BARTON: Sending us back to 1875
On Guns And Climate, The Elites Are Out Of Touch
Global Warming on Free Republic
Posted on 05/10/2009 7:05:20 PM PDT by Signalman
Washington, May 5 (ANI): Some scientists say the prolonged lull in solar activity hints towards the next “Little Ice Age”, which could occur in the near future.
The sun is the least active it’s been in decades and the dimmest in a hundred years.
The lull is causing some scientists to recall the Little Ice Age, an unusual cold spell in Europe and North America, which lasted from about 1300 to 1850.
The coldest period of the Little Ice Age, between 1645 and 1715, has been linked to a deep dip in solar storms known as the Maunder Minimum.
During that time, access to Greenland was largely cut off by ice, and canals in Holland routinely froze solid.
Glaciers in the Alps engulfed whole villages, and sea ice increased so much that no open water flowed around Iceland in the year 1695.
For hundreds of years, scientists have used the number of observable sunspots to trace the sun’s roughly 11-year cycles of activity.
Sunspots, which can be visible without a telescope, are dark regions that indicate intense magnetic activity on the sun’s surface.
Such solar storms send bursts of charged particles hurtling toward Earth that can spark auroras, disrupt satellites, and even knock out electrical grids.
In the current cycle, 2008 was supposed to have been the low point, and this year the sunspot numbers should have begun to climb.
But of the first 90 days of 2009, 78 have been sunspot free. Researchers also say the sun is the dimmest it’s been in a hundred years.
The Maunder Minimum corresponded to a profound lull in sunspots. Astronomers at the time recorded just 50 in a 30-year period.
If the sun again sinks into a similar depression, at least one preliminary model has suggested that cool spots could crop up in regions of Europe, the United States, and Siberia.
According to Jeffrey Hall, an astronomer and associate director at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, during the previous event, though, many parts of the world were not affected at all.
“Even a grand minimum like that was not having a global effect,” he said.
Scientists say that even if the current solar lull is the beginning of a prolonged quiet, the star’s effects on climate will pale in contrast with the influence of human-made greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2). (ANI)
Nobody seems to be talking about the possibility we're really approaching a "Big Ice Age."
For the last few million years the earth's climate has consisted of roughly 100k year long ice ages, interspersed with roughly 10,000 year long interglacial periods.
We're about 12,000 years into the present interglacial. Why couldn't the present cooling be the start of something really big?
What if man's present carbon contribution to the atmosphere is actually delaying the start of the next ice age?
hmmm just normal cycles...like we were all taught in school...well except al gores school....
BARTON: Sending us back to 1875
On Guns And Climate, The Elites Are Out Of Touch
Global Warming on Free Republic
Thank God we’re creating a little warming now.
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The “Little Ice Age” WAS world wide, as nearly every study since 2000 has demonstrated. It appears to have been on the order of 2-3F cooler (an 8C drop would be major Ice Age territory.) Earlier data was somewhat questionable, but now that it we realize that Bristle-Cone pine studies are of no use to serve as temperature proxies, it is very clear that both the Medieval Warm Period, and the Little Ice Age were world wide events. See Junk Science, and Anthony Watts’ sites for the data. The “scientist” cited in this article has not kept up with the field. http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Wikipedia:Little_ice_age includes references to some of the evidence for this, but is by no means definitive.
Quite a few scientists have stated things like “the next Ice Age could start any century now”. I agree with that. We are quite overdue, thank goodness, as can be seen from temperature graphs using ice core proxies. I suspect that being ‘overdue’ will simply mean that the fall in temperatures early will occur more rapidly. However, that is MERE opinion, and based on nothing I would call science, but simply history. The reason we may be “overdue” likely stems primarily from man’s changing the albedo of the planet a bit due to agriculture, and the Sun being quite warm, until the last decade. I hope it continues being warm.
As far as the Sun’s role: This article- http://www.tmgnow.com/repository/solar/lassen1.html -shows that there is a correlation in Solar Cycle length with Earth temperature. It amounts to -0.1C every 4months the Solar Cycle is longer. During the years 1944-May’96 the cycle averaged 125months. If the current “Dec’08 Minimum” ends up being accurate, Solar Cycle 23 will have lasted 151months... This would imply a (151-125)/(4mo/0.1C) = 0.65C lower than the last half of the 20th Century SIMPLY DUE to the Sun’s activity.
If this comes to pass during this coming 5-10 years, the global temperatures will virtually be the same as they were in the early 1900s.
Time, and the data will tell the truth here. I see no reason to hype anything until we see what that truth is.
Back when I was a youth the rising CO2 levels were thought to indicate a coming ice age.....................
Spotless years & Pacific Decadal Oscillation and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation
http://solarcycle24com.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=globalwarming&thread=319&page=1
the April number for AMO is not out yet, but AMO has dipped negitive January, Feb. and March
-yeah, if the sun went totally quiet, according to this, we would still have gorebull warming, all because of man-made CO2, which is less then 1% of a trace gas!
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