The next ice age

If enough cold, fresh water coming from the melting polar ice caps and the melting glaciers of Greenland flows into the northern Atlantic, it will shut down the Gulf Stream, which keeps Europe and northeastern North America warm (http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0130-11.htm). The worst-case scenario would be a full-blown return of the last ice age in a period as short as 2 to 3 years from its onset and the mid-case scenario would be a period like the "little ice age" of a few centuries ago that disrupted worldwide weather patterns leading to extremely harsh winters, droughts, worldwide desertification, crop failures, and wars around the world (http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0130-11.htm). The next ice age is more than 15,000 years away, according to evidence from an Antarctic ice core, the deepest and oldest ever extracted (http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1128898.htm).