This graph is really showing ocean temperatures based on ice volume used to estimate surface temperatures. Fakes pretend that air temperature determines ice melt, but it's oceans that melt polar ice.

There is much information about ice ages in recent climate events. The cause of ice ages is the most important question. To know when the next ice age will begin and what the beginning looks like is necessary in recognizing signs, because the next ice age is scheduled to begin any time. The beginning could be any time over the next thousand years, but that includes now. The process could be starting already. So this question is much more relevant than the fake climate change attributed to carbon dioxide.

Evidence is accumulating to show that an ice age is triggered by increased precipitation caused by warmer oceans. Once an ice age is triggered, it proceeds rapidly, as the sun's energy gets reflected off the accumulating ice and back into space.

What is becoming visible is that snow accumulation occurs not when air temperatures get cold but when moisture enters the air through warmer ocean water.

For example, over the past year, temperatures in the northern hemisphere have gotten very cold for reasons which have not yet been determined through measurement but which appear to be due to a massive heat loss when a large amount of Arctic ice melted over recent years. Some of the heat may have escaped into space due to high level precipitation, but to a large extent, the heat appears to have been absorbed into the melting ice.

The sun's energy has been reduced over recent years, but this effect is more gradual than the sudden drop in temperature over the past 18 months.

A very important fact about this subject is that climate is all about ocean temperatures. This point is largely missed, because propagandists focus only on atmospheric temperatures and ignore ocean temperatures. In part, the error is due to the fact that atmospheric temperatures are much easier to measure. But now there is also a motive: Propagandists are trying to convince themselves and others that near-surface air temperatures are increasing and destroying the planet. It's like the mafia which only wants to talk about their taxes and doesn't want to talk about extortion at the fish market.

Here is a key point observed recently: Cold Arctic air has been burying England in snow, because the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean has been warm and putting moisture into the air over England. But the Northern Plains of the U.S.A. have been cold and dry, and California in a drought, because the Pacific Ocean has been in an El Nina state (the water being cold) and putting little moisture into the air. In other words, the snowfall is determined by the temperature of the nearby ocean, not the temperature of the air. The moisture has to get into the air before it can form snow, and ocean temperature determines how much moisture is in the air.

To trigger an ice age, there has to be a lot of snow on the ground to reflect away sunlight. There has to be warm ocean water to get the moisture into the air. Therefore, the cause of ice ages appears to be warm ocean water, not cold air temperature.

There is much evidence that the visible climate change over the past 30 years has been created by increased ocean temperature. Warmer and shorter winters have generally been visible everywhere along with increase precipitation. This change has moved the corn belt in the Midwest of the U.S.A. further west into the prairies. Corn and soybean production has increased as a result. I observe this from a farm on the upper plains, where the effects have been dramatic.

But it all started to turn around in 1998. Air temperature stopped increasing, and droughts started to occur. Almost unnoticeably at the time, Arctic ice started to disappear. Within a few years, the disappearance of Arctic ice became so extreme that it sent CO2 propagandists into a panic. The tipping point may have occurred, and we may all be doomed by 2030 instead of 2100.

Then it all flipped upside down 18 months ago showing the truth of the matter. Extreme cold developed in the Arctic and turned the open Arctic Ocean back into ice. Supposedly, this is all due to air currents which control climate change—about like elves and trolls are the cause.

Arctic Ice melted because of warm ocean water going over the Bering Strait. Warm ocean water is what melts ice over water, not wind, except for a few small surface effects where warm air comes off warm water. Water has the heat capacity, and it is in direct contact with the ice. These simple points were obvious and without question several decades ago, when there was real science. During the sixties, real scientists were concerned that warm Pacific ocean water would flow over the Bering Strait and melt the Artic ice triggering an ice age. Sure enough, warm Pacific ocean water started flowed over the Bering Strait in 1998 and melted the Arctic ice. Will it trigger an ice age? Probably due less to Arctic ice melting than the Pacific Ocean warming, but they are closely linked phenomena.

What we are seeing now is that after ten years of Arctic ice melting, a whiplash reversal occurred. Such reversals seem to be an invariable part of climate change due to the large amount of self-regulation in the climate. The reason why the reversal occurred appears to be that melting Arctic ice cooled the ocean water back down and reversed the trend toward a warmer climate. The total amount of heat involved may not have changed much; it's just a question of where the heat is located and what it is doing. Much heat seems to have disappeared, but it's probably just spread around, mostly in the oceans; and some may have disappeared into space through precipitation.

So is this the end of "climate change"? Will the planet now be colder instead of warmer? Whatever was causing the oceans to warm before 1998 is probably still doing so. The temperature increase will probably be visible in another ten years.

The assumption of so-called deniers (scientists who do not buy into the CO2 fraud) is that this is all controlled by the amount of energy given off by the sun. Certainly, that factor is important, but there appears to be a larger and longer lasting effect which is controlling ice age cycles. Maybe the sun has a long term cycle which controls ice ages; but probably not, because the present pattern of ice ages occurring every 100,000 years has only been happening for a million years. That short of a pattern points to something about planet earth rather than the sun. The heat which causes oceans to warm on a long-term scale appears to be coming from inside the earth rather than from the sun.

Addendum (April 4, 2009)

It's possible that the next ice age was triggered in 2008. The winter of 08-09 produced a lot of snow in many places. Increased snow means more heat would be lost due to reflection of sunlight. The increase in heat loss might cause more snow to fall next winter, and the result could be precipitous.

What's happening is that there is a lot of moisture in the air due to oceans warming over the past 30 years. Now the northern atmosphere appears to be cooling down. With oceans putting moisture into the air, while the northern atmosphere cools, a lot of snowfall occurs, which reflects away more sunshine and removes more heat from the atmosphere.

The trigger would have been the large amount of Arctic ice melting over the past few years. Melting ice cools the surrounding water, which cools the surrounding air. This moves heat from oceans to atmosphere, and from atmosphere into space.

But this is a surface effect located around the north pole and northern Pacific Ocean. So the rest of the oceans stay warm, including the deep oceans, southern areas and Gulf Stream, which keeps a lot of moisture in the air. Oceans putting moisture in the air, while a cold northern region causes it to form snow, appears to be the cause of an ice age.

External Links:
missing heat — NPR, March 19, 2008
CO2 absorbed by colder oceans — Anthony Watts, March 21, 2009
Data on Cool-Down (PDF) — Matt Vooro, March 23, 2009