A word about the duration of the Gore-Hansen Minimum.
First off, the day count was based the appearance of a Cycle 24 sunspot THAT MAY HAVE NEVER BEEN (it was not facing the Earth and it’s “detection” was by indirect means that are not accurate).
With that in mind, I’m bringing up the following data:
The current solar cycle, SC23, has been officially in progress since May of 1996 - or 147 months. The average length of solar cycles for the last 2 centuries is 133 months, so SC23 has been going on for 15 months LONGER than average (roughly 450 days).
However, each of the 5 previous cycles (SC18 to SC22) averaged only 125 months
There is a strong correlation between the length of solar cycles and global temperatures that I’ve heard expressed as “A cycle that is 4 months longer can be expected to yield a temperature lower by 0.1C .” Conversely, a shorter cycle correlates to global warming.
If you consider this correlation, you would expect a drop in global temperatures relative to the mean: not quite a .4C drop in mean temperature as things drag out.
This last is less than the observed drop in temperatures so the correlation may need adjustment or the relationship may be non-linear due to inherent time lag in the system (mainly because of the oceans).
In other words, both global warming and cooling may be predicted without considering the greenhouse effect as the principal cause.
Also, technically I could start saying that the Gore-Hansen Minimum is more than 450 days old ... if I wanted to.
My thanks to AFPhys for the heads up.
He posted a link to some discussion here: http://www.tmgnow.com/repository/solar/lassen1.html