New Scientist: CO2 Emissions have Delayed the Next Glacial Period
9 hours ago
Essay by Eric Worrall
“… We might even be currently living at what would have been the onset of this next glacial period …”
We now know how much emissions have delayed the next glacial period
Changes in Earth’s orbit drive long-term glacial cycles, but a new forecast suggests this ancient pattern is being disrupted for tens of thousands of years due to human-induced global warming
By James Dinneen
27 February 2025
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Where previous studies tried to link changes in orbit to specific periods like the onset of an ice age, Stephen Barker at Cardiff University, UK and his colleagues took a new tack. They looked at the overall patterns of how glacial periods, also called ice ages, fade and return during the intervening “interglacials”. This enabled them to link changes in orbit with changes in ice – despite fuzziness in the ice record over the past million years.
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The phasing of obliquity and precession that preceded the Holocene suggests glaciation would be likely to be well underway between 4300 and 11,100 years from now. We might even be currently living at what would have been the onset of this next glacial period. “Of course, that’s only in a natural scenario,” says Barker.
The more than 1.5 trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide humans have emitted into the atmosphere since the industrial revolution are expected to cause enough warming to disrupt this long-term glacial cycle.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/03/02/new-scientist-co2-emissions-have-delayed-the-next-glacial-period/
