01-05-2010, 01:37 PM
That's a theory - and not a very solid one at that.
The geological record shows that temperatures go up, stay up for a long time and then go down into an ice age. If your theory was correct, what we SHOULD see is temperatures go up and then instantly slam down into an ice age as, literally, one day the melting dumps so much water into the ocean that it stops the heat exchange.
But instead what we see are times where the earth has no glaciation -- no north pole ice, no south pole ice, no ice anywhere, then, for reasons unknown (but with lots of theories), temperatures start dropping and a new ice age starts.
Interestingly, the "ice slides into the ocean" theory of climate change seems to be a new one. Other theories seem to revolve primarily around volcanoes, especially explosive ones that puts lots of particulate matter into the atmosphere and causes global cooling, which sets off a chain reaction -- more snow, fewer plants, more reflectivity, that sort of thing.
The geological record shows that temperatures go up, stay up for a long time and then go down into an ice age. If your theory was correct, what we SHOULD see is temperatures go up and then instantly slam down into an ice age as, literally, one day the melting dumps so much water into the ocean that it stops the heat exchange.
But instead what we see are times where the earth has no glaciation -- no north pole ice, no south pole ice, no ice anywhere, then, for reasons unknown (but with lots of theories), temperatures start dropping and a new ice age starts.
Interestingly, the "ice slides into the ocean" theory of climate change seems to be a new one. Other theories seem to revolve primarily around volcanoes, especially explosive ones that puts lots of particulate matter into the atmosphere and causes global cooling, which sets off a chain reaction -- more snow, fewer plants, more reflectivity, that sort of thing.