That point of no return is a lie. The sun will add energy, even if most of it bounces off. This energy has nowhere to go and will accumulate until the ice melts.
It has holes in the theory, but it may hold up. What with the reflecting dealy.
~Squeek
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That point of no return is a lie.
a lie? what it means is that the white color of the ice will reflect much heat. just as if you have a white car and a black car, and they're both outside on a hot summer day, the white car will be cooler than the black car. it has been proven that dark colors absorb more heat. the heat goes somewhere, yes, but it isn't the white car. the sun won't start sending us more heat just because we're freezing, either..
sunlight hits the equator and the area around it more than anywhere else on earth. that's why the point of no return exists: if the ice gets that far, it won't be stopped because from there on, it only gets colder because more and more light is reflected and less heat absorbed.
i wasn't planning on starting a debate, but if you want to debate something, go here and debate these guys: http://www-eps.harvard.edu/people/faculty/hoffman/snowball_paper.html .. i'm not an expert on the subject, i just thought it was an interesting idea.
Hmm....I'd think with all the 'greenhousing' we're doing now, all that reflected heat would still get trapped in the atmosphere... [:P]
it's still possible for the snowball earth theory to take place. being 1 or 2 degrees warmer, though making a pretty big difference, wouldn't be able to stop an ice age, where the earth is 10 to 20 degrees colder.
but maybe we should work on that. support killing the ozone, move to canada or southern south america, and save the earth from becoming a snowball [;)]
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Originally posted by no_leaf_clover
it's still possible for the snowball earth theory to take place. being 1 or 2 degrees warmer, though making a pretty big difference, wouldn't be able to stop an ice age, where the earth is 10 to 20 degrees colder.
Oh yeah, that's a good point. [8)]
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but maybe we should work on that. support killing the ozone, move to canada or southern south america, and save the earth from becoming a snowball [;)]
Hahahahaa!!!
i saw this on the discovery channel a few weeks ago and i found it a really eerie idea whether or not it will ever happen to us in the future..
the earth comes and goes through ice ages regularly in a large cycle. while trying to explain how evidence for glaciers ended up near the equator, a mathematician discovered that if, during an ice age, glaciers got too close to the equator, that there would be a 'point of no return' and the earth would become permanently frozen over in ice forever, or until some outside force intervened. after that certain point, the shiny white ice would reflect away a lot of the sunlight earth receives, causing the earth to grow colder. as the earth got colder, the glaciers would move in closer the equator. this would reflect even more sunlight, until eventually, the earth would be so cold, that ice would move in and cover the equator. then the earth would just get colder and colder and colder until reaching a point where thermal heat is all that's warming the earth. the earth would appear a small white snowball in space.
sorry for all the grammatical errors.. changing of tenses and such.. but that is a pretty eerie idea, to me, anyway... thought i'd share. [:)]