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RE: Climate change vs BANDits



> From: owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu [mailto:owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu] 
> On Behalf Of jrc
>
> I think one only has to look at temperatures during the 
> Maunder Minimum to realize that it isn't particularly cold 
> this year.  My present worry is that the present, 
> indisputable warming trend is going to shut down the Atlantic 
> conveyor and trigger another ice age -- but then, I always 
> was a worry-wart.

First off, shut down of thermohaline circulation only triggers a Younger
Dryas-like cold snap, not a full-on ice age. (Okay, a millenium of horrid
conditions for the northern Northern Hemisphere, but still no Laurentide or
Fennoscandian icesheets, so there's that).

Also, my understanding of the current status of the system is that we would
be more likely to get a southward shift and decrease of intensity of the
flow, but not the cessation of it within the 21st Century. Next century,
maybe, but not this one...

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Email: tholtz@umd.edu   Phone: 301-405-4084
Office: Centreville 1216                        
Senior Lecturer, Vertebrate Paleontology
Dept. of Geology, University of Maryland
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/
Fax: 301-314-9661               

Faculty Director, Earth, Life & Time Program, College Park Scholars
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/eltsite/
Faculty Director, Science & Global Change Program, College Park Scholars
http://www.geol.umd.edu/sgc
Fax: 301-314-9843

Mailing Address:        Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                        Department of Geology
                        Building 237, Room 1117
                        University of Maryland
                        College Park, MD 20742 USA