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

[Lord Beria3]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... ivity.html

The sun is heading into an unusual and extended period of hibernation that could trigger a mini-Ice Age on Earth, scientists claim. A decrease in global warming might result in the years after 2020, the approximate time when sunspots are expected to disappear for years, maybe even decades.
While the effects of a calmer sun are mostly good - there'd be fewer disruptions of satellites and power systems - it could see a sharp turnaround in global warming.

Lead researcher Frank Hill, of the National Solar Observatory, said: 'The solar cycle is maybe going into hiatus, sort of like a summertime TV show.'

While scientists don't know why the sun is going quiet, all the signs are that it will. Dr Hill and his team have based their prediction on three changes in the sun spotted by scientific teams - weakening sunspots; fewer streams spewing from the poles of the sun's corona; and a disappearing solar jet stream.

Global cooling, not global warming is the thing to worry about!

[biffvernon]

Sun spots are poorly understood in their cause and effect. Predictions about them tend to be wrong.

It's amazing what a denial-fest the media are having over three papers read at the ASA.

Frank Hill, of the National Solar Observatory in New Mexico, and his colleagues, studied streams of fields flowing under the sun's surface, the solar equivalent to the Earth's jet stream. Using a process known as helioseismography, which monitors sound waves emitted by these solar jet streams, they found that jet streams that precede the normal beginning of a solar cycle are missing.
Matt Penn, of the National Solar Observatory, and his colleagues, used the McMath-Pierce Telescope to monitor the magnetic strength of sunspots. They observed that, for the past 13 years, the strength has been declining regularly.
And Richard Altrock, the manager of the US Air Force's coronal research program, used four decades of measurement on the sun's corona to show that magnetic activity at the sun's poles has been declining. Such declines are linked to decreased sunspot activity.

Of course none of them said we were heading for an ice age though

As for the potential effects on climate, Dr Altrock said, if the next cycle doesn't occur, ''it will be a good opportunity to find out''.

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/clima ... 1g417.html

[snow hope]

I have been trying to highlight for some time the predictions made by some that we are entering a solar minimum period of a few decades. The climate is going to cool as a result, maybe as much as it did during the Little Ice Age.

It is time people started to take the current measurements and state of the sun more seriously as it will have greater repercussions for us all than the current couple of decades of warming we have experienced....

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=33826

[UndercoverElephant]

If this happens then it may be what stops humans from creating a Venus-style runaway warming on the Earth. Not that this will save industrialised, globalised civilisation.

[Kieran]

If this happens then it may be what stops humans from creating a Venus-style runaway warming on the Earth. Not that this will save industrialised, globalised civilisation.

On the other hand, the AGW contrarians would be in the ascendant and it will be full on drill baby drill time, including mining everything - coal, oil shales and methane clathrates.

Venus style climate assured.

[kenneal - lagger]

I've been posting about this for over a year now and this chap has been talking about it for decades - http://bourabai.narod.ru/landscheidt/new-e.htm. He has predicted Maunder Minimum type events in 2030 and 2200 (See his fig. 11).

Landscheidt doesn't relate the cooling to sunspot numbers as such but to the rotation of the sun about its axis and about the centre of the solar system. These affect the magnetism of the sun and from that mechanism its radiation output. Sunspot numbers do, however, drop to virtually zero for long periods over the periods of cooling. A short period of low sunspot numbers does not of its own account indicate global cooling.

There is other research to show that the cooling expected from this solar source would not fully counteract the warming by CO2 so we may not receive the full effect of a Maunder Minimum. Our climate could revert to temperatures of the 1900s, before the effects of global warming were noted. We could, in effect, have winters like we have had in the last two or three years every year for the next thirty or forty years. (I've already bought snow chains for my 4WD and shoes just in case)

Coming out of this era of solar cooling could be catastrophic though if we do nothing about the rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. We would go straight from a cool climate into one that is a lot hotter than we are experiencing now. If that also coincided with a period of high solar activity, which is quite likely, we could be toast very quickly as the excessive heat caused rapid melting of the permafrost and, possibly, methane clathrates and vast methane burps.

The danger is that politicians, egged on by the sceptic public and press, will not see the mechanisms involved in the cooling climate and will reduce their clamour for climate change action. It is undoubtedly expensive to ameliorate the effects of climate change and with the coming economic crash they may be persuaded to forget the Kyoto promises made in warmer times.

In view of the above, I would be insulating my house and storing a good supply of fuel and food if I hadn't been doing it for a number of years anyway.

[PS_RalphW]

I'm with Kieren.

If there is a cooling period from a solar minimum, then we are toast, long term.

The only upside is that I won't live to see it.

[Lord Beria3]

Ummmm - unlikely - there won't be much fossil fuels left to burn by 2030/2040 so the carbon emissions will have collapsed by mid-century.

I suspect the climate will be OK.

[PS_RalphW]

There is plenty of coal left to burn, to bring atmospheric CO2 up to unprecedented levels.
It will be up there for a couple of centuries before it starts dropping again.

If we get through PO without economic and industrial collapse, we will burn every ton we can dig out of the ground. That will store up 6C warming for the end of the mini ice age if Hansen is right.

[snow hope]

I've been posting about this for over a year now and this chap has been talking about it for decades - http://bourabai.narod.ru/landscheidt/new-e.htm. He has predicted Maunder Minimum type events in 2030 and 2200 (See his fig. 11).

LOL - yes you have Ken, since I originally posted this link on the forum!

[snow hope]

There is plenty of coal left to burn, to bring atmospheric CO2 up to unprecedented levels.
It will be up there for a couple of centuries before it starts dropping again.

If we get through PO without economic and industrial collapse, we will burn every ton we can dig out of the ground. That will store up 6C warming for the end of the mini ice age if Hansen is right.

Very doubtful we will get through PO without economic and industrial collapse (and 7 billion people).....

Secondly, I do think we have to emphasize the IF in your last sentence!

[biffvernon]

It's like the 70's all over again!

Not the 70s but the 90s. That graph was drawn in 1997 and is for Northern Hemisphere not globe. Go cherry picking somewhere else.

[biffvernon]

Another inconvenient truth is that we know a great deal about the effect of greenhouse gases on planet Earth but we know very little about Sunspots.

Anybody who predicts anything based on Sunspots will probably be proved wrong.

[biffvernon]

John Cook has a good piece about AGW denial and geologists:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Geologi ... enial.html

Basically, the deniers are found amongst the petroleum geologists, those whose salary depends on burning oil, while other geologists know that AGW is real. They read the evidence directly from the rocks.

[snow hope]

Anybody who predicts anything based on Sunspots will probably be proved wrong.

And why or on what basis do you predict that statement Biff?