Chaos-Shaman wrote:there is a good chance that we'll be slightly cooler in 20 years. they believe that once there is enough CO2 in the upper atmosphere, it switches at some point and begins a cooling phase, our ice age will start. so CO2 is actually gonna trigger an ice age. who knows, it's not my proffesion, nor do i have the crystall ball for it either, but hopefully i'll be around in 20 years to see if we have warmed or cooled, we'll see. it's not the end of the world, and CO2 has good things too, but nobody wants to know that.
if you take a look at the image below, it shows the ocean currents in the Atlantic ocean:
If you look on the left side of the image, you will see a red line that represents a warm current, that flows up the east cost of South America, loops through the Gulf of Mexico (which is where this current gets its name "the Gulf Stream" from) and then continues NE across the Atlantic Ocean over to the west coast of Europe before veering west in the Arctic Ocean and eventually heading back south down the Maritime Provinces on the east coast of Canada. As the line turns blue, that means the current is cooling and becomes a cold current. This current is responsible for most of Europe, especially Northern Europe and Scandinavia being as warm as it is. This current, on it's cooler southward section, helps keep the tropical regions of North and South America cooler then they would otherwise be.
Why is this important? Well, this current is in large part regulated by the salinity (salt content) of the sea water. So as global temperatures warm, and most importantly, as polar ice caps melt and increase the volume of water in the oceans, the sea water becomes less salty, as the same amount of salt is now spread out over a larger amount of water (ie the ocean water becomes diluted by too much fresh water). This can affect currents like the Gulf Stream and slow it down, so that it has less of an effect on climate. Many other ocean currents would also be similarly affected. Without these currents to redistribute heat from the equator to the poles and cold from the poles to the equator, the regions near the equator would get hotter, and the regions near the poles would get colder, which would trigger and ice age.
So when climatologists talk about global cooling that is most commonly what they are referring to. That global warming will melt too much ice, which will lead to too much fresh water mixing with ocean water, which will make the oceans less salty, which will slow major ocean currents (like the Gulf Stream), which will lead to major temperature imbalances on a global scale, which will lead to rapid (in geological terms) cooling and eventually and ice age.
As far as the reports of global temperatures having cooled a bit a couple of years ago, I'll remind people that this was the result of a series of major volcanic eruptions, especially in Iceland, but there was also a series of major eruptions in the Caribbean as well, all of which release a massive amount of ash into the upper atmosphere, enough to block some of the sun's energy, triggering a temporary volcanic shift. This was merely the result of a series of closely packed natural disasters. This does not mean that we are not causing a change in the Earth's climate, as some would have us believe. It is what it is, a temporary change in climate causes by a series of volcanic eruptions that were powerful enough to affect the climate for a short while. Call it a lucky break, by slowing the trend in rising temperatures, and in some areas even reversed it, it's bought us some more time to make the necessary changes to halt global warming or any other form of human caused climate changes and lessen the effects of them.
no kidding! 
I still can't figure out those Wuufish genders at all. 
... I'm so confused... 
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