Many people are talking about a forecast of a mini-ice age which seems to be an increasingly popular thing to predict reports Joanne Nova. (1)
The UK newspapers are full of “Maunder Freeze Coming.” (2) Britain could be on the verge of a mini-ice age as the sun enters a cooler phase, the Met office warned recently. The last big chill was felt hundreds of years ago when Frost Fairs were held on the frozen River Thames. (1)
Iceland had its coldest summer in more than than 20 years. The northern city of Akureyri fared even worse—one had to go back around thirty years to find a colder summer.
Experts now say there are growing signs that this may be much more than a weather anomaly, and has more to do with an overall developing cooling trend.
Natural cycles tied in with reduced solar activity and/or volcanic activity are claimed to be the attributable factors.
A very powerful case that the climate trend we're currently seeing is part of a product of a solar-linked cycle that creates harmless, naturally warmer weather conditions approximately every 150 years is made in a book by Singer and Avery. They maintain that there are natural cycles of cooling and warming going back to at least a million years. These are small excursions of global temperature, much smaller than the ice ages, which is why they haven't been noticed until the last 25 years or so. (3)
David Dilley gives his view: “Cooling has already begun. Alternating global warming and cooling cycles have historically occurred and ended like clockwork every 220 to 230 years, with nearly 40,000 cycles occurring during the past half million years. The last global cooling cycle began around 1795, or about 220 years ago. If the time clock strikes on time as it has over and over again throughout history, the upcoming cooling cycle has already begun in the Arctic and Antarctic.” (4)
Dilley adds: “Earth has experienced 5 global cooling cycles during the pat 1,000 years. The initial 20 to 40 years of a new global cooling cycle are historically the coldest period, and associated with the most rapid cooling. If a large volcanic eruption occurs during this period, large amounts of sulfur dioxide will be emitted into the atmosphere with the cooling cycle being exacerbated by sulfate aerosols floating in the upper atmosphere. The sulfate aerosols are highly reflective and can cool the earth for 1 to 3 years, with the end result being a year of no summer in some regions of the world.” He attributes the past 5 cooling cycles dating back to 900AD to association with strong volcanic eruptions during the initial 15 to 25 years of the cooling cycles.
Then there's the fact that solar activity is now falling more rapidly than at any time in the last 10,000 years. (5) Over the past years it has become increasingly clear that the role of the sun on climate has long been underestimated. These days the sun is getting much more attention from researchers. One reference source shows 23 papers on the sun's activities in just the first 8 months of this year, and there's still one third of a year to go. (6) Examples: “Solar activity predicted to fall 60% in 2030s, to mini-ice age levels.” (7)“Sun driven by double dynamos.” (8)
The Earth has been in a warming trend for the past 350 years, since the depth of the Little Ice Age during the Maunder Minimum, in the second half of the 1600s. This warming trend appears to be driven by solar activity—carbon dioxide didn't start increasing until 1800 or so, and didn't really get going until well after WW2 with post-war industrialization.
So. with all these predictions, perhaps the Earth is, indeed, heading into a cooler period.
Jack Dini
Livermore, CA
References
1. Joanne Nova, “Is a mini-ice age coming in 2030 and does the sun have two dynamos?” joannenova.com, July 2015
2. S. Ineson et al., “Regional climate impacts of a possible future grand solar minimum,” Nature Communications, Volume 6, Article number 7535, 2015
3. S. Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery, Unstoppable Global Warming, (New York, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2008)
4. David Dilley, “Suppressing the truth- the next global cooling cycle,” notrickszone.com, August 26, 2015
5. Lawrence Solomon, “Why humans don't have much to do with climate change,” huffingtonpost.com, June 13, 2015
6. Sebastian Luning and Fritz Vahrenholt, “What's new on solar energy? Overview fo the latest papers on complex topic of sun/climate,” notrickszone.com, September 14, 2015
7. ScienceDaily, July 9, 2015
8. “Patterns in solar variability, their planetary origin and terrestrial impacts,” Editors, N. A. Morner et al., Special Issue of Pattern Recognition in Physics, 2013
