Solar Cycle Shutting Down: New Ice Age Next?

"The sunspot cycle may be going into hibernation," says Frank Hill of the National Solar Observatory in Sunspot, New Mexico. He and other researchers are presenting their findings this week at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Solar Physics Division in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

...The sun's solar cycle was interrupted once before during the so-called Maunder minimum from 1645 to 1715, when almost no sunspots appeared.

Some scientists have suggested this 70-year lull may have triggered or contributed to the pronounced cooling observed in northern Europe during this period... _NS

WUWT
Solar scientists do not understand what is up with the sun these days. Just as physicists are discovering that the sun may be driving the climate, solar scientists are frantically trying to understand what is driving the sun. Because if the sun does decide to shut down for a while, things on Earth may grow very cold of a sudden.

Three different lines of evidence suggest that the sun, which is expected to reach its maximum sunspot and magnetic activity in the current cycle in 2013, might even be entering a prolonged quiet period similar to the so-called Maunder Minimum, a 70-year period from 1645 to 1715 in which virtually no sunspots were observed. _SMH

It has been clear for some time that global climate closely tracks solar activity, mediated largely via clouds and ocean oscillations. But scientists are still in a fog as far as understanding the controlling forces of solar cycles.

A missing jet stream, fading spots, and slower activity near the poles say that our Sun is heading for a rest period even as it is acting up for the first time in years, according to scientists at the National Solar Observatory (NSO) and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL)....All three of these lines of research to point to the familiar sunspot cycle shutting down for a while.

“If we are right,” Hill concluded, “this could be the last solar maximum we’ll see for a few decades. That would affect everything from space exploration to Earth’s climate.” _WUWT

Scientists are forced to monitor second and third order phenomena, and to guess at the primary -- likely chaotic -- forces at the heart of the sun, which control the observable phenomena. As for the climate of tiny planet Earth, it is at the mercy of cosmic forces.

When unscrupulous politicians and grant-hungry climatologists scream for greater funding and more control over government budgets and economic activity -- that is clearly self-interest talking. But when voters, citizens, and the public at large take these climate grifters seriously -- that is the Idiocracy.

CERN CLOUD experiment hopes to shed light on Sol :: Cosmic Ray :: Global Climate connection

David Archibald's PDF on Solar Cycle 24 and possible climate repercussions

Article: PDF on Cosmic Ray Theory by originator Henrik Svensmark

Mini Ice Age within a decade? Register via GWPF

10 Reasons to be cheerful about the coming ice age... Delingpole

National Geographic: Sun Headed into Hibernation

Remember, global cooling is far more devastating than global warming. Global cooling leads to widespread crop failures and a dramatic drop in agricultural yield. Another "little ice age," such as occurred the last time the sun went to sleep, could lead to hundreds of millions of human deaths from starvation and associated disease and warfare. Or worse. Because without current huge agricultural yields from temperate climate crops, the world's human population would be too large to sustain, as per Malthus.

Attention Planet Earth: Your Previously Scheduled Global Warming Doomsday Has Been Cancelled--Other Previously Scheduled Doomsdays Remain in Effect

The video above is now available on YouTube. It is the first of a 5 part series. To view the rest, simply click on the screen and go to YouTube for the other 4 segments.

The global warming doomsday message is a lucrative one for dishonest carbon trading schemes and schemers, such as Al Gore.

But the people need a religion, and the Church of CAGW (catastrophic anthropogenic global warming) is as good a religion as any--requiring blind faith in its believers, as it does.

Image hat tip Ice Age Now

Climatology: Finally Becoming a Science?

New research has the potential to bring climatology up from a religion to a science. First, NASA's AIM satellite was successfully launched.

NASA's Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) spacecraft, the first mission dedicated to the exploration of mysterious ice clouds that dot the edge of space in Earth's polar regions, successfully launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., at 1:26 p.m. PDT on Wednesday, April 25.

The mission will study clouds that are noctilucent, meaning they can be seen from the ground only at night, when they are illuminated by sunlight no longer visible from the Earth's surface.

Noctilucent clouds are increasing in number, becoming brighter and are occurring at lower latitudes than ever before. "Such variations suggest a connection with global change," said Russell.

Source
Clouds strongly affect the amount of radiant heat that is admitted to the atmosphere and allowed to leave the atmosphere. Climatologists generally have no clue about the effect of clouds, and water vapour, on the climate.

Second, better studies of ocean carbon dioxide are filling in some huge gaps in knowledge of the earth's carbon cycle.

the new study, detailed in the April 27 issue of the journal Science, finds that not all of this carbon makes it past the region of the ocean known as the mesopelagic or “the twilight zone”—roughly 300 to 3,000 feet below the surface where there isn’t enough light for photosynthesis—which acts as a gateway to the deep ocean below.

Animals and bacteria in the twilight zone often consume and further decompose the sinking marine snow, converting the carbon into dissolved organic and inorganic forms that can find their way back to the surface and then the atmosphere.

Source

And then there are the many excellent studies highlighted in Climate Science Blog which vastly enlarge the scope of investigation into climate change.

It is expected that accounts of studies will be spun to emphasize the likelihood of anthropogenic greenhouse gas influences on climate. But more intelligent persons will read between the lines, even when reading the original studies.

Fortunately, more objective and informed volunteers are serving as climate auditors, to point out the many excesses and deficiencies of the current climate religion-trying-to-become-a-science.

CAGW is a fad in science funding that brings in a lot of grant money. IPCC reports are polished odes to ignorance, largely influenced by political aims.

But science is not content to stop asking questions. Science is all about debate. The debate is just beginning.

Climate Catastrophe Cancelled: A Video Primer

Friends of Science is a non-profit organization made up of active and retired engineers, earth scientists and other professionals, as well as many concerned Canadians, who believe the science behind the Kyoto Protocol is questionable. Friends of Science has assembled a scientific advisory board of esteemed climate scientists from around the world to offer a critical mass of current science on global climate and climate change to policy makers, and any interested parties.

Their video documentary "Climate Catastrophe Cancelled" is available as five .wmv files downloadable from their website.


Here is an article that suggests current climate models need to include more sophisticated models of clouds.

Here is a posting from climatologist Roger Pielke Sr.s blog discussing the issue of land use, and why current climate models cannot be taken seriously until they deal honestly with land use issues.

It is difficult to take the mainstream IPCC model of climate change seriously anymore--there are too many significant issues that big money, big politics climatology refuses to address.

Honestly, though, I enjoy the faux drama of the whole issue. It makes an excellent distraction from the very serious issues that society just cannot bring itself to face.