An Ice Age Is Coming and It’s not Milankovic Who says it, but...!
"Glaciers are retreating, Greenland is blooming with flowers, Arctic ice is disappearing,
sea levels are rising... Stop global warming or the Earth will die!"
This, more or less, is the relentless message we've been bombarded with daily for years.
Everyone says it, so why shouldn't we believe it?
Only a few persist in claiming that the anthropogenic origin of global warming is
merely an unproven conjecture, deduced solely from complex computer programs known as General
Circulation Models. On the contrary, scientific literature has increasingly
highlighted the presence of natural climate variability that these models fail to reproduce.
This natural variability explains a significant portion of the global warming observed since 1850.
The anthropogenic responsibility for the observed climate change in the last century
is therefore unjustifiably exaggerated, and the catastrophic predictions are unrealistic.
The climate is the most complex system on our planet, requiring appropriate and
coherent approaches commensurate with its level of complexity. According to the minority of "climate
change skeptics," climate simulation models do not reproduce the observed natural climate
variability, particularly failing to reconstruct the warm periods of the last 10,000 years. These
periods recurred roughly every thousand years and include the well-known Medieval Warm Period,
the Roman Warm Period, and generally extended warm periods during the Holocene Optimum. These
past periods were even warmer than the present, despite lower CO2 concentrations than today, and
are linked to millennial cycles of solar activity. Whom should we listen to? Shall we discuss it?
First and foremost, proponents of imminent climate catastrophe should confine their claims to the
"possible extinction" of the human species, rather than the death of the entire planet
and biological life in general. Our Earth has been around for about four and a half billion
years and has witnessed climate changes of such magnitude that the current one (assuming it's
real) resembles the bite of a microscopic fly. No, the Earth cannot die or fall ill due to human
activities... let's not fool ourselves. We may believe we are powerful and invincible, but we
are utterly at the mercy of natural phenomena, to which our presence means next to nothing.
Let's consider the magnificent evolution of dinosaurs, who thrived for around 180 million
years, only to be devastated by the impact of a mere 10 km diameter asteroid. Even worse would be
the effects of a standard explosion of a giant star at a distance not too far from our Sun.
No, the Earth is not dying, nor is it ailing... it continues its incredibly adventurous existence,
never identical to itself and ready, if necessary, to nurture life once again,
something it has done several times before. In fact, Earth's recent past has revealed
cycles of substantial fluctuations in average global temperature. The most evident proof
is found in glaciations, which seem to have occurred approximately every 100,000 years.
Between glaciations and even during them, notable short-term variations
have persisted, capable of entirely altering the conditions under which life could survive.
In essence, until about 10,000 years ago, glaciations affected Europe at intervals
of several thousand years within the overarching 100,000-year cycle.
Our lives literally revolve around cycles: sequences of events that repeat in the same
order. There are hundreds of different types of cycles in our world and the universe.
Some are natural, like the change of seasons, the annual migrations of animals,
or the circadian rhythms that govern our sleep patterns. Others are human-made,
like the planting and harvesting of crops, musical rhythms, or economic cycles.
What could have generated the alternation between glaciations and thawing on Earth? The answer
emerged in the early 20th century from the work of Serbian mathematician Milutin Milanković. Through
his studies, he was convinced that the entire cycle of major glaciations over the past millions
of years could be described by considering that the Sun, Earth, and other planets are
not perfect billiard balls moving in perpetually identical orbits and rotating in the same manner.
Everything changes in the universe, everything is in a constant state of becoming. Specifically,
Earth's orbital path is currently nearly circular, with an eccentricity of around 0.0167.
However, that "nearly" implies that the difference between aphelion and
perihelion is approximately 5 million kilometers! Not only that... In a cycle of about 92,000 years,
the eccentricity of Earth's orbit can vary up to a value of 0.058 due to gravitational
interactions with other planets... resulting in a difference between aphelion and perihelion
that can extend up to 17 million kilometers! Another significant variation is the tilt
of Earth's rotation axis to the plane of the ecliptic, currently at 23.4 degrees,
which oscillates from 22.5 to 24.5 degrees in approximately 41,000 years. The third major
variation involves the orientation of the axis, caused by the phenomenon known as the precession
of the equinoxes. This leads to the shifting of the equinox line over time, rotating clockwise
and completing a full 360-degree cycle in about 25,800 years. Consequently, Earth
assumes opposite inclinations about every 12,900 years concerning the direction of fixed stars.
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These astronomical cycles influence the amount of solar energy that reaches Earth during different
seasons and latitudes. For instance, when Earth's axis is more inclined, the temperature differences
between seasons become more pronounced, while a less inclined axis results in more uniform
seasons. Additionally, orbital eccentricity brings about variations in the total amount of
solar energy Earth receives throughout the year. The combined effects of these cycles can lead to
significant changes in Earth's climate. When the variations synchronize in such a way that solar
energy is concentrated in the northern hemisphere during summer months, warmer periods, known as
interglacial periods, can occur. During these times, glaciers retreat, and sea levels rise.
Conversely, when variations lead to reduced solar energy in the northern regions,
glacial periods can take place, characterized by extensive ice coverage and lowered sea levels.
In this regard, it's crucial to understand that the alternation between glacial and
interglacial periods is dictated by seemingly minor temperature variations.
Consider that the average temperature during a glacial period is only 4-6°C lower than
the average temperature during an interglacial period. Nevertheless, the observable effects are
striking. During glacial periods, life on Earth becomes rather inhospitable. Thick ice sheets,
much like those present at the Poles today, extend over large portions of the Earth's hemispheres,
covering much of North America and Europe, as well as parts of Asia and South America.
With a greater amount of water stored in glaciers, sea levels significantly decrease.
It is estimated, for instance, that during the last glacial period, the average sea level dropped
by approximately 120 meters, transforming the Baltic Sea into a lake or turning the
United Kingdom into a peninsula inhabited by mammoths and massive hairy rhinoceroses.
During interglacial periods like the present one, on the other hand, the climate becomes
considerably milder. Northern Europe largely frees itself from ice, and sea levels rise.
The connection between Milanković cycles and Earth's climate has been
demonstrated through the analysis of climatic data and geological evidence.
Ice layers, marine sediments, and carbonate deposits in caves contain valuable information
about climate variation over millennia, which can be compared to astronomical cycles.
And thus, over the past two decades, Milanković's theory has become the
ultimate bastion against the thesis of global warming attributed to human activity.
With limited success, it must be admitted, because although absolutely proven, the theory of cycles
by the Serbian mathematician can only account for long-term climatic changes... those brought
about by major glaciations, interspersed with periods of thousands of years. Thus,
proponents of human-induced climate change, who are propagating the idea of warming that,
they claim, has risen in a few decades, have had an easy time countering the deniers' arguments.
If an alternative theory to anthropogenic global warming is to be found, Milanković's
cycles cannot provide any assistance. But hold on a moment... is it really
true that in the past there haven't been episodes of climatic changes occurring over a few decades?
If that were not the case, one of the fundamental assumptions of the thesis of warming caused by
human activity would crumble... What climatic changes could the presence of medieval or even
Neolithic humans have triggered? And we didn't choose these two
historical periods randomly! Do you remember the so-called
"Iceman" (Oetzi, as he was nicknamed by the discoverers), who lived 5,000 years
ago and whose mummified remains were found in 1991 amidst the thawing ice of the Italian
Alps at an altitude of around 3,200 meters? What was Ötzi? A hunter? A shepherd? Well...
it's hard to say. But he certainly wasn't a mountaineer climbing to those altitudes...
what do you think? And indeed, there's something strange about this story...
Think about it: ten thousand years ago, the Alps were still covered in ice, amid a glaciation,
yet just a few centuries later, there was a Neolithic villager already at 3,200 meters
altitude, pursued by someone who managed to kill him with an arrow in the back.
Well, it's difficult for us to imagine that Ötzi lost his life in the snow and ice.
Much more likely, he closed his eyes forever in an environment where a sudden warming period had
already cleared those altitudes of snow. This means that by 3000 BC, a tremendous thaw had
already occurred, allowing people to move freely from Austria to Italy at very high altitudes.
A thaw certainly larger than today's... and moreover, it happened in a very short time!
Blaming humans for that as well? Hard to believe, isn't it?
And then, how do we explain the subsequent rapid drop in temperatures that must have occurred,
causing Ötzi's remains to be covered by ice until our days?
So, it's not true that short-term climate
variations don't exist. Earth's entire history is literally filled with them,
and they all occurred entirely naturally, without the aid or blame of human beings!
Similar episodes have repeated themselves even in periods closer to our own... It's almost needless
to recall the sudden warm period lasting from 1000 to 1300, which allowed the Viking Erik the
Red to colonize Greenland and then discover America... Or the cold period that disrupted
Europe and the entire northern hemisphere from 1645 to 1715, known as the "Maunder Minimum"...
Currently, there's a phase of modest warming, although few remember that in the 1970s,
there was talk of unbearable cold about to descend upon the Earth:
there were even thoughts of covering the North Pole with coal dust.
However, the catastrophists seem increasingly convinced, having won over the favor of
the media and politics, that a kind of Armageddon is coming due to human activity.
On the other hand, the Sun has certainly been experiencing a low level of sunspot activity
for some years now, almost completely disappearing, just as it did during that
"Maunder Minimum" which brought about 70 years of intense cold between the 17th and 18th centuries.
And in fact, some scientists speculate that this could be the beginning of a
periodic solar event called the "grand minimum," while others argue that there's
not enough evidence to support such a position. During a grand minimum, solar magnetism decreases,
sunspots appear rarely, and less ultraviolet radiation reaches Earth. Grand minima can last
from several decades to centuries, just like the Maunder Minimum did.
In short, the confusion is significant, even if Al Gore's descendants pretend
to be right a priori... So, just to summarize and clarify our thoughts,
the situation between the two factions is more or less like this:
Milanković's astronomical cycles explain long-term climate changes quite well,
but not short-term ones.
Global warming proponents say that changes as rapid as what we're experiencing now
have never occurred before, and they blame fossil fuel usage...
Climate change skeptics, on the other hand, present evidence of equally rapid climate changes
that occurred in periods when human activity couldn't have influenced the environment.
So, how do we sort this out? Is there something we've overlooked? Perhaps volcanoes,
with their massive and uncontrollable carbon dioxide emissions? That could be true,
but catastrophists turn a deaf ear to this and say (mistakenly, but we'll give them
the benefit of the doubt) that there haven't been eruptions violent enough in the last 50 years...
Perhaps another major neglected factor is continental drift?
There's no doubt that the gathering or parting of continental masses can heavily impact the climate,
but these are changes that only occur over tens of millions of years...
Is there really nothing else we should consider? Well, it almost sounds ridiculous to say it,
but in all this debate, there's not a trace of the influence that the
only true energy source of the entire solar system can have on Earth's climate: the Sun!
Catastrophists, with their tangled mathematical models, have considered it,
but have underestimated its role to a paltry 7.5%, trying to attribute the occurrence of
short periods of warmth and cold recorded over the past two thousand years to other causes.
Climate change skeptics, however, have relied too heavily on the Milanković
cycles for their arguments, which unfortunately only fit long-term
variations and don't account for changes in the Sun's luminosity.
The Sun, in fact, doesn't always shine at the same level of luminosity but slightly
dims or brightens – to the tune of 0.1% – during an approximately 11-year cycle.
Throughout this period, the Sun undergoes various changes in its activity and appearance.
Solar radiation levels increase or decrease, as do the amounts
of material the Sun emits into space and the size and number of sunspots and solar flares.
These changes have a variety of effects in space, on Earth's atmosphere, and on the Earth's surface.
Until now, the scientific community lacked conclusive evidence of a connection between
solar variability and climatic changes. However, a new study from the National Center for Atmospheric
Research shows, for the first time, a correlation between the end of solar cycles and one of the
periodic meteorological phenomena that occur on Earth: the transition from El Niño to La Niña,
which is the atmospheric shift from warming (El Niño) to cooling (La Niña) of the waters
in the Central-Eastern Pacific Ocean. Thus, the study suggests a guiding role of solar
variability on the meteorological changes within the Earth's system.
This connection between solar cycles and ocean currents might also explain the recent peak in
warming observed in recent years, exonerating at least in part anthropogenic activity.
But the battle continues. It's a battle where, unfortunately, we don't know who the enemy is.
Vast interests are at stake, and from all this, one can derive the bitter
impression that even science has been put up for sale to the highest bidder.