AGW Might Delay the Next Ice Age by a Little Bit... 50K years or so.

http://reason.com/blog/2016/01/14/good-news-man-made-global-warming-delays

Researchers associated with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research have just published a new study in Nature claiming that because of man-made global warming, the next ice age will start 100,000 years rather than just 50,000 years from now. During the last glacial maximum about 21,000 years ago, glaciers covered about 25 percent of the Earth's land area and sea level was more than 400 feet lower than today. Global average temperature was about was 3°C to 5°C cooler than the present. The rhythm of ice ages over the past 3 million years or so is related to how predictable changes in the Earth's orbit affects the amount of sunlight hitting the northern hemisphere. During the last ice age levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere fell to below 200 parts per million.

What I found most interesting in the study is that the researchers suggest that we barely missed entering a new ice age a couple of hundred years ago:

Using an ensemble of simulations generated by an Earth system model of intermediate complexity constrained by palaeoclimatic data, we suggest that glacial inception was narrowly missed before the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The missed inception can be accounted for by the combined effect of relatively high late-Holocene CO concentrations and the low orbital eccentricity of the Earth.

I've said it before... but it may turn out that the human industrial age saved the human species. 180ppm co2 is dangerously low.

http://francistapon.com/Travels/Continental-Divide-Trail/Earth-s-History-Compressed-in-One-Year#$$o0rhc0&&zAO0ULfDEeWsMgrv9vvCyw$$

Earth's history compressedin one year

January, February, and March would be good months to stay in your cabin. The Earth’s environment was chaotic. Incessant wind and rain would erode away barren mountains faster than a plastic surgeon can erode away Michael Jackson’s nose.

Life would spring forth on April Fools Day! Sure, these single-celled organisms would be stuck in the warm coastal waters and by the thermal vents, but we’ll take what we can get. Before the end of the month multi-cellular life would pop up.

In early May Trilobites (hard shelled creatures) would start feeding on all the multi-cellular life. By the end of the month, small vertebrates would start feeding on the Trilobites. All you can eat restaurants were invented.

Where would the Continental Divide be in June? It wouldn’t be a thrusting mass of mountains that I am walking on today. Quite the opposite! It would be a broad channel of water. You could ride your kayak down the channel! In fact, if you flew over North America in June, you’d see that 60 percent of the land is underwater. Would you see forests of trees on the land? Nope, you wouldn’t even see moss clinging to the ubiquitous rocks. Zero plant life. However, it wouldn’t be a static boring rock-filled landscape. It would be constantly eroding, pummeled by endless torrential rains that make the south-east Asian monsoons seem like a drizzle.

Half the year would go by and still no life on the land.

Finally, around the middle of July, very slowly, the first plants would gain a precarious foothold on land. For every plant that latches on the land, many will get washed away by the endless rain. The struggle of the plants to get established lasts for weeks, but they finally settle down. Vegetarians aren’t far behind.

In August the seas are crowded with fish. A few claustrophobic ones develop crude lungs, call themselves amphibians, and get timeshares on the land.

In early September insects show up. Since CDT hikers hadn’t been invented yet, the mosquito started bugging the first reptiles. By the end of the month, dinosaurs start to stomp around and will continue stomping for 150 million years.

In October the Appalachian mountain range starts to rise and will be far higher than any other mountain range in the USA today. You wouldn’t find cozy shelters every 10 miles on the Appalachian Trail. But you might see packs of dinosaurs chasing the pathetic looking mammals that just start to appear. The dinosaurs thought these mammals were great snacks.

The Continental Divide would be impossible to recognize in early November. Instead of the Rocky Mountains stretching out as far as the eye can see, you’d see a massive sea that stretched from the Arctic to the Gulf of Mexico! The most memorable event of this month is when an asteroid the size of Manhattan Island strikes the Yucatan with a force of 100 million megatons. The impact would release a heat pulse that would set off fires across the planet. The result: a planetary dinosaur barbecue. Their “two month” reign comes to an abrupt end. In the last days of November the Rocky Mountains would finally start to rise and tower over the surrounding land. The CDT wasn’t well marked then either.

In December you’d see the rapid proliferation of mammals. On Christmas Day the Colorado River would start its tedious process of slicing the Grand Canyon.

The sun would rise on December 31 and still no sign of humans. Finally, around noon, somewhere in Africa, the first clumsy hominids would stand up. During the last hours of the year, you’d see massive sheets of ice, as tall as mountains, cover America and Euroasia. Like an accordion, you’d see the ice sheets (glaciers) come and go four times in just a few hours. It would look like a global warming yo-yo gone wild.

With one hour to go before the year ends, the Neanderthal shows up to the primate party. At 23:30 the French start showing off their artistic talent: Cro-Magnon man draws cool paintings in some caves. At 23:45 homo sapiens figure out how to make weapons of mass destruction: sharp knives and spears.

Around 23:55 civilization begins. Prostitution shortly follows. Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans each spend a minute building touristy buildings. At 23:58 and 43 seconds, Jesus tells everyone to behave. We kill him a nanosecond later.

With just 20 seconds to go before the year draws to a close, Columbus bumps into America. Dick Clark is born and starts making a living counting down the seconds to the New Year. “Just 7 seconds to go!” announces Dick, and Americans sign the Declaration of Independence.