Solar activity is now falling more rapidly than at any time in the last 10,000 years reports Lawrence Solomon.
This prompts him to ask: “Will temperatures on Earth be dropping until the year 2100 to Little Ice Age levels, as Horst-Joachim Ludecke, a scientist at Germany's Saarland University predicted? Or will the temperatures only plunge until 2060, as Habibullo Abdussamatov, the head of Russia's Pulkovo Observatory predicted? Or has the cooling already begun, and might it end as soon as 2030 as claimed by Anastasios Tsonis, head of the Atmospheric Science Group at the University of Wisconsin?” (1)
Add to this a recent study published in Nature that predicts the Earth is about to go through a major climactic shift that could mean decades of cooler temperatures and fewer hurricanes hitting the United States. (2)
It isn't just recently that some researchers have suggested we were heading for a Little Ice Age. Earlier reports summarized results from numerous researchers around the world. (3,4)
The accumulation of evidence from scientists relying on celestial rather than man-made explanations for changes to the global climate has led even the BBC, an ardent advocate of the man-made global warming theory, to credit the sun.
Britain's Met Office's Hadley Center, which looks at long term forecasts, said there was a 15-20 percent chance that temperatures could match those last seen in 1645-1715—sometimes called the Little Ice Age—when the River Thames froze over. This could result form the Sun entering a cooler phase. (5)
This could take place at some point within the next 40 years. The prediction is based on counting sun spots—dark patches on the sun—that are spots and signs of increased solar activity. The cooling effect is expected to be strongest in northern Europe, the UK and eastern parts of North America—particularly during winter. For example, for northern Europe, the cooling is in the range of -0.4 to -0.8 C. (5)
The sun is known to be the main driver of all weather and climate. With 99.86% of the mass in our solar system, the great ball of violent fire in the sky has recently gone quiet in what is likely the weakest sunspot cycle in more than a century and actually flat-lined in recent weeks. Weak solar cycles, like the current one, have been associated with benign 'space weather' that can cause a Little Ice Age. (6)
There have been two notable historical periods with decades-long episodes of low solar activity. The first period is known as the Maunder Minimum, named after the solar astronomer Edward Maunder, and lasting from around 1645 to 1715. The second one is referred to as the Dalton Minimum, named for English meteorologist John Dalton and lasted from about 1790 to 1830. Both historical periods coincided with colder-than-normal global temperatures and are often referred to by scientists as the Little Ice Age. (6)
The current historically weak solar cycle is a continuation of the twenty-year downward trend in sunspot cycle strength that began in Solar Cycle 22 (we are currently in Solar Cycle 24). This would explain the recent many years pause in the rise of global mean temperatures.
Let's look at the data of Habibullo Abdussamatov of the Pulkovo Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He continues an analysis he has long pursued, which constistently arrives at the same conclusion: Earth is now entering a new Little Ice Age. (7)
Abdussamatov's model incorporates the Sun's 200-year cycles and the feedback effects from greenhouse gases released by the oceans, and shows how they acted on Earth's previous 18 Little Ice Ages. All 18 periods of significant climate changes found during the last 7,500 years were entirely caused by corresponding quasi-bicentennial variations of total solar irradiance together with the subsequent feedback effects, which always control and totally determine cyclic mechanisms of climatic changes from global warming to Little Ice Age. If the 19th Little Ice Age follows the pattern of the previous 18, Earth slipped into an ice age in the winter just concluded and will become progressively colder over the next 50 years, reaching its depth around 2060. (7)
In reality, there is nothing new here: the Earth's climate has warmed and cooled nine times in the past 12,000 years in lock step with the waxing and waning of the Sun's magnetic activity. (8)
Lawrence Solomon summed this up well back in 2010: “The upshot for scientists and world leaders should be clear, particularly since other scientists in recent years have published analyses that also indicate that global cooling could be on its way. Climate can and does change toward colder periods as well as warmer ones. Over the last 20 years, some $80 billion has been spent on research dominated by the assumption that global temperatures will rise. Very little research has investigated the consequences of the very live possibility that temperatures will plummet. Research into global cooling and its implications for the globe is long overdue.” (9)
Jack Dini
References
1. Lawrence Solomon, “Why humans don't have much to do with climate change,”
huffingtonpost.com, June 13, 2015
2. Gerard D. McCarthy et al., “Ocean impact on decadal Atlantic climate variability revealed by sea- level observations,”
Nature, doi:10.1038/nature14491, May 27, 2015
3. Jack Dini, “Is an ice age coming?”,
Canada Free Press, October 24, 2011
4. Jack Dini, “Is it the sun?”,
Canada Free Press, August 6, 2014
5. Colin Fernandez, “Wrap up, a mini ice age may be heading our way! Met Office issues warning that temperatures could plummet as Sun enters cooler phase,”
dailymail.co, June 23, 2015
6. Chriss Street, “Hello Al Gore: low sun spot cycle could mean another Little Ice Age,”
American Thinker, May 6, 2015
7. Lawrence Solomon, “Global warming doomsayers take notice—Earth's 19th Little Ice Age has begun,”
business.financialpost.com, March 27, 2015
8. Gerard Bond et al., “Persistent solar influence on North Atlantic climate during the Holocene,”
Science, 294, 2130, December 10, 2001
9. Lawrence Solomon, “Chilling evidence,”
financial post.com, September 16, 2010
