Topic: Climate change - cooling not warming?

[Richary]

From some of the radio forums I have been seeing some articles that seem to show sunspot activity is slowing down and the next 11 year cycle which should be starting up now is running late, and could be the last. Some predictions show that by 2025 we will have no sunspots for a long time.

Why is this relevant? The last time it happened was in the 1600s and led to a mini ice age (the so-called Maunder Minimum). Perhaps we need the greenhouse gases to mitigate the effects if this is real?

Check out the following links for some technical detail behind this.


http://www.astroengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/livingston-penn_sunspots2.pdf

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

[Jimmy Deguara]

Interesting you mention this and begun a thread - I had little time to do any research. I heard this whilst chatting with David Croan a few weeks ago and he'd heard it from another reliable source.

Now let's see. Last summer was a relatively cool summer here in Australia and the winter across Asia and Europe to say the least from what I gather was quite cold (some of the European members may wish to comment further on this). Our winter has been relatievly cold with colder maximums and an extended cold August (was it one of the coldest on record?).

We'll see what happens over the next several years and how the global warming scientists react to the media hype.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[phix]

hmmm.. it wasn't the warmest winter ever in Central Europa .. especially during November and December we had temperatures below average and heaps of snowfall, January and February were quite the opposite ... mild and nearly no snowfall. Asia, of course saw bitterly cold days towards the end of January and during the first week of February. the positive deviations during spring and summer on the northern hemisphere were far below these we saw during the last couple of years, so the trend is a little bit ambiguous. i think we still have to bear in mind that 2007 was the warmest year ever recorded (globally) .. so potential trend towards end of warming or cooling would at least need another 20 or 30yrs of observations before one could speak of a trend

regards

Manfred

[Richary]

My prediction if we believe this theory is global warming will continue for the next 10-20 years, as perhaps shown by the particularly violent hurricane season around the Caribbean this year. After that cooling by less solar radiation will start to kick in and the earth will cool. The greenhouse gas problem may mitigate the possible ice age somewhat so it won't be as cold as it would otherwise have been.

Of course, if the new solar minimum lasts a similar amount of time as the Maunder Minimum, then our descendants (not that I have any or am likely to) will have a problem in about 2100 when solar activity returns to normal.

[phix]

i browsed through the article, and as i`m no expert concerning solar cycles the information given sounds reliable to my ears ... i still wonder whether we can compare the current situation to the situation immediately before the maunder minimum or not.. i don`t have the slightest idea if the ice coverage and therefore the earth`s albedo before the maunder minimum was similar to the current ice coverage .. as the solar constant is one thing, but the earths ability to reflect the solar radiation is another thing ...   and the processes involved are extremely nonlinear ... from what i know this means that small differences in the initial conditions may yield a broad variety of possible solutions ...  my personal opinion is that the albedo is currently reduced to such an extent that a decrease of 1% of the solar constant couldn't really stop the warming anymore, regardless if there is a manmade increase of greenhouse gases or not ... 
regards,

Manfred

[Jimmy Deguara]

Richary,

The greenhouse gas problem may mitigate the possible ice age somewhat so it won't be as cold as it would otherwise have been.

I am not so sure the Chinese would have agreed with you this past winter:)

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Dave Nelson]

hmmmm
interesting article,   Solar activity has been one of my pet studies now for some 30 years

there seems to be a pretty even split for those that are predicting a smaller peak in activity for cycle 24, 
and those leaning towards a bigger peak for C24  with a possible 30-50% increase over C23

those predicting a smaller peak also are suggesting that we may be entering another Dalton Minimum
that consists of 3-4 low activity cycles before returning to normal levels of activity

 Neither camp is too worried about the length of the current minimum, as this can vary greatly

excellent article on solar cycles and climate.....
http://www.warwickhughes.com/agri/Solar_Arch_NY_Mar2_08.pdf

Cheers
Dave N

[Jimmy Deguara]

John,

I am not one who believes or disbelieves sunspot cycles or moon phases in terms of control over the weather. However, equally as important, I do not believe that in a matter of a lifetime that we have caused or going to cause a major catastrophe. I do believe that quite a few scientists and so called experts are going to get rather wealthy from the loose change from the insurance companies.

Just remember, during the 1970's people were lining up to get dressed in fur coats in preparations for the next ice age. I guess it was a cold set of years back then!

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Dave Nelson]

Quote.. Of course while this stuff is interesting, if you have a read of the IPCC 4th assessment report you may change your mind. I find the obsession with the sun being seen as the be all and end all of climate change to be rather fascinating. While its been postulated that they contribute significantly to variations in the climatic pattern the actual scale of impact has been thrown into question by numerous scientists ....   Endquote


Well John,   Sorry ...   but  any mention of the IPCC and their so called findings totally invalidates anything good you may want to say about them.  I DONT trust them and along with the garbage Al Gore thrust upon us .... and am not likely to any time soon.  His info had more holes in it than swiss cheese!!

The have an agenda to push and they got the media on their band wagon.  ANYONE,   scientist, institution, politician or lay person who tries to argue against them is shunned and ostricised till they fall into line.  They are and all those that follow them are getting fabuously rich by demanding that people change their ways to do things their way.   Gotta be one of the biggest con jobs the world has ever seen.

just 2 examples...  You can get  so called "Green Power" from your supplier   ahhh but it costs you lots more...
you can buy  the compact fluro lights  ... ohhh but  they are gonna cost you 5 times more than a normal globe
and in practice they dont really last much longer than a normal globe.... I know, personal experience,   I have to replace lots of them weekly.   I usually replace them with good ol' incandescents   
there must be many other examples that you could think about
ohhhh there's no mercury in incandescents,   but they dont seem to be too worried about the mercury pollution all the extra fluro's are going to produce

Dont get me wrong,  anything to make the world a cleaner and greener place is a good thing.  I dont particurlarly like seeing masses of fumes coming out of vehicle exhausts or industry smoke stacks etc.   I will change the things I do where I can.   But many of these changes are being thrust onto 3rd world countries that already cant afford to feed, clothe and house their populations


Now back to the real problem ... climate change ....
Is the climate changing  ... Yes  I believe it is
Is it being caused utterly and solely by mankind as the IPCC and followers would have you believe....
I severely doubt it
the IPCC would have you believe that the variations in solar activity has as little as 1 tenth of 1% of an effect on the earth's climate.
hmmmmmm  that means the Maunder minimum and the Dalton minimums should have had little or no effect on our climate,  yet we went into much colder periods on earth during those times.   Yes and the Milankovitch cycles will also play a big part too.  The earth has gone through warm periods as well,  some much much hotter than what we are currently experiencing.
I really believe there are natural forces at work that far outweigh the effects man is having.

If as commented on in that pdf doc that I linked to earlier.  that we are on the verge of going into a 30-40 year period of much lower solar activity... then things are going to get cooler.  and the writer made the interesting comment   that the extra CO2 currently in the atmosphere is going to be a buffer against those cooler years!!!


I guess we will have to wait and see.   DO what you can to make it cleaner,   BUT dont get totally sucked into the hype by filling the pockets of huge corporations with your hard earned $$$$$

cheers
Dave

[Richary]

I will admit that when I started this thread it was about some interesting observations I came across, and certainly not an argument against limiting our CO2 output, the bit about the raised levels was partially tounge in cheek as I dont know enough about the science behind it. Though it seems slightly logical to me, we would need to get a think tank of qualified meteoroligal experts and environment experts (such as my sister for the latter) down together to evaluate it.

However I have seen figures of 30% down on solar radiation and particle emmissions heading our way. So if we go back to the Gaia theory (a butterfly's wings in the Amazon cause a hurricane down the track in the US) then one would have to figure that solar emmissions would play a much bigger part. As we don't have the science to predict weather long term with any accuracy apart from suggesting it will be a wetter/drier/hotter/cooler season than normal then I suggest a cooler sun with less radiation hitting us has to have some effect.

Though to drift off topic and talk about CO2, the idea of planting trees to gather the CO2 is fatally flawed. Any tree that grows quick enough to hold a useful amount of carbon dioxide will not live very long. So we are grabbing the carbon dioxide for 20-50 years max then they rot and the problem has just been postponed.

[Medbury]

Interesting that cooling is mentioned instead of warming,the area where i live is receiving a lot more snow falls over the last 15 years,according to some of the old people in the area it only snowed here 50 years ago once every 4 or 5 years or so but now its 2 or 3 times every winter.Then on the other of the coin in between there's these unseasonal warm periods as well,

[Medbury]

Where i grew up as a kid John,i remember so often the snow levels in winter where at 150- 200 m and because we lived at 75m the snow seemed to be always on the hills around us and only occasionally down lower.
Firsty i'm no meteorologist or have any accreditation's at all but have just loved learning and studying local and international weather/climates as a personal passionate interest.
I have my theories as to why i'm seeing greater extremes in our local climate and that is,
(one)Antarctica will never be any warm in winter to any climate change because of the lack of sunlight so temps should remain the same but at the same time of year in the tropical regions ,if its true that these regions are warming, i believe should be creating in theory a greater variation and there for increasing the intensities of the temperate zones weather systems,i dont know if there is any evidence to support this or not....But

To your questions John,when its snows in my area its never below -2 at night while snowing and day time will always get above freezing,i dont think its about temps so much ,its about more the fact that its snowing to sea level more often now ,then a week later it may be 20c which didn't happen as a kid to the same extent as now

[Medbury]

Maybe there's something in that John because the last two seasons there was little cyclone development in the pacific islands region,other than the two or three that skimmed the Australian coast line in the past season there was very little considering they forecasted a higher than average cyclone season.

[wthrman]

I don't buy this 'man-made' warming stuff. I have never seen a science as polluted by politics and sundry other contradictions as climatology.

I have pretty well bowed out of the Weatherzone thread on this subject; it's become an endless cycle of charts, insults, put-downs, more charts, aggression, more charts. And so on. No doubt some of you guys have seen/read/been involved in it. I enjoy climate discussions but all the wheelbarrows that some extreme people push from either side are a turnoff and don't encourage objective analysis.

One of the things I find so breathtaking is that an assumption is implied that man is far more powerful than the Sun in causing climate change (if he does it at all, of course). Is this stupidity, or unmitigated arrogance? It simply begs the question, even if the scientists discount solar 'effects', which, of course, are not even fully understood. And for that matter, the rest of the science is still in relative infancy.

To my mind, CO2 is a good thing, certainly more good than bad.

On climate change itself, I am convinced we are moving back to the conditions of the earlier decades of the last century, especially 1950-1980. The way the 'August westerlies' fired up last month, more than I've seen in a long while, I think demonstrates this change.

The late Carl Smith, whom I think should be awarded a posthumous PhD for his research into solar effects on the weather, put up some very revealing charts of solar cycles one of which had an astonishing parallel with long term cycles of the Southern Oscillation Index. I think it was something to do with how far the earth was located from the sun's barycentre (is that the right term?). Whatever its name, it related to a 72 year cycle which he predicted would, from around 2008 or so, bring in a series of wetter years probably over the next several decades.

I think these and other teleconnections should be the subject of ongoing research rather than all these puffed-up statements from some quarters that 'the science is settled'. Or maybe it's only what we hear in the media.