Posted on 02/21/2015 4:17:47 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
A snow-mobile pulls a man on snow board on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, Massachusetts following a winter storm February 15, 2015. The U.S. Northeast struggled to dig out on Sunday from another major winter storm that made February the snowiest month in Boston's history, but bitter sub zero cold and huge drifts hampered the effort. Massive snowfall from Boston's fourth major snowstorm in two weeks set a record for the city's snowiest month since weather records were kept, the National Weather Service said. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Forget global warming, it’s more likely we’re on the cusp of another Little Ice Age than of a warming Armageddon. The brutal winter that has hammered the U.S. Northeast, Atlantic Canada, Ontario and Quebec could become the norm in the Northern Hemisphere for the next 30 years if a growing number of solar physicists are right.
Our sun goes through very predictable 11-year cycles. The current one began in 2008 and is expected to produce among the fewest sunspots and most diminished solar radiation of any of the 24 cycles that have been carefully recorded by scientists going back nearly three centuries.
And Cycle 25, which will “peak” in 2022, is expected to be the weakest cycle since the 17th century, when the Earth last encountered such a feeble sun, our planet was plunged into the depths of what has become known as the Little Ice Age.
The sun-climate connection makes perfect sense; far more sense than the theory that a buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is trapping solar radiation close to the Earth’s surface and dangerously warming the planet and changing our climate.
This is especially true because even according to the most devoted global-warming believers, a buildup of CO2 is not enough to trigger dangerous warming. Some other “forcing” factor is needed to push worldwide temperatures higher. But so far, no one knows with certainty what that factor might be. And given that global temperatures have not risen appreciably in 17 years, no forcing seems to be occurring.
Think about this: What makes daytime usually warmer than the night? Exposed spaces warmer than shady ones? Clear days warmer than cloudy ones and summer warmer than winter?
In every case, the answer is the sun.
The sun’s profound influence on Earth’s climate shouldn’t surprise anyone (although there are climate scientists who argue its influence is minimal). Sol has a mass more than 300,000 times that of Earth and a core temperature of around 15-million degrees Celsius.
And in galactic terms, the sun is just across the street.
Even small changes in the sun’s output are going to have profound influence on weather and crops on Earth, and on the advancement or retreat of glaciers, forests and deserts – perhaps even on trade, architecture, war, human population and the spread of disease.
A resting sun – the current downturn is being called a “solar lull” – should be of far greater concern than the chance (and it is only just a chance) that idling SUVs and flatulating cows will alter the atmosphere and, indirectly, increase the frequency and intensity of severe weather.
When we last witnessed a solar lull of similar magnitude (in the early decades of the 19th century), our planet had just finished a warming period not unlike that of the 20th century. The onset of what was known as the Dalton Minimum meant harsh, harsh winters in North America, Europe and Russia, along with some intense droughts and famines.
Some have even compared the slow cycles we are currently entering to the granddaddy of all solar lulls, the 17th century Maunder Minimum during which average Northern Hemispheric temperatures were nearly 2C below where they are now.
It seems unlikely temperatures will get as cold now as they did then, or for as long. In addition to greatly reduced solar activity, the 17th century also had more intense volcanic activity than any century since and more than any century dating back 1,000 years before it.
During the 1600s when the sun was weaker, there were also six “climatically significant eruptions” that expelled enough ash and particles to cause lower temps worldwide for a year or more – perhaps even for a decade in some cases.
Politicians and activists need to stop obsessing on manmade climate change and focus on what to do about three decades of COLD.
And the feet owner soooooooooooooo loves doing it
Yup, as the accompanying giggle attested to.
Was -10° here this morning, and *of course* I had an hour's worth of chores that needed doin' outside.
When the wind heard that news, it sprang to life from the NW to keep me company with a windchill of something like -22°.
Took an hour for my fingers and feet to thaw.
Just 'tween you and me, I'm damned ready to start cuttin' grass every four days again !
I hear you....
Seeing something besides white and gray would be nice.
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