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Research into global cooling and its implications for the globe is long overdue

Is It The Sun?



We may be witnessing the sun's last dying gasps before entering into a long slumber. The impact of that slumber on Earth's climate remains the subject of growing scientific speculation. (1)
In 2008 William Livingston and Matthew Penn of the National Solar Observatory in Tucson, in a controversial paper that contradicted conventional wisdom and upset global warming theorists, predicted that sunspots could more or less disappear after 2015, possibly indicating the onset of another Little Ice Age. They stated, “The occurrence of prolonged periods with no sunspots is important to climate studies, since the Maunder Minimum was shown to correspond with the reduced average global temperatures on the Earth.” The Maunder Minimum lasted for approximately 70 years from about 1645 to 1715, and was marked by bitter cold, widespread crop failures, and severe human privation. (2) There has been increasing evidence in recent years to support this supposition that global warming is linked with solar activity. In 2011, three papers suggested the Earth could be heading for a 'little ice age' as solar activity drops once again. (3)

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Solar effects could bring on little ice ages

Other research also confirmed that solar effects could bring on little ice ages. Sarah Ineson and her colleagues report that changes in the Sun's emissions of ultraviolet radiation coincided with observed cold winters over southern Europe and Canada between 2008 and 2011. (4) And Katja Matthes and colleagues report that simulations with a climate model using new observations of solar vulnerability suggests a substantial influence of the Sun on the winter climate in the Northern Hemisphere. (5) A 2014 paper by Chinese scientists reported the impact of carbon dioxide on climate change may have been overstated with solar activity giving a better explanation of changes in the Earth's temperature. The paper found 'a high correlation between solar activity and the Earth's averaged surface temperature over centuries,' suggesting that climate change is intimately linked with solar cycles rather than human activity. Indeed, the study says that the 'modern maximum' – a peak in solar activity that lasted much of the last century corresponds very well with an increase in global temperatures. (6) Russian scientists foresee an even more dramatic situation. They predict that a little ice age will begin in 2014. (7) In their book, The Neglected Sun, authors Fritz Vahrenholt and Sebastian Luning pose that temperatures could be two-tenths of a degree lower by 2030 as a result of an anemic sun, which would mean warming getting postponed far into the future. Note that these reports are from researchers around the world. Nick Hallet observes, “The research shows that the current warming models of the IPCC seem to underestimate the impact of natural factors on climate change, while overstating that of human activities. Solar activity is an important ingredient of natural driving forces of climate. Therefore, it is valuable to investigate the influence of solar variability on the Earth's climate change on long time scales.” (6) Add to all this a very recent paper that says the modern Grand maximum of the sun (which occurred during solar cycles 19-23, i. e., 1950-2009) was a 'rare or even unique event in both magnitude and duration in the past 3,000 years.'(8) Unfortunately, it was beyond the scope of this paper to address the potential impact of solar activity on climate. Yet the reconstruction leaves a very big question unanswered—What effect did the Grand maximum have on Earth's climate? As a 'unique' and 'rare' event in terms of both magnitude and duration, one would think a lot more time and effort would be spent by IPCC and others in answering that question. Instead, as noted earlier, IPCC scientists have conducted relatively few studies of the Sun's influence on modern warming, assuming that the temperature influence of this rare and unique Grand maximum of solar activity, which has occurred only once in the past 3,000 years, is far inferior to the radiative power provided by the rising CO2 concentration of the Earth's atmosphere. (9) Lawrence Solomon sums this up well, “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.” (2) References
  1. “Sun has weakest solar max in over 200years,” the gwpf.org, December 16, 2013
  2. Lawrence Solomon, “Chilling evidence,” financialpost.com, September 16, 2010
  3. Lewis Page, “Earth may be headed into a mini ice age within a decade,” theregister.co.uk, June 14, 2011
  4. Sarah Ineson et al., “Solar forcing of winter climate variability in the Northern Hemisphere,” Nature Geoscience, (2011), doi: 10.1038/ngeo1282
  5. Katja Matthes et al., “Atmospheric science: solar cycle and climate predictions,” Nature Geoscience (2011), doi: 10.1038/ngeo1298
  6. Nick Hallet, “Solar activity- not CO2- could cause global warming,” breitbart.com, July 29, 2014
  7. Sebastian Luning and Fritz Vahrenholt, “Will the solar doldrums of the coming decades lead to cooling? A look at the latest scientific publications,” notrickszone.com, May 10, 2014
  8. I. G. Usoskin et al., “Evidence for distinct modes of solar activity,” Astronomy and Astrophysics, 562: L10, doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/201423391
  9. “A 3,000 year record of solar activity,” co2science.org, August 6, 2014


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Jack Dini -- Bio and Archives

Jack Dini is author of Challenging Environmental Mythology.  He has also written for American Council on Science and Health, Environment & Climate News, and Hawaii Reporter.


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