Thread: Climate

Greetings all,
A little more info.
Currently we are within an interglacial period of a larger ice age that has been ongoing for around 2.6 million years. The interglacial period has been ongoing for about 12,000 years and the whole of civilisation as we know it has developed within that time. Average world temperatures have fluctuated over time with warm and cooler spells. For most of the last 2,000 years the world has been cooling but from the middle of last century it has been getting hotter and even more so for the last few decades.
What triggers the movement from an ice age, where we are now, and a warm period where there is no ice at the poles is debated but is thought to involve increases in solar output together with cyclic earth orbit changes. This is thought to trigger melting of permafrost where large amounts of carbon dioxide and methane plus the same released from the oceans. Things get hotter and hotter and sea levels rise significantly, enough to drown most of our coastal cities. We don't want to go there.
So why is someone approaching their 75th birthday rabbiting on about this? My grandchildren came to visit recently. They are 17. They will be my age in 2080. What will the world look like then. It is tempting to put our head in the sand and ignore inconvenient truths ( giving Al Gore a plug). Doing so however allows reality to give us a stout kick in a tender place.
Regards Grandpamac.