Global cooling: Are we headed into a ‘little ice age?’

daily caller ^ | 10/29/2013 | Michael Bastach

[Signalman]

leading U.K. scientist.

Professor Mike Lockwood from Reading University told the BBC that at the current rate of decline in solar activity, there is a risk that Northern Europe could become much colder and enter a new “Little Ice Age.”

The “Little Ice Age” refers to a period during the 1600s when winters were harsh all across Europe. The cold weather that plagued the continent coincided with an inactive sun, called the Maunder solar minimum. Lockwood argues that during the late 20th century, the sun was unusually active, with the so-called “grand maximum” of solar activity occurring around 1985. But solar activity has decreased since then.

“By looking back at certain isotopes in ice cores, [Lockwood] has been able to determine how active the sun has been over thousands of years,” The BBC reports.” Following analysis of the data, Professor Lockwood believes solar activity is now falling more rapidly than at any time in the last 10,000 years.”

Based on these findings, Lockwood argues that there is an increased risk of a Maunder minimum; and a repeat of a “Dalton solar minimum,” which occurred in the early 1800s, is “more likely than not” to happen again.

“He believes that we are already beginning to see a change in our climate — witness the colder winters and poor summers of recent years — and that over the next few decades there could be a slide to a new Maunder minimum,” BBC reports, adding that harsh winters and cooler summers would become more frequent.

Lockwood’s research flies directly in the face of scientists who argue that human activities are causing the planet to heat up, commonly known as global warming. They argue that greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, trap heat in the planet, causing the Earth’s surface

“It is clear from extensive scientific evidence that the dominant cause of the rapid change in climate of the past half century is human-induced increases in the amount of atmospheric greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), chlorofluorocarbons, methane, and nitrous oxide,” according to the American Physical Society.

However, the globe has not significantly warmed in the last 15 years or so, leading some to criticize previous predictions made by climate scientists.

“[I]n attributing warming to man, they fail to point out that the warming has been small, and totally consistent with there being nothing to be alarmed about,” said Dr. Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

[GreyFriar]

Here we go with sun spots again. I say: If we just use the proper laundry detergent, those spots will go away when we wash the sun. There, problem solved.

[tbw2]

There is a conversation between two astronauts in Larry Niven’s book “Lucifer’s Hammer”. Are we warming or are we cooling? The other astronaut says we’re at risk of another ice age - and we’re running out of oil!
And the book was written in the 1970s.

[familyop]

My first American ancestor moved from Jersey (Europe) to Early America and started successful farming during the worst of that time.

[dhs12345]

Lol. People profit from it. That is their motivation.

[HotHunt]

[JAKraig]

Sunspots have been very active this month. . . . . .

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Well, not exactly, they have been “comparatively” active but considering that this is Solar Max iti s rather slow compared to the last 4 solar Max’s.

Many scientest consider the little ice age both the Maunder and Dalton Minimums. Personally I hope we aren’t going into a Maunder type minimum, that could cause some serious problems. Even the less severe Dalton Minimum caused Frost in July in the North East. The Dalton Minimum was one of the reasons for the great westward migration in the first half of the 19th century in the US. Farmers got fed up with having summertime frosts and decided to move to a warmer climate.

The Maunder Minimum is normally thought of to have started aproximately at the time of the Mayflour Pilgrims and lasted about a hundred years however, after only 50 years we were hit with the Dalton Minimum. The Dalton was not so deep as the Maunder but for places already in high latitudes it was enough to ruin crops and make years with no harvest.

We have a lot of people in the world to feed now, think if Europe, North Asia and Canada could not feed themselves. What would the polotical landscape look like in that senario?