The danger of focusing all human effort and funding on man made global warming and forcing out any alternative thinking is that we might really miss something that is predictable and deadly. Maybe, if we know far enough in advance, some of the wasted resources that are going into cow farts and car exhaust could be used to figure out how to protect mankind until things stabilize, or food storage for extremely cold weather. How about an inevitable meteor or commit hit? We could use some of the wasted man made global warming resources on actually making a system that could detect and divert “earth killer” objects.
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Robert in Perth (soon to be back in South Africa) says:
Doug @8.42
Maunder or Dalton or a Solar Cycle 14 strength sun, a small solar cycle is alarming.
The current state of the Sun and the refusal of the Southern polar field to budge is not a good sign at all.
The state of the Danube last year points to a slowing down of the hydrological cycle in an area of historically very reliable rainfall. Cold means less evaporation and less rain unless you have access to a sea that is anomalously warm somewhere near you.
Your assessment of where it is on the planet determines how you feel the effects of a weakening sun is exactly correct.
There are vast differences between the Northern & Southern Hemispheres.
The Oceanic Heat Content, or exactly how much heat is stored in the oceans and the rate at it is lost at, (Tropical Cyclones/Hurricanes/ Typhoons such as Yasi here in Australia and El Nino’s liberate an enormous amount of heat and transfer it elsewhere), and the ocean circulation patterns when the sun begins its weakening phase is very relevant.
The cost of a Canadian heating bill in an El Nino as opposed to a La Nina winter!
The current pattern of the Gulfstream, (poor pun intended), seems to be succumbing to a renewed Labrador current already.
There many other factors such as the position of Earth’s geomagnetic poles at the time, the level of volcanism, the stage of the Milankovich cycle.
However, the fact is that the Northern Latitudes have exhibited extreme non-anthropogenic climate change (ie Natural) in the recent past that worries me.
Tree rings in Texas demonstrate mega droughts more extreme than 2011 disaster by orders of magnitude, the Vikings grew barley in Greenland not that long ago and examining the stomach contents of frozen mammoths, shows just how quickly they succumbed to a sudden change in climate.
The Mammoths did not decompose which would have happened in the ordinary course of things if a warm period had intervened.
The ability to predict the size and strength of a Solar Cycle is vital and that is why Leif deserves the accolades due to him.