No, We’re Not Headed for a Mini–Ice Age

[pokerfan]

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2015/07/14/global_cooling_no_were_not_headed_for_a_mini_ice_age.html

By Phil Plait

Sheesh, the global warming denial industry is cranked—and I do mean cranked—into overdrive. The latest is a rehash of an old claim that we may be headed for a “mini–ice age” due to changes in the Sun’s magnetic activity affecting its output.

Let me be very clear: no. I’ll repeat: NO. The overwhelming majority of scientists do not think this can happen. While changes in the Sun’s activity have a very marginal effect on global warming and/or cooling, human contributions to carbon dioxide in our atmosphere completely overwhelm the Sun’s influence. It’s like tapping on your brakes as your car plunges headlong into a brick wall at 100 kilometers per hour.

This new claim comes from a presentation at conference by Valentina Zharkova, a mathematician and scientist at Northumbria University. To be clear, she’s not predicting a 60 percent drop in the light and heat emitted by the Sun, but a drop in magnetic activity in the Sun. This has only a marginal effect on the Sun’s light/heat output. Also, if you listen to an interview with her on Radio New Zealand, you’ll hear some unusual claims, like the climates on other planets are changing due to the Sun—a red herring when it comes to climate change on Earth. She also admits at the end she doesn’t do atmospheric research, so the claim that lowered magnetic activity of the Sun can cause an ice age here on Earth is in my opinion shaky at best.

The funny thing is, I debunked this Sun-influenced cooling idea back in 2011! I’ll be interested to see if Zharkova puts out a paper on this, but even if the Sun’s magnetic activity does lower, it almost certainly won’t cause any real cooling (at best it might slow warming a bit). Read that link for the details, but here’s a synopsis:

Read the rest at the link.

[Angry Dragon]

1. I say .... let the ice age come

[Warpy]

2. Editors who "sex up" titles of otherwise bland articles

should also have a place on the Lord High Executioner's little list. They'd none of them be missed.

Our next mini ice age should be exactly like the one we experienced in 2000.

Yes, I missed it, too.

[jeff47]

3. My favorite was the article claiming that the sun's output would drop by 60%

instead of activity dropping by 60%.

[jimlup]

4. Unfortunately though

the stupid MSM has swallowed this one hook line and sinker.

[TexasProgresive]

5. I assumed that this was in reference to the Atlantic conveyor.

There is a theory that as the cold fresh water melt increases because of warming it will override the warm denser salt water of the gulf stream. This could cause western Europe to experience extreme cold. The normal flow of the conveyor is warm salt water travels on the surface south to north and is replaced by cold salt water traveling deep underneath from north to south.

[pokerfan]

6. This was a prediction that solar activity (flares/sunspots/etc.) is going to reach a minimum

in fifteen years. AGW deniers jumped all over this suggesting that we don't need to worry about warming any more. Interesting which scientists they choose to believe.

[DVRacer]

7. Even though I believe in warming through greenhouse gasses

I also do not think you can remove an object that contains 99% of the mass of our solar system from the equation. The sun plays a major role in our climate and variances in its output can be felt and have over the 4.5 billion years the Earth has been in existence. There have been cycles in the past without human involvement of warm and cool periods they will continue for the next 5 billion or so years. I still believe greenhouse gas emissions are affecting the climate but solar output has to be in the equation as well. There is so much we do not understand about this wonderful universe we belong to its just a shame science is not taught well in school like it should. We didn't use to be so scared of new ideas like we are now. If Einstein were to come along today he would be mocked by Fox News as a quack and that scares me. That half the U.S. Population is afraid of science because of religion. Just my thoughts as I sit outside and stare at the stars in awe of the universe.

[Gothmog]

8. The flat earthers are really pushing this stupid claim

[Hugabear]

9. Right-wing pseudo-science

And of course, the anti-global warming crowd is lapping this up