After experiencing the "quick-freezing mode" in China in the past two days, it has now quickly entered the "warming mode". The scale of this warming is not inferior to the cooling of the previous two days, which can't help but make people believe that the previous ** for the warm winter seems to be accurate.
However, if we look to the future, the trend of climate warming may change, and some even believe that it is not impossible to usher in an ice age in the short term. What kind of changes will the Earth's temperature experience in the future? Will the Ice Age come again?
In the movie "The Day After Tomorrow", the earth is in a state of flash freezing in just a few days, but in fact, scientists do not think that the temperature will cool down so quickly. However, in recent years, some scientists believe that the earth is about to cool down overall. Earlier, some scientists even proposed a specific timetable, saying that the earth will usher in the Xiaoice period in 2030.
This is from a team of scientists from the United Kingdom who presented the results of their study of solar cycles based on a new model at a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society in the summer of 2015. The new research model allows scientists to focus on the sun's surface and convective regions, and found that solar activity will reduce by 60% by 2030.
As solar activity gradually weakens, the Earth's temperature will drop accordingly, and the overall temperature will fall, and the Xiaoice period seems to be officially coming.
Scientists have observed that the sun's activity changes periodically. A new model proposed by a team of researchers speculates that the scale of solar activity will peak in the 25th cycle of solar activity, and that the peak of this cycle will be around 2022. At present, the Sun is still in this cycle of activity, and the electromagnetic waves of its surface and convective regions begin to cancel each other out. However, from 2030 to 2040, solar activity will enter the 26th cycle, and the electromagnetic wave activity in the surface and convective regions will no longer be synchronized, resulting in a decrease in the scale of solar activity. Scientists believe that once such a pattern emerges, the interaction of electromagnetic waves will be destructive and may affect the Earth's temperature, similar to the change in temperature during the "Mondstadt minimum". The Mondstadt Minimum refers to the 70-year Xiaoice period in history, during which temperatures generally drop and all rivers in the UK freeze over winter. Oil paintings from the time show the British gliding down the frozen River Thames. Recent studies have shown that the Mondstadt minimum, when solar activity was indeed very weak, while the Earth was in the midst of a Xiaoice period. However, the modern scientific community has not yet clearly determined whether there is a necessary correlation between the two. According to previous ** by British scientists, if solar activity does weaken in 2030, the overall temperature of the Earth could drop accordingly.
The above ** is based on solar activity considerations. In addition to this, some scientists believe that changes in the Earth's orbit can also cause drastic fluctuations in the Earth's surface temperature.
There are periodic changes in the earth's temperature, which is generally recognized by the scientific community. According to previous Antarctic core analysis, the global temperature has been changing continuously over the past 420,000 years, showing a clear cyclical pattern.
Some scientists point out that the cycle of alternating hot and cold is about 100,000 to 120,000 years. Among them, 10,000 years is the warm period and 90,000 years is the cold period. Studies in the 20th century have shown that the Earth is at 1The maximum temperature was reached 70,000 years ago, and the temperature continued to cool after that.
It is estimated that the global warm period has ended, and there will be a longer cold period in the future. This process will evolve gradually, not suddenly.
Scientists who agree with this view believe that neither human activity nor large-scale volcanic eruptions can change the overall temperature trend of the planet.
In other words, although we have been talking about rising temperatures, the increase in carbon emissions caused by human activities will not reverse the trend of continuous decline in the earth's temperature.
Back in the 70s of the last century, the idea of a cooling global climate began to emerge in the scientific community. At the time, some scientists even warned that the Earth had passed the warm period 500 years after the last Xiaoice period, and that the warm period was coming to an end, and that the Xiaoice could come again, leading to a drop in global temperatures and overall climate change.
As a result, some scientists insist that the Earth in the 21st century could usher in a Xiaoice Age. Combined with the idea of weakening solar activity put forward by scientists in 2015, it seems that there will be some overlap in the trend of declining global temperature and solar activity.
Of course, the above views and ** represent only one possibility, not 100% conclusion. Over the years, the idea of a cooler climate has been marginalized as the idea of global warming has become mainstream.
To test this idea, scientists have been searching the world for evidence. For example, more than a decade ago, the Northern Hemisphere experienced a massive cold snap that caused temperatures to drop dramatically, while the Arctic ice sheet increased rather than melted.
At present, we are in the 21st century, and whether there will be a Xiaoice period, scientists' views are still unclear. Looking back at the natural disaster of low temperature freezing rain in China in 2008, domestic meteorologists at that time believed that the main factors affecting the climate were still natural factors, and human activities were not enough to affect the basic attributes of regional climate.
The history of the Earth shows that the climate is constantly changing, and there is never a situation of stagnation. According to current research, the Earth's temperature changes can be broadly divided into three main phases.
Climate change in geological time occurred mainly between 10,000 and 2.2 billion years ago. Scientists observe that this phase is characterized by alternating glacial and interglacial periods.
From 10,000 years ago to the present day, the climate known as the historical period is also known as the post-glacial climate. The last one or two hundred years are called modern climate, which refers to the climatic conditions for which meteorological observations have been recorded.
This division is only a general trend, and climate change is also very pronounced at different times. Current research by scientists is mainly focused on this period of time 10,000 years from now.
Scientists in Norway have studied how the country's snow line has changed over the past 10,000 years. They found that the snow line varied widely during this time, suggesting that the world's climate has also experienced large fluctuations.
Scientists' research shows that from 5000 BC to 1500 BC, the global climate was generally pleasant, with average temperatures 3 to 4 degrees Celsius warmer than today.
However, from the 15th century onwards, the global climate entered a relatively cold mode, especially between 1550 and 1850, when average temperatures were 1 to 2 degrees Celsius cooler than they are today.
Whether it is up or down, purely numerical terms, the magnitude of the change does not seem to be very large. However, temperature fluctuations have a huge impact on the whole world, especially such global temperature fluctuations, which have a wide range of impacts.
From the perspective of climate change in China, in the past 5,000 years, China has experienced at least four warm periods and four relatively cold periods. For example, in the early days, the average temperature was about 2 degrees Celsius warmer than it is now, and the overall climate was warmer.
Then, from 1000 BC onwards, the climate began to fluctuate significantly between hot and cold. Since then, the most obvious feature of climate change in China has been that the warm period has become shorter and the magnitude of warming has gradually decreased.
So, historically, the overall climate is indeed shifting from warm to cold. However, since the beginning of modern society, the global temperature has fluctuated significantly.
In the Arctic, for example, between 1919 and 1928, the Barents Sea was 8 degrees Celsius warmer than in previous years. By the 30s of the last century, there were even thermophilic fish in that area.
However, this trend did not continue, and the global climate began to cool again in the 40s of the last century. Temperatures in the Arctic are getting colder, and by the 60s of the last century, the waters between Iceland and Greenland were frozen. There was even a phenomenon of polar bears walking directly from Greenland to Iceland on the ice.
However, this trend is not set in stone. By the 70s, global temperatures were starting to show signs of rising. After the 80s, this upward trend became more pronounced.
It should be emphasized that the idea of global warming also gradually surfaced in the 70s. According to some new ideas, some scientists believe that human activity is responsible for the rise in temperatures.
Therefore, from the perspective of changes in the Earth's overall climate, temperature fluctuations are a general trend, not an eternal phenomenon. Today, the main disagreement in the scientific community is whether recent temperature changes are the result of the Earth's natural climate. Or is it caused by human activity?
The use of fossil fuels exacerbates carbon dioxide emissions, and the greenhouse effect is further exacerbated as the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases. In terms of this causal relationship, the upward trend in global temperatures is evident and is likely to continue to rise in the future.
However, a fundamental question is whether human activities can have a fundamental reversal of global climate change. Human civilization as a whole has only existed for a few thousand years, while the geological history of the earth is billions of years, and climate change is also a long-term process. Under these circumstances, it is difficult for modern humans to determine whether their activities will have an impact on the planet in the future.
In addition, it is equally difficult to compare and verify how long global warming trends will continue, and how their magnitude will differ from historical climates.
As a result, the temperature rise during this period is relatively isolated, and some scientists believe that it is not entirely due to human activities.
Overall, the real focus of disagreement among scientists is whether human activity will reverse climate change. People who believe that the climate will continue to warm will naturally believe that human activities will have an impact on the global climate.
With regard to the cooling of the climate, it seems that the future will not be able to change this situation from the perspective of cyclical laws. But like the former, people today can't be accurate**, and only after climate change occurs, future generations can summarize the law.
Therefore, whether the climate is warming or cooling, and whether the cooling will follow the cyclical laws of the past, people in each era can only feel and experience it according to the actual situation.
From this point of view, humanity today is calling for the protection of the planet, or more precisely, for humanity itself. After all, if human activities do not have any impact on the Earth's climate, how the Earth's climate will change in the future depends entirely on the Earth itself, and we cannot compete with it.