Question: is it possible for us to enter a new ice-age anytime soon???

Carys Cook answered on 14 Jun 2011:

Now that is an excellent question! Despite all of our concerns about global warming, there has been a lot of debate about if and when we will have another ice age. First of all, ice ages in the past have occured as a result of changes in the way the Earth rotates around the sun, resulting in different amounts of solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface at different times (like the difference between winter and summer, but over much longer timescales). The orbit of Earth goes through regular changes, basically due to the gravitational effects of Jupiter and Saturn and the Sun. One of these changes happen every 20,000 years, and this is exacty the timing between ice ages on Earth. Cool, eh? So, we are currently in a period between two ice ages, and if the climate was left to itself we wouldnt have another for at least 10,000 years in the future. BUT………thats not the whole picture, as human driven global warming may cause this regular pattern to stop. There are different parts of the Earth’s climate that will respond to global warming in very strange ways that are very difficult to predict. One theory is that it will cause a mini-ice age in Northern Europe, but global warming will probably be large enough to make this quite a warm mini-ice age! Any more questions, fire away!!