Posted on 11/03/2013 10:57:43 AM PST by 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.
Lockwoods 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 Earths 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.
The whole global climate thing simply doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, we’ll adapt. Some people will lose money and some will make money. But, here’s the big point; humanity has zero influence over the climate. The sun is 1.3 million times larger than the Earth. We’re all microscopic nematode sh*t in comparison.
Obama is getting ready to go to war with AGW so is this possible?/s
While there is plenty of disagreement as to exact dates, no one thinks that the Little Ice Age was confined to the seventeenth century. Many would say that the years 1300 to 1850 were brackets for this climactic event.
Al Gore?
Exactly! I’ve yet to hear what the optimal global temperature is.
Once the oncoming ice age becomes undeniable, can’t wait for the spin doctors to tell us why Obama’s executive orders on global warming were a good idea after all.
Seriously, these people will be pushing global warming until the Arctic ice sheet envelopes Harvard Yard.
It's a Goresicle!
42 is the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life but I guess I wouldn’t suggest it as the optimal global temperature.
They will tell us that Obama was responsible for the polar ice to reform.
Sunspots have been very active this month. Probably the highest they’ve been this max. I thought we had passed the max.
I didn’t know this but the final and last book of the series was published back in 2009.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy
It was announced on 17 September 2008 that the author of Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer, had been commissioned to write the sixth instalment entitled And Another Thing... with the support of Jane Belson, Adams’ widow.[20][21]
The story begins as death rays bear down on Earth, and the characters awaken from a virtual reality. Zaphod picks them up shortly before they’re killed, but completely fails to escape the death beams. They are then saved by Bowerick Wowbagger, the Infinitely Prolonged, whom they agree to help kill. Zaphod travels to Asgard to get Thor’s help. In the meantime, the Vogons are heading to destroy a colony of people who also escaped Earth’s destruction, on the planet Nano. Arthur, Wowbagger, Trillian and Random head to Nano to try to stop the Vogons, and on the journey, Wowbagger and Trillian fall in love, making Wowbagger question whether or not he wants to be killed. Zaphod arrives with Thor, who then signs up to be the planet’s God. With Random’s help, Thor almost kills Wowbagger. Wowbagger, who merely loses his immortality, then marries Trillian.
Thor then stops the first Vogon attack, and apparently dies. Meanwhile, Constant Mown, son of Prostetnic Jeltz, convinces his father that the people on the planet are not citizens of Earth, but are, in fact, citizens of Nano, which means that it would be illegal to kill them. As the book draws to a close, Arthur is on his way to check out a possible university for Random, when, during a hyperspace jump, he is flung across alternate universes, has a brief encounter with Fenchurch, and ends up exactly where he’d want to be. And then the Vogons turn up again.
Just when human technology has advanced to the point where we could save earth from the deep freeze we were ruled by idiots.
Cooling warming they will twist any reality as the fault of capitalism and all it’s trappings.
“Ice Age”...
That’s so 1970’s.
It's a 33 year cycle...
You folks in Texas don’t mind that a Minnesotan (conservative!) move down there till this “blows over,” do ya?
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