I am old enough to remember the first time this eco-scare made the headlines, and scared the unwary. This report is in the Daily Mail and Fox News.
Scientists studying the rising levels of sea ice in Antarctica say the rapid accumulation in recent years could spark a potential “ice age” for the first time in more than two million years.
“Using computer simulations, the research suggests that an increase in sea ice could significantly alter the circulation of the ocean, ultimately leading to a reverse greenhouse effect as carbon dioxide levels in the ocean increase and levels in the air decrease,” reports Fox News.
“One key question in the field is still what caused the Earth to periodically cycle in and out of ice ages,” University of Chicago professor and the study’s co-author, Malte Jansen, said in a statement. “We are pretty confident that the carbon balance between the atmosphere and ocean must have changed, but we don’t quite know how or why.”
“What this suggests is that it’s a feedback loop,” said the study’s lead author, Alice Marzocchi. “As the temperature drops, less carbon is released into the atmosphere, which triggers more cooling.”
My comment: As per normal science news meant to startle those with no scientific training, I note there is no mention of the time scale across which these events might play out.
The name of the computer running the simulation is not given. It might be the famous self-aware supercomputer Geoatmospheric Informational Gigaterabyte Omnivac computer of East Anglia University we have all heard so much about, which predicted Global Warming and the Second Coming. Otherwise known as GIGO.
