XPost: alt.global-warming, sci.skeptic   
   From: jtem01@gmail.com   
      
   On 1/31/26 12:42 PM, Paul Aubrin wrote:   
   > Le 31/01/2026 à 16:59, Dawn Flood a écrit :   
   >>> NB : "Natural" systems are more or less stable over extended time   
   >>> periods, thus they cannot have have "positive feedbacks".   
   >>   
   >> What, then, ended the last ice age?   
   >   
   > Noone really knows, but astronomical parameters are probably the main   
   > cause. Feedbacks follow a cause, temperatures variations precede CO2   
   > variations. Natural systems must have a large stability margin around   
   > their current state. Systems with positive feedbacks are inherently   
   > instable or at the brink of instability (which is visible).   
      
   Well. We're inside the ice age. It never ended. The glacial period   
   ended but another one is overdue. We were already due about 3000   
   years ago or more.   
      
   Typically interglacials, like this one we're in, only lasted about   
   10k years. This one is like 12k old by NOAA dating, more like 15K   
   old by all the real science where we actually adjust for the   
   Younger Dryas cooling.   
      
   WHY western civilization has not already been scraped clean off the   
   earth by mile-plus-tall mountains of ice?  Not really going out on   
   a limb here, but I think you nailed it:  Feedback!   
      
   THAT'S THE SIMPLE ANSWER!   
      
   The real answer is that the earth hasn't experienced a VEI8 volcano   
   in all of the Holocene. Assuming the Younger Dryas Cooling wasn't   
   caused by one, which almost everyone assumes.   
      
   A VEI8 volcano exploding would throw the whole earth into a volcanic   
   winter. The equator would start recovering first, and the southern   
   hemisphere, but we're looking at a minimum of a thousand years for   
   the northern hemisphere to recover. And, once things cool down:   
      
   FEEDBACK!   
      
   What is a glacier?  A huge, very cold white thing. So it's excellent   
   at reflecting sunlight -- energy from the sun. The growth of the   
   glacier can cause glacial growth!   
      
   FEEDBACK!   
      
   Plus cold air can't hold anywhere near as much water. So if the   
   equator is warm, or at least a lot "Warmer, you still get evaporation,   
   you still get moisture into the air, but you're dropping it up north   
   where it's colder -- volcanic winter plus FEEDBACK -- which just helps   
   to drive this FEEDBACK into high gear.   
      
   Volcanoes are the climate drivers, and they do this by COOLING the   
   planet. So get a lengthy gap without major volcanic activity and the   
   planet is going to just naturally get warm. Throw in a period of an   
   over active sun and, game set match! No more glaciers...   
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
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