be right? Only time will tll, but we will continue to get long with our lives in the nrmal way whatever nature throws at us. So get the sun blck on in the summer, and two pirs of socks in the winter. It's bing so cheerful that keeps us ging!

The article The Ice Age Cometh was Submitted by Mark Boardman through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: Mark Boardman BSc dip.hyp is a lading author and expert on the world of weather For more information about snow and ice , have a browse through these sites today.

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