Record Cold Could Be Just Around The Corner - Years Of Cold Temperatures Just Ahead
John Herron, Monday 07 January 2008 -
Breakout your parkas and crank-up another SUV, according to new NASA measurements we're heading in to a period of solar activity (or inactivity) that could mean years of much colder temperatures. The last time this natural cycle occurred world-wide death rates doubled and perhaps millions starved or died from the cold. This time around could be just as bad.
Soon CO2 levels and global warming may be the least of our worries. In fact we may be wishing we really had warmed the environment. As we've stated several times humans can adapt to warmer temperatures, but colder temperatures cause massive crop losses and far higher death rates. Solar activity has been one of the primary drivers of climate change since our little planet was formed. Though current theories believe there are other causes for massive ice ages most scientists agree that solar cycles are behind many of the "mini-ice ages" and other climate changes the planet has experienced over the millennium. These mini-ice ages have had devastating effects on man's ability to survive.
We today confirm the recent announcement by NASA that there are historic and important changes taking place on the suns surface. This will have only one outcome - a new climate change is coming that will bring an extended period of deep cold to the planet. - Space and Science Research Center, (SSRC)
So is our current global warming connected to sun spot activity? Many think so.
But throughout the 20th century, solar cycles had been increasing in strength. Almost everyone agrees that throughout most of the last century the solar influence was significant. Studies show that by the end of the 20th century the Sun's activity may have been at its highest for more than 8,000 years. - Belfast Telegraph article
We have just begun what scientists call Solar Cycle 24 (SC24 started on Jan 4th, 2008). These sunspot cycles generally last about 10.7 years. It is widely believed (and confirmed in the NASA Long Range Solar Forecast, link below) that Solar Cycle 25 could be one of the weakest in centuries. This next cycle starts in 9-12 years. NASA had originally predicted SC24 to be stronger (thus warmer temperatures) than normal. But because SC23 lasted so long many scientists now believe that SC24 could also be colder than normal. History certainly agrees with this theory. If SC24 and SC25 turn out to be as weak (cold) as predicted we may experience record cold and crop losses like we haven't seen since the Dalton Minimum of 1790-1820 or perhaps even the Maunder Minimum of 1645 to 1715. Again, this will have devastating effects on the world climate where millions could die from starvation.
You can read a very informative presentation about these solar cycles with long range climate predictions here, this was given at the Lavoisier Conference in Melbourne Australia. This presentation also has wonderful examples of how minuscule the effects of CO2 are on global climate, some excellent charts showing the benefits of increased CO2 on plant production, and a comparison of CO2 to the effect of solar cycles. Well worth a read.
Changes in sunspot activity has a huge influence over climate. The following is from a NASA report:
A new NASA computer climate model reinforces the long-standing theory that low solar activity could have changed the atmospheric circulation in the Northern Hemisphere from the 1400s to the 1700s and triggered a "Little Ice Age" in several regions including North America and Europe. Changes in the sun's energy was one of the biggest factors influencing climate change during this period....During the Little Ice Age, access to Greenland was largely cut off by ice from 1410 to the 1720s. At the same time, canals in Holland routinely froze solid, glaciers advanced in the Alps, and sea-ice increased so much that no open water was present in any direction around Iceland in 1695. - NASA Report titled The Sun's Chilly Impact on Earth
"During the Maunder Minimum in the 17th Century there were hardly any sunspots at all. This coincides with a period of cooling known as the Little Ice Age." - Wikipedia - Sunspots
Click here for large version
Scientists have been telling us for several years now that CO2 acts as a "blanket" over the earth trapping heat that would otherwise escape in to the atmosphere. To some extent that may be true, but to what extent?. CO2 only accounts for approximately 6.2% of "greenhouse" gasses (with most of the remainder being water vapor) and man only contributes about 3.4% of the total CO2 (with the rest being produced by nature). With man only contributing about 1/4 of 1% of all greenhouse gasses it is hard to see where our contribution would have caused much of the warming we've seen. Especially since new research shows that increasing levels of CO2 have a diminishing warming effect (a classic bell curve). CO2 levels have been increasing over the past decade but global temperatures have remained constant (actually they've fallen a little) over the same period. If CO2 had such a strong effect over climate we should have seen corresponding increases in temperature. This has not been the case.
The chart below shows changes in carbon-14 concentration in the Earth's atmosphere, which serves as a long term proxy of solar activity. Note the present day is on the left-hand side of this figure.
-- Data from United States Geological Survey (USGS)
Solar activity very closely matches not only recent global temperature changes by historical changes for the past 1100 years. e.g. Maunder Minimum was an extremely cold period, the Medieval Max was extremely warm period (when the Vikings not only colonized Greenland but were able to grow crops there). Especially note the very high carbon-14 concentrations of recent years and you'll understand why the earth has warmed recently (hint, its the big bright yellow ball in sky).
In 2007, hundreds of people died, not from global warming, but from cold weather hazards.... Since the mid-19th century, the mean global temperature has increased by 0.7 degrees Celsius. This slight warming is not unusual, and lies well within the range of natural variation. Carbon dioxide continues to build in the atmosphere, but the mean planetary temperature hasn't increased significantly for nearly nine years...South America this year experienced one of its coldest winters in decades. In Buenos Aires, snow fell for the first time since the year 1918. Dozens of homeless people died from exposure. In Peru, 200 people died from the cold and thousands more became infected with respiratory diseases...Unexpected bitter cold swept the entire Southern Hemisphere in 2007. Johannesburg, South Africa, had the first significant snowfall in 26 years. Australia experienced the coldest June ever. In northeastern Australia, the city of Townsville underwent the longest period of continuously cold weather since 1941. In New Zealand, the weather turned so cold that vineyards were endangered....In April, a killing freeze destroyed 95 percent of South Carolina's peach crop, and 90 percent of North Carolina's apple harvest. At Charlotte, N.C., a record low temperature of 21 degrees Fahrenheit on April 8 was the coldest ever recorded for April, breaking a record set in 1923. On June 8, Denver recorded a new low of 31 degrees Fahrenheit. Denver's temperature records extend back to 1872.
Recent weeks have seen the return of unusually cold conditions to the Northern Hemisphere. On Dec. 7, St. Cloud, Minn., set a new record low of minus 15 degrees Fahrenheit. On the same date, record low temperatures were also recorded in Pennsylvania and Ohio...Extreme cold weather is occurring worldwide. On Dec. 4, in Seoul, Korea, the temperature was a record minus 5 degrees Celsius. Nov. 24, in Meacham, Ore., the minimum temperature was 12 degrees Fahrenheit colder than the previous record low set in 1952. The Canadian government warns that this winter is likely to be the coldest in 15 years. - The Washington Times (link below)
The fact is that the global temperature of 2007 is statistically the same as 2006 as well as every year since 2001. Global warming has, temporarily or permanently, ceased. Temperatures across the world are not increasing as they should according to the fundamental theory behind global warming the greenhouse effect. - Has global warming stopped? by the NewStatesman
THE STARK headline appeared just over a year ago. "2007 to be 'warmest on record,' " BBC News reported on Jan. 4, 2007. Citing experts in the British government's Meteorological Office, the story announced that "the world is likely to experience the warmest year on record in 2007," surpassing the all-time high reached in 1998. But a funny thing happened on the way to the planetary hot flash: Much of the planet grew bitterly cold.
Stock up on fur coats and felt boots!" advises Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences and senior scientist at Moscow's Shirshov Institute of Oceanography. "The latest data . . . say that earth has passed the peak of its warmer period, and a fairly cold spell will set in quite soon, by 2012. - The Boston Globe
Sorokhtin dismisses the conventional global warming theory that greenhouse gases, especially human-emitted carbon dioxide, is causing the earth to grow hotter. Like a number of other scientists, he points to solar activity - sunspots and solar flares, which wax and wane over time - as having the greatest effect on climate. "Carbon dioxide is not to blame for global climate change," Sorokhtin writes in an essay for Novosti. "Solar activity is many times more powerful than the energy produced by the whole of humankind." In a recent paper for the Danish National Space Center, physicists Henrik Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen concur: "The sun . . . appears to be the main forcing agent in global climate change," they write. Even though atmospheric carbon dioxide continues to accumulate - it's up about 4 percent since 1998 - the global mean temperature has remained flat. That raises some obvious questions about the theory that CO2 is the cause of climate change. - The Boston Globe
Today's climate change consensus is that man-made greenhouse gases are warming the world and that we must act to curb them to reduce the projected temperature increase estimated at probably between 1.8C and 4.0C by the century's end. But throughout the 20th century, solar cycles had been increasing in strength. Almost everyone agrees that throughout most of the last century the solar influence was significant. Studies show that by the end of the 20th century the Sun's activity may have been at its highest for more than 8,000 years. Other solar parameters have been changing as well, such as the magnetic field the Sun sheds, which has almost doubled in the past century.- the Belfast Telegraph (link below).
For the past 100 years solar cycles have been strong and temperatures increased throughout the period. But now the solar tides are changing and man may be in for some truly rough and cold times ahead.
Additional References:
Changes in the Suns Surface to Bring Next Climate Change - by the Space and Science Research Center.
NASA Long Range Solar Forecast - Solar Cycle 25 peaking around 2022 could be one of the weakest in centuries. See the NASA link above on what this may mean for the climate.
"Can the Sun save us from global warming?" - by the Belfast Telegraph. Includes a very good time-line showing the correlation of historic temperatures and sun spots.
Dalton Minimum
Maunder Minimum
Wikipedia "Little Ice Age"
"Year of global cooling" by The Washington Times.
"Br-r-r! Where did global warming go?" - The Boston Globe. This article contains a number examples of record cold temperatures.
Can the Sun save us from global warming? the Belfast Telegraph
The Past and Future of Climate - by David Archibald. An excellent presentation and predictions about solar cycles and their effect on our climate. Also comparisons of how little CO2 can effect the climate.
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Global Warming? New Data Shows Ice Is Back
Tuesday, February 19, 2008 11:55 AM
By: Phil Brennan
Are the world's ice caps melting because of climate change, or are the reports just a lot of scare mongering by the advocates of the global warming theory?
Scare mongering appears to be the case, according to reports from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that reveal that almost all the allegedly lost ice has come back. A NOAA report shows that ice levels which had shrunk from 5 million square miles in January 2007 to just 1.5 million square miles in October, are almost back to their original levels.
Moreover, a Feb. 18 report in the London Daily Express showed that there is nearly a third more ice in Antarctica than usual, challenging the global warming crusaders and buttressing arguments of skeptics who deny that the world is undergoing global warming.
The Daily express recalls the photograph of polar bears clinging on to a melting iceberg which has been widely hailed as proof of the need to fight climate change and has been used by former Vice President Al Gore during his "Inconvenient Truth" lectures about mankinds alleged impact on the global climate.
Gore fails to mention that the photograph was taken in the month of August when melting is normal. Or that the polar bear population has soared in recent years.
As winter roars in across the Northern Hemisphere, Mother Nature seems to have joined the ranks of the skeptics.
As the Express notes, scientists are saying the northern Hemisphere has endured its coldest winter in decades, adding that snow cover across the area is at its greatest since 1966. The newspaper cites the one exception Western Europe, which had, until the weekend when temperatures plunged to as low as -10 C in some places, been basking in unseasonably warm weather.
Around the world, vast areas have been buried under some of the heaviest snowfalls in decades. Central and southern China, the United States, and Canada were hit hard by snowstorms. In China, snowfall was so heavy that over 100,000 houses collapsed under the weight of snow.
Jerusalem, Damascus, Amman, and northern Saudi Arabia report the heaviest falls in years and below-zero temperatures. In Afghanistan, snow and freezing weather killed 120 people. Even Baghdad had a snowstorm, the first in the memory of most residents.
AFP news reports icy temperatures have just swept through south China, stranding 180,000 people and leading to widespread power cuts just as the area was recovering from the worst weather in 50 years, the government said Monday. The latest cold snap has taken a severe toll in usually temperate Yunnan province, which has been struck by heavy snowfalls since Thursday, a government official from the provincial disaster relief office told AFP.
Twelve people have died there, state Xinhua news agency reported, and four remained missing as of Saturday.
An ongoing record-long spell of cold weather in Vietnam's northern region, which started on Jan. 14, has killed nearly 60,000 cattle, mainly bull and buffalo calves, local press reported Monday. By Feb. 17, the spell had killed a total of 59,962 cattle in the region, including 7,349 in the Ha Giang province, 6,400 in Lao Cai, and 5,571 in Bac Can province, said Hoang Kim Giao, director of the Animal Husbandry Department under the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, according to the Pioneer newspaper.
In Britain the temperatures plunged to -10 C in central England, according to the Express, which reports that experts say that February could end up as one of the coldest in Britain in the past 10 years with the freezing night-time conditions expected to stay around a frigid -8 C until at least the middle of the week. And the BBC reports that a bus company's efforts to cut global warming emissions have led to services being disrupted by cold weather.
Meanwhile Athens News reports that a raging snow storm that blanketed most of Greece over the weekend and continued into the early morning hours on Monday, plunging the country into sub-zero temperatures. The agency reported that public transport buses were at a standstill on Monday in the wider Athens area, while ships remained in ports, public services remained closed, and schools and courthouses in the more severely-stricken prefectures were also closed.
Scores of villages, mainly on the island of Crete, and in the prefectures of Evia, Argolida, Arcadia, Lakonia, Viotia, and the Cyclades islands were snowed in.
More than 100 villages were snowed-in on the island of Crete and temperatures in Athens dropped to -6 C before dawn, while the coldest temperatures were recorded in Kozani, Grevena, Kastoria and Florina, where they plunged to -12 C.
Temperatures in Athens dropped to -6 C before dawn, while the coldest temperatures were recorded in Kozani, Grevena, Kastoria and Florina, where they plunged to -12 C.
If global warming gets any worse we'll all freeze to death
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Proposed Climate Tampering Could Kill Millions
John Herron, Wednesday 05 March 2008
Some scientists are so convinced that man-made global warming is now unstoppable and harmful that they are proposing to artificially tamper with the atmosphere to "fix it". If we truly are heading in to a period of low solar activity (cooling), as NASA and many others have predicted, this god like action to slow "global warming" could kill millions from cold and starvation.
We try to avoid fear mongering here and base our arguments on science. Historically science has generally been used to counter ignorance and prejudice, today science is often used to justify political correctness, to gain social acceptance or as a means to gaining power and wealth. When used incorrectly science can cause ignorance and prejudice. When science losses its built in skepticism it can be nearly impossible for the average person to know what to trust. We can find no better reason to fear the current politically tainted scientific community then the current push towards "geoengineering" to "fix" our climate.
As has been reported here in previous articles there have been several studies that say even if we cut CO2 emissions to zero the planet will continue to warm. The latest study claims we'll continue to warm for the next 500 years. No one believes we can cut our CO2 emissions to zero anytime soon and with reports like this one "China's 2030 CO2 Emissions Could Equal the Entire World's Today" it would hardly be worth other developed countries even trying. Not that we believe any of the malarkey about a planet doomed by CO2 but there are many on the left and some vocal scientists that do. This unfounded fear and the media's mass-hysteria is very dangerous. Cooling the planet at a time that we're heading in to a Dalton or Maunder Minimum level of solar activity could be disastrous!
OVERSEAS trips may become a once-in-lifetime experience and car travel needed to be cut by 80 per cent if we have any hope of avoiding "dangerous" climate change, experts say....The car is doomed, Associate Professor DamonHonnery said. Our calculations show that not even the best combination of fuel efficiency, hybrid and electric cars, alternative fuels and car pooling could provide the reductions needed to meet the 2050 targets for avoiding dangerous climatic change, he said. "Car travel 'cut by 80 per cent'"
An article by Science Daily titled "Can We Offset Global Warming ByGeoengineering The Climate With Aerosols?" suggests scientists are seriously considering releasing sulfate aerosols in to the stratosphere to scatter incoming solar energy before it is "trapped" in the lower atmosphere by greenhouse gases. This measure would increase "global dimming" and reduce the amount of light and solar energy that reaches the planet. A related proposal is to actually burn sulfur in the stratosphere and thus create a haze that would block sunlight. A known side effect of this method is an increase in acid rain. No one knows what other side effects may result from these two measures but some scientists are so convinced that global warming is going to doom the planet that they feel any action that helps reduce warming must be better than no action at all.
Ocean iron fertilization, also known as the "Geritol solution", involves seeding the oceans with iron to increase phytoplankton populations. The thought here is that the iron will encourage phytoplankton growth and the phytoplankton will suck up the CO2 as part of photosynthesis. This proposal is thought to be one of the least expensive methods of mitigating global warming. However it is fraught with danger and irony (hah, this is the is the first time I've seen the word irony being used ironically). For one thing no one is sure if the process is safe to the environment or if iron fertilization would even work on such a large scale. It is also possible that the additional phytoplankton growth would produce enough methane (also a greenhouse gas) to offset the CO2 absorption. Oh, theIRONy ? Environmentalists and some states actually sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to get CO2 classified as a pollutant. By encouraging phytoplankton growth to use CO2 for photosynthesis they are essentially admitting that CO2 its self is a necessary fertilizer for plant life. Plants flourish under increased CO2 levels. Our current atmospheric CO2 levels is about 380ppm, millions of years ago when plant and animal life was far more abundant and diverse than it is today CO2 levels were as high as 7,000 ppm! On the good news front one company that was about to begin testing of this method, Planktos has suspended operations saying "the company has been forced to indefinitely postpone its ocean fertilization efforts once intended to restore marine plant life and generate ecological offsets for the global carbon credit market". They complained of strong opposition from environmental groups such as the World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, and others for their inability to obtain investment capital. But a company called Climos just received $4 million in venture funding to plow ahead.
Other wacky ideas under consideration include artificial trees, giant space mirrors, painting city buildings / roads white, etc., etc. Some of these ideas are scarier than others as some are easy to undo. However the earth warms over time and once we spend a trillion dollars on a space mirror and cool the earth 5C it will take time to rewarm the oceans, it will also be so embarrassing that it could take decades to convince politicians to scrap such an expensive system. Painting all buildings and roads white would take far longer to undo. Ocean fertilization has unknown consequences and could trigger a chain of events that could go on for decades.
Those on the left will always try to manage or nanny any perceived problem. Rather than letting nature work the way nature has worked for millions of years they will spend trillions to try to manage, or control, it like they do everything else. Social Engineering of people has been practiced by them for years, now "Geoengineering" of the planet is being proposed so that they can manage the climate and weather. Helping to drive all of this is the Carbon Credit market. Carbon Credits are basically blackmail money paid by corporations to "offset" their CO2 emissions by paying money to companies that claim to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Companies currently do this for public relations, in the future they may be required by law.
Based on long established patterns of solar cycle activity NASA has already predicted that "Solar Cycle 25 peaking around 2022 could be one of the weakest in centuries." The global warming theory of CO2 caused warming has no history on its side, in fact proxy records (such as ice cores) show that warming has always proceeded CO2 releases by 800-1500 years. On the other hand solar cycle influence on climate has thousands of years of measured evidence and millions of years of proxy evidence to back it. As we've previously reported solar cycle activity closely matches periods of cooling and warming. Because modern tools for measuring the sun have only existed for a few short decades scientists have yet to pin point the exact solar mechanism that causes these warming and cooling cycles. Satellites, advanced telescopes, x-ray observations, etc. just weren't available during the Dalton Minimum, much less the Maunder Minimum. Some scientists believe that the reducedirradiance of a solar minimum could not cause the temperature variations that occur during a Maunder type minimum, or even the slight warming we've seen in the past 100 years. But just because scientists don't understand the mechanism doesn't mean that it isn't occurring. The historic proxy evidence is clear that when solar activity is low so are temperatures, the correlation was noticed over 200 years ago. The famous astronomer William Herschel first noticed the anticorrelation between the price of wheat and the number of sunspots visible on the Sun in 1801. Many others have noticed the correlation over the years as well.
Above: In red, NASA's David Hathaway's predictions for the next two solar cycles and, in pink, Mausumi Dikpati's prediction for cycle 24. Solar Cycle 24 (SC24) is already starting off much weaker than Hathaway predicted and will probably end up cooler than SC23. This will likely have grave consequences for SC25 and produce even colder temperatures than predicted.
Let us all hope that politicians and scientists don't jump on the politically correct mass-hysteria bandwagon and "geoengineer" us in to a colder and more deadly future.
Additional References:
"Can We Offset Global Warming By Geoengineering The Climate With Aerosols?" by Science Daily
"Climate-Cooling Plan Goes Up in Dust" by Discovery Magazine - plans to inject sulfates uniformly in equatorial regions, at all longitudes, at a constant rate over time.
"Geoengineering Firm Sequesters $4 Million" by Wired Magazine
Wikipedia - Mitigation of Global Warming
Wikipedia - Planetary Engineering (and Geoengineering)
"Cooling the Planet" - Technology Review, published by MIT
