Earth facing a mini-Ice Age 'within ten years'

[Pepperman]

It's worth reading this piece from November by Mike Lockwood on the matter:

What is most interesting for me is the current decline in solar activity. The "exceptional" low minimum in the 11-year solar cycle seen in 2008/9, and the subsequent weakness of the current solar cycle, are both part of a steady decline that has been going on since about 1985. This has returned the sun to conditions last seen around 1910.

If we compare this to records of solar activity derived from isotopes stored in tree trunks and ice sheets we find this decline is faster than any in the last 9,000 years, increasing the probability that the sun will return to Maunder minimum conditions within about 50 years.

So what do we think the effect of a return to Maunder minimum conditions on global mean temperatures would be? The answer is very little.

I recommend reading the whole article.

[kenneal - lagger]

Thanks, Pepperman, for that article. I have been convinced for some time after reading the paper by Landsheidt that we were heading for a Maunder Minimum type event in the next few years but it is interesting to read what a Maunder Minimum event really is. Our last two or three winters would seem to fit the bill admirably. come to think of it the summers also fit in with extremes of weather inflicted by changes to the jet stream.

This winter would also fit Lockwood's description of a blocking event causing unusually cold weather but this year it's the US which is receiving the "benefit" of the cold and we're getting the warmth, so far! Meanwhile, warming is still going on underneath this and possibly reducing the depth of cold which the northern hemisphere is experiencing on occasions.

It would seem that we are in for more extremes of weather for a while yet.

[snow hope]

So if you will not accept the fact that global temperatures have not risen over the last 13 years, despite ever increasing CO2 rises, does not cause doubt on GHG causality, then would you accept that if global temperatures don't rise over the coming 13 years, that it may cause some doubt?

A lot of negatives in there but the important point is that global temperatures, i.e. the total heat of the planet, has continued to increase. If you're talking about average surface temperature measurements, well that's like diagnosing influenza by holding a thermometer between your toes. 93% of the excess heat trapped by anthropogenic greenhouse gasses is in the ocean, much of it too deep to be measured.
But hey, what am I doing wasting my time on this?

You are becoming a master at not answering questions Biff, very similar to how the politicians operate - but I wouldn't want you to waste any more of your precious time.....

[RenewableCandy]

Snow, there now appears to be a maunder-type minimum in the Sunspot Cycle. That will cool things. Increasing CO_2 levels will heat things up. The net effect of both will probably be a lot of people like you saying "well, nothing's happened"...until, erm, something happens!

[RenewableCandy]

But, just in case things do hot up, the Police in London have apparently been asking to borrow your (NI) water-canon. And NI have (quite rightly imho) told them to feck orf.

[biffvernon]

Snow, there now appears to be a maunder-type minimum in the Sunspot Cycle. That will cool things. Increasing CO_2 levels will heat things up. The net effect of both will probably be a lot of people like you saying "well, nothing's happened"...until, erm, something happens!

The trouble is that the solar variance is about one order of magnitude smaller than the effect of anthropogenic greenhouse gasses.

So we might go up 0.9 degrees instead of 1.0 degrees. Big Deal.

[kenneal - lagger]

That may be so but if it is enough to cause the current winter in the US and the two past winters that we have suffered and it is not acknowledged and explained people will think that global warming is a con, as many do already.

Comments like "Oh Lord, the denialist have crept out again. Bonkers." do not help this perception. There is a climate effect from variance in solar output and even if it is only minimal and local it must be acknowledged and explained not swept under the carpet or denigrated. To denigrate any science that you might find inconvenient is to invite denigration of the science that you hold dear.

[biffvernon]

if it is enough to cause the current winter in the US

It behoves he who makes that suggestion to provide evidence of the causal association. Failing that, the idea also falls into my classification of bonkers.

[UndercoverElephant]

So if you will not accept the fact that global temperatures have not risen over the last 13 years, despite ever increasing CO2 rises, does not cause doubt on GHG causality, then would you accept that if global temperatures don't rise over the coming 13 years, that it may cause some doubt?

A lot of negatives in there but the important point is that global temperatures, i.e. the total heat of the planet, has continued to increase. If you're talking about average surface temperature measurements, well that's like diagnosing influenza by holding a thermometer between your toes. 93% of the excess heat trapped by anthropogenic greenhouse gasses is in the ocean, much of it too deep to be measured.
But hey, what am I doing wasting my time on this?

You are becoming a master at not answering questions Biff, very similar to how the politicians operate - but I wouldn't want you to waste any more of your precious time.....

You're right - he's not at all good at giving a straight answer to a straight question. So I will do so instead. The answer to your question is "Almost certainly no, and absolutely no unless there is a radical and totally unexpected scientific reversal in the field of climatology."

Climate change deniers, yourself included, have a fundamental misunderstanding about the way science works. I'm not a climate scientist. Neither is Biff Vernon. Neither are you. But there are a large number of active climate scientists out there publishing peer-reviewed papers about contemporary research into the topic of climate change.

Now...scientists don't always get things right. Climate change itself has provided ample evidence that there are people out there willing to do anything, including offering large amounts of money, to any scientist willing to try to publish evidence casting doubt on the reality of human-induced climate change. And yet even with this attempt to subvert the natural process of scientific progress, the amount of papers supporting the anti-climate-change position is tending towards zero.

Scientists also sometimes let ideology get in the way of proper science. A good example is Richard Dawkins, who has strayed a long way from his home turf of evolutionary biology and started making pronouncements about religion and philosophy, sometimes blissfully unaware of the fact that he's overstepped the mark by quite some margin. But this sort of scenario does not apply to climate change - nobody is saying that climatology is not a legitimate topic for scientists to make claims about.

At the end of the day, what scientists really care about is science, and especially about their own careers and being recognised by their peers as good, or hopefully very good or great, scientists. And they know that if they make a mistake, that it is likely to get noticed. And they also know that if a whole group of scientists have missed something important, or got something wrong, then the one(s) who point out the problem and put everybody right will carve out a place for themselves in scientific history. It's a big prize for them.

The result of all this? We should trust scientists. If all the scientists in a particular field agree on X and none (or tending towards none) cast any doubt at all on X then, as non-experts in that field, we are duty-bound as rational, educated people to accept what they say. That is how science works, and why science is different to politics, religion and all the other things that aren't science.

And it doesn't stop there. The truth is that there is no mystery why some people try to deny that humans are causing climate change, and it has nothing to do with finding out the truth. Instead it has everything to do with denial (because it is bad news and people don't want it to be true) and politics (because if it is true then certain people will be forced, against their will, to change their political position on certain issues).

Put that all together and there is no justification whatsoever, at the current moment in time, for doubting that humans are causing climate change. And if you think otherwise then I don't believe you are thinking about what I've posted above. Instead, you are thinking about it some other way - some way where your own intuition, or your political inclinations, or those of other non-scientists, are illegitimately over-riding proper science.

As for what happens in thirteen years? It is not completely impossible that a combination of observations and radical changes in the relevant science might justify a change of view on this. Very, very occasionally something like this happens in science (an example was the state of physics at the end of the 19th century, just before the discovery of quantum mechanics, when nearly all physicists were convinced that physics was nearly "finished" and just needed a few loose ends tied up - nobody was expecting the discovery of an entirely new branch of physics that would change the world forever). However, the fact that you are thinking about this now, and trying to get Biff to admit it is a possibility, further suggests that you are thinking about it wrongly. You're trying to put the cart before the horse. You are trying to find ways to deny that humans are causing climate change instead of accepting the science at face value. And that is why you are being given such a hard time about it by the majority of people here.

[emordnilap]

[clv101]

That's a great post UE. Spot on.

[emordnilap]

Perhaps the people offering the money to fund climate denial are not offering enough.

Which leads me to think that they think it's not worth it. Let's face it, even with all the evidence in, nothing is being - or going to be - done about it.

If something truly challenging was being seriously implemented (not just talked about) - TEQs perhaps or a deliberate and legislated fossil fuel reduction programme - then you'd see the money.

[biffvernon]

The trouble with TEQs is that they can only be introduced by a government that takes global warming and peak oil seriously.

[clv101]

The trouble with TEQs is that they can only be introduced by a government that takes global warming and peak oil seriously.

Maybe you give government's too much weight. The problem is the people, not the governments. The maximum power princuple goes way beyond governments.

[biffvernon]

Well, I'm sure you're right, but could you summarise that article in, say, about 50 words, please.

Meanwhile, since we have (obviously!) a government for the people by the people, when I said TEQs can only be introduced by a government that takes global warming and peak oil seriously, I should have also said that that implies that TEQs can only be introduced in a nation whose people that take global warming and peak oil seriously.