Warming, cooling or dimming?

Categories: Atmosphere, Geography General
The image on the left, from Geography Pages, was used to give a high impact vision of the effects of climate change, something I'll be covering with Higher tomorrow. I'm interested to know the class views on this topic. Some people think climate change is just part of a cycle, and that we are coming out of the last ice age-compare this map with the one in the picture. On the other hand, others argue passionately that humans are accelerating climate change in a manner never before seen. When you see melting glaciers like these, or temperature changes like the ones shown on the globes, its hard to argue. However, I wonder what students thoughts are on the dip in temps from the 50s to 70s. And where's the origin of the snowy christmas card street scene from the 1800s? Why might we actually end up entering a mini ice age, and what is global dimming?
Other themes for tomorrow-Population Change, video with s3, s2 assessment return (excellent results) and some work on the peer teaching task, s4 rural revision for the prelim, and Sipsons with my other s1 class-Episode can be found here, thanks to Helen on sln. Finally, if Val manages to find this post, thanks very much for the info you forwarded for my student re: his architecture interview at Dundee. I have tried mailing you several times, but my yahoo mail account is being very stubborn....