The Sun is Dimming--Meteoroligical Scientists are Being Forced to Fight for Funding to Monitor the Harbingers of a New (little) Ice Age

The sun is in a "funk"--unsure of what to do, when to kick into its new cycle: Solar Cycle 24.

The last such solar funk corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. While there were competing causes for the climatic shift—including the Black Death’s depopulation of tree-cutting Europeans and, more substantially, increased volcanic activity spewing ash into the atmosphere—the sun’s lethargy likely had something to do with it.

...The planet’s climate is a messy picture, with all sorts of influences and feedback cycles that need to be taken into account. In order to build more accurate computer models, scientists need to understand both anthropogenic factors and the link between the sun and our planet, Tapping says. To help get at the sun’s influence, he and other researchers connect Earth’s temperature with historic sunspot records of sky watchers from Europe and China, as well as with carbon-14 isotopes­—residue from cosmic rays delivered by the sun’s magnetic field—found in tree rings. To understand our role in climate change,” he says, “we need to understand the natural process.”....“Things [new solar research telescopes] are all on hold due to the consequences of the huge science funding cuts in the U.S. and the U.K.,” Tapping says. “This is impacting other partner countries because of the possible need to cover financial holes. Nobody is clear yet as to how this will unfold so they are hanging onto their wallets, for the moment.”

PopMech

At least one veteran meteorologist is predicting the start of a global cooling, based upon satellite measured temperature trends combined with recent global weather patterns. The reluctance of the Sun to go ahead and do its job is simply an additional reason to be concerned.

Update:

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."___IBD

Global cooling is a potentially civilisation-stopping development--depending upon how far it goes. It could be a genuine catastrophe--in contrast to current overfunded CO2 hysteria. Scientific funding agencies have become steeped in a neo-Lysenkoism of climate, that is quickly taking on fascist overtones in terms of lack of tolerance of debate and dissent.

Westerners are being failed by their governments and scientific foundations. It is within the ability of many of the world's "concerned billionaires" to make up governmental deficits in funding for the vital heresies. Unfortunately, men such as Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, George Soros, etc. cannot be bothered with such things.