Global Cooling is back

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Back in 1991, before Al Gore first shouted that the Earth was in the balance, the Danish Meteorological Institute released a study using data that went back centuries that showed that global temperatures closely tracked solar cycles.

To many, those data were convincing. Now, Canadian scientists are seeking additional funding for more and better "eyes" with which to observe our sun, which has a bigger impact on Earth's climate than all the tailpipes and smokestacks on our planet combined.

And they're worried about global cooling, not warming.

Kenneth Tapping, a solar researcher and project director for Canada's National Research Council, is among those looking at the sun for evidence of an increase in sunspot activity.

Solar activity fluctuates in an 11-year cycle. But so far in this cycle, the sun has been disturbingly quiet. The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century.

Such an event occurred in the 17th century. The observation of sunspots showed extraordinarily low levels of magnetism on the sun, with little or no 11-year cycle.

This solar hibernation corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. Frigid winters and cold summers during that period led to massive crop failures, famine and death in Northern Europe.

Tapping reports no change in the sun's magnetic field so far this cycle and warns that if the sun remains quiet for another year or two, it may indicate a repeat of that period of drastic cooling of the Earth, bringing massive snowfall and severe weather to the Northern Hemisphere.

Tapping oversees the operation of a 60-year-old radio telescope that he calls a "stethoscope for the sun." But he and his colleagues need better equipment.

In Canada, where radio-telescopic monitoring of the sun has been conducted since the end of World War II, a new instrument, the next-generation solar flux monitor, could measure the sun's emissions more rapidly and accurately.

As we have noted many times, perhaps the biggest impact on the Earth's climate over time has been the sun.

For instance, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Solar Research in Germany report the sun has been burning more brightly over the last 60 years, accounting for the 1 degree Celsius increase in Earth's temperature over the last 100 years.

R. Timothy Patterson, professor of geology and director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Center of Canada's Carleton University, says that "CO2 variations show little correlation with our planet's climate on long, medium and even short time scales."

Rather, he says, "I and the first-class scientists I work with are consistently finding excellent correlations between the regular fluctuations of the sun and earthly climate. This is not surprising. The sun and the stars are the ultimate source of energy on this planet."

Patterson, sharing Tapping's concern, says: "Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth."

"Solar activity has overpowered any effect that CO2 has had before, and it most likely will again," Patterson says. "If we were to have even a medium-sized solar minimum, we could be looking at a lot more bad effects than 'global warming' would have had."

In 2005, Russian astronomer Khabibullo Abdusamatov made some waves — and not a few enemies in the global warming "community" — by predicting that the sun would reach a peak of activity about three years from now, to be accompanied by "dramatic changes" in temperatures.

A Hoover Institution Study a few years back examined historical data and came to a similar conclusion.

"The effects of solar activity and volcanoes are impossible to miss. Temperatures fluctuated exactly as expected, and the pattern was so clear that, statistically, the odds of the correlation existing by chance were one in 100," according to Hoover fellow Bruce Berkowitz.

The study says that "try as we might, we simply could not find any relationship between industrial activity, energy consumption and changes in global temperatures."

The study concludes that if you shut down all the world's power plants and factories, "there would not be much effect on temperatures."

But if the sun shuts down, we've got a problem. It is the sun, not the Earth, that's hanging in the balance.

http://ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=287279412587175

[Amby 490]

I read an article about this a few years ago they said that when the salt levels in the waters were so low from all the glaciers melting that the gulf stream would be off and places like the UK would be too cold to live

[almaty 19]

damn, i knew i should have kept my russian parka

[Ban Hammer 13,364]

ooo you are gonna get a fatwah from the gw people.

[GaryC 7]

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I hardly profess to be an expert on this subject - but picking up on things like this - only says to me that people don't understand the science, but pretend to.

Is anyone really labouring under the illusion that human activity is the only or most significant factor which affects global temperatures, or indeed the global environment?

[GaryC 7]

I hardly profess to be an expert on this subject - but picking up on things like this - only says to me that people don't understand the science, but pretend to.

Is anyone really labouring under the illusion that human activity is the only or most significant factor which affects global temperatures, or indeed the global environment?

Yes. There are many that think humans are the main driver of global change.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

The sun causes our climate to change.... duh. It's our largest source of power.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I hardly profess to be an expert on this subject - but picking up on things like this - only says to me that people don't understand the science, but pretend to.

Is anyone really labouring under the illusion that human activity is the only or most significant factor which affects global temperatures, or indeed the global environment?

Yes. There are many that think humans are the main driver of global change.

Are you honestly saying that people view the environment as some sort of closed-system science experiment? With so many variables to consider - I have a hard time believing that the scientists who are behind the theory believe that either...

I don't think we're the main driver - I do think however, that human activities push over delicate balances.

[GaryC 7]

I hardly profess to be an expert on this subject - but picking up on things like this - only says to me that people don't understand the science, but pretend to.

Is anyone really labouring under the illusion that human activity is the only or most significant factor which affects global temperatures, or indeed the global environment?

Yes. There are many that think humans are the main driver of global change.

Are you honestly saying that people view the environment as some sort of closed-system science experiment? With so many variables to consider - I have a hard time believing that the scientists who are behind the theory believe that either...

I don't think we're the main driver - I do think however, that human activities push over delicate balances.

You have seen the arguments. Some people think GW is caused by humans and any talk of other reasons brings out the "denier" labels. I have been told that since I am not a scientist that my opinions mean nothing and that I should trust the consensus because they are so much smarter than I am. It gets rather insulting to be the subject of their "I am superior to you" scorn just because I don't buy their views.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

It stands to reason that human activities are not the only influence on the global ecosystem.

After all we might not cause a drought, but through overfarming in a drought season we can create a desert.

[eric&gen 0]

Global Cooling Global Warming just another scare tacit from the government. Not the government changing the weather maybe its mother nature???!!!

[one...two...tree 2,762]

...an editorial piece on science from Investor's Business Daily. What next? An editorial piece from scientists on how Wall Street needs to be restructured?

[GaryC 7]

...an editorial piece on science from Investor's Business Daily. What next? An editorial piece from scientists on how Wall Street needs to be restructured?

Ah thank you Steven. I was wondering when someone would come along and attack the source rather than address the content.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

...an editorial piece on science from Investor's Business Daily. What next? An editorial piece from scientists on how Wall Street needs to be restructured?

Ah thank you Steven. I was wondering when someone would come along and attack the source rather than address the content.

I felt obliged.