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

[kenneal - lagger]

The sun is heading into an unusual and extended period of hibernation

I think they were talking about the paper, not the big yellow shiny thing

Unfortunately, they were not.

[RenewableCandy]

Here's a definition of a mini ice age of which I was previously unaware!

[biffvernon]

Sure - the reason I mentioned this paper is that it adds a little new insight into this open area.

This was discussed with the paper's author on Material World, Radio 4 this afternoon.

There are many accounts of extremely severe winters across Northern Europe a few hundred years ago. Frost fairs were held on the frozen River Thames and the period is sometimes called the little ice age. But exactly when it began and what triggered it has been a mystery. Some have suggested a drop in the suns output associated with a lull in the sunspot cycle that began in the 17th century.

But now, Prof Gifford Miller of the University of Colorado at Boulder has dated the start of the cold period to a brief spell at the end of the 13th century. He did this by dating plant remains killed by advancing ice on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic and he believes the events were triggered by explosive volcanic eruptions.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01bb9d4#synopsis

[2 As and a B]

Now look at this graph:

Source for that pretty graph please...

[2 As and a B]

This was discussed with the paper's author on Material World, Radio 4 this afternoon.

There are many accounts of extremely severe winters across Northern Europe a few hundred years ago. Frost fairs were held on the frozen River Thames and the period is sometimes called the little ice age. But exactly when it began and what triggered it has been a mystery. Some have suggested a drop in the suns output associated with a lull in the sunspot cycle that began in the 17th century.

But now, Prof Gifford Miller of the University of Colorado at Boulder has dated the start of the cold period to a brief spell at the end of the 13th century. He did this by dating plant remains killed by advancing ice on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic and he believes the events were triggered by explosive volcanic eruptions.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01bb9d4#synopsis

Hmm... I'd have more faith if it had said he had dated layers of volcanic ash to the end of the 13th century. Still, we must all have belief. And "But exactly when it began ... " is an exactly ignorant statement.

I've just finished Brian Fagan's "The Little Ice Age". Actually, I'd finished that a few weeks back and have now just finished his "The Long Summer". Both are well worth a read.

The Little Ice Age by anthropology professor Brian Fagan of the University of California at Santa Barbara tells of the plight of European peasants during the 1300 to 1850 chill: famines, hypothermia, bread riots, and the rise of despotic leaders brutalizing an increasingly dispirited peasantry. In the late 17th century, writes Fagan, agriculture had dropped off so dramatically that "Alpine villagers lived on bread made from ground nutshells mixed with barley and oat flour." [33] Historian Wolfgang Behringer has linked intensive witch-hunting episodes in Europe to agricultural failures during the Little Ice Age.[34]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age

Fagan mentions witches as well. As it happens, I'm now reading the Very Short Introduction to Witchcraft - the next book on the top of the reading pile.

[kenneal - lagger]

We'll see over the next twenty years which hypothesis is correct, won't we, or whether it is a mixture of a number of factors. There are quite a number of lines of research going on which could help explain the Little Ice Age and the related Minimums which have been identified throughout that period. The effect of cosmic rays on the earth's weather is being looked at as one possibility.

[cubes]

Now look at this graph:

If this graph is anything to go by the temperatures increased before the CO2 went up... Also note the lack of corresponding temperature rise with the massive change in CO2. I conclude that global warming is a hoax, we're all saved!

[biffvernon]

Little Ice Age. Some would have it a severe phase of it started in about 1650. I've just been listening to Radio 4's serialisation of the Diaries of Samuel Pepys. An entry in December 1662 describes his excitement at a waking to find a covering of snow, which he had not seen in the three previous winters.

[UndercoverElephant]

Now look at this graph:

Source for that pretty graph please...

Unavailable, because I found it in a link from another forum. I don't know where the original of this one came from, but this chart is standard stuff. There's nothing controversial in it. The link between CO2 concentrations and temperature is well established.

[UndercoverElephant]

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMa ... 453&page=1

Dr. Alley then discusses that the physics that govern how CO2 absorbs and re-emits heat energy, when plugged into state-of-the-art climate models, show that about half of the observed 5 - 6°C natural warming that occurred since the last ice age ended was due to extra CO2 added to the atmosphere. At the peak of the Ice Age, CO2 was about 190 ppm. By the end, it was about 280 ppm (Figure 1). Earth's orbital variations "forced" a warming, which caused more CO2 to escape from swamps and oceans, with a time lag of several centuries. The increased CO2 reinforced the warming, to double what it would have been otherwise--a positive feedback loop. "Higher CO2 may be forcing or feedback--a CO2 molecule is radiatively active regardless of how it got there", says Dr. Alley. "A CO2 molecule does not remember why it is there--it only remembers that it is there". In other words, the fact that higher CO2 levels did not trigger an end to the Ice Age does not mean that the CO2 had no warming effect. Half of the the observed 5 - 6°C natural warming that occurred since the last ice age ended was due to the extra CO2 added to the atmosphere. So, the irate PSU alumnus was half right. The CO2 does lag temperature. However, we can only explain approximately half of the warming since the last ice age ended if we leave out the increase in CO2 that has occurred. "If higher CO2 warms, Earth's climate history makes sense, with CO2 having caused or amplified the main changes. If CO2 doesn't warm, we have to explain why the physicists are so stupid, and we also have no way to explain how a lot of really inexplicable climate events happened over Earth's history. It's really that simple. We don't have any plausible alternative to that at this point".

[JavaScriptDonkey]

Pretty graph.

Try these two,





Fascinating paper hosted over at Watts that'll give you a whole new set of things to worry about.

How about this taster,

"Thus, we hypothesize that the observed mega-cooling of Earth since the early Eocene was due to a 53% net loss of atmosphere to Space brought about by a reduction in mantle degasing as a result of a slowdown in continental drifts and ocean floor spreading."

Full abstract,

"Abstract

We present results from a new critical review of the atmospheric Greenhouse (GH) concept. Three main problems are identified with the current GH theory. It is demonstrated that thermodynamic principles based on the Gas Law need be invoked to fully explain the Natural Greenhouse Effect. We show via a novel analysis of planetary climates in the solar system that the physical nature of the so-called GH effect is a Pressure-induced Thermal Enhancement (PTE), which is independent of the atmospheric chemical composition. This finding leads to a new and very different paradigm of climate controls. Results from our research are combined with those from other studies to propose a new Unified Theory of Climate, which explains a number of phenomena that the current theory fails to explain. Implications of the new paradigm for predicting future climate trends are briefly discussed."

Even the weigh of opinion of millions of eco-warriors cannae change the laws of physics.

[2 As and a B]

Fascinating paper hosted over at Watts that'll give you a whole new set of things to worry about.

How was this research funded? Has the paper been published in a recognised journal? Has it been peer-reviewed?

[snow hope]

Fascinating paper hosted over at Watts that'll give you a whole new set of things to worry about.

How was this research funded? Has the paper been published in a recognised journal? Has it been peer-reviewed?

That's always the fallback when you don't like what you see.....

Now that is one bit of interesting research by two scientists with PHDs and working for the USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fort Collins CO, USA. I see this was presented at the Open Science Conference of the World Climate Research Program, 24 October 2011, Denver CO, USA

Having just read what is quite a mathematical oriented paper, it makes much more sense to me that the (rather weak) AGW Theory. At last for some real Physics!

Good find JSD! It will be interesting to see what our fellow PSers make of it.

[UndercoverElephant]

Good find JSD! It will be interesting to see what our fellow PSers make of it.

My initial reaction is that you didn't bother to dig very deeply, you just agreed with it because the conclusion supports your pre-decided climate change skepticism.*

*denial.

[UndercoverElephant]

Fascinating paper hosted over at Watts that'll give you a whole new set of things to worry about.

How was this research funded? Has the paper been published in a recognised journal? Has it been peer-reviewed?

That's always the fallback when you don't like what you see.....

Nope, it is an entirely justified reaction from anyone who has spent the last twenty years watching the putrid stream of propaganda being produced by climate change skeptics.*

*denialists.