The next Ice age has been postponed, or not?

[MrQwertyasd]

So let’s say the worst-case was true, and all the Arctic Ice disappeared by 2020 - will this bring it back ?

[watchwolf49]

Huh?

“suggest that solar activity will fall by 60 per cent during the 2030s to conditions last seen during the ‘mini ice age’ that began in 1645.”

Emphasis mine …

But the headline:

Double-Dynamo Model Predicts 60% Fall In Solar Output In The 2030s

… again emphasis mine …

Clever bit of “bait and switch” if you ask me. They mean sunspots and flares and such when they say “solar activity”, rest assured there’s still 100,000 thermonuclear warheads worth of fusion happening every second in the core of the sun. Keep the SPF 10,000 sunscreen handy.

[carnivorousplant]

[QUOTE=gnoitall;18514602 Perhaps the unwashed masses might picture ice sheets advancing over the continents,[/QUOTE]

Define “unwashed masses”, if you would be so good.

[Senegoid]

@wolfpup

I wish I had a dime for every one of these “news reports” that takes a (possibly) legitimate incremental scientific advance and turns it into “NEWS FLASH!!! EARTHSHAKING SCIENTIFIC BREAKTHROUGH!!! Scientists discover global warming has ceased/will cease/was never happening/was all a big misunderstanding”. Just one dime, that’s all I ask. I’d be a billionaire!

Richer still by far will be the man who has a dime for
"every one of these ‘news reports’ that takes a (possibly) legitimate incremental scientific advance and turns it into ‘NEWS FLASH!!! EARTHSHAKING SCIENTIFIC BREAKTHROUGH!!! San Fernando Valley housewife discovers global warming has ceased/will cease/was never happening/was all a big misunderstanding’ "

[Senegoid]

@carnivorousplant

Define “unwashed masses”, if you would be so good.

California residents after a few more years of this drought.

[Senegoid]

I read somewhere a few weeks ago why California is having this prolonged drought: There is a high-pressure ridge sitting over the north Pacific that has been just sitting there and sitting there and sitting there. (I infer that this high-pressure ridge has previously been a more transient thing.) It blocks all the wet air from the north Pacific from making it to land. So I guess it’s been raining as much as ever, except it’s all falling out there over the ocean. Apparently this ridge has become a stable and persistent feature, and there seems to be an implication that the global climate change is the cause of this.

SO: If we have this little ice age, will that be a major break from the global climate trends of recent times? Will the high-pressure ridge dissipate or move away? Will it rain?

Example cite: The Ridiculously Resilient Ridge Returns; typical winter conditions still nowhere to be found in California, Weather West (on-line weather site), February 2015.

ETA: Another article, from Stanford: Causes of California drought linked to climate change, Stanford scientists say, Sept. 30, 2014.

[Chronos]

This result says that if this model is correct, we’ll see a major drop-off of solar activity in 2030 or 2040. Is the model correct? We’ll find out in 2030 or 2040. It might be: Something certainly caused the Maunder Minimum, and that something might happen again. Maybe it’ll happen in 15 years… or maybe it’ll happen in 150, or 1500 years.

[carnivorousplant]

@Chronos

This result says that if this model is correct, we’ll see a major drop-off of solar activity in 2030 or 2040. Is the model correct? We’ll find out in 2030 or 2040. It might be: Something certainly caused the Maunder Minimum, and that something might happen again. Maybe it’ll happen in 15 years… or maybe it’ll happen in 150, or 1500 years.

150 years? I shall be in my dotage.
:dubious:

[watchwolf49]

@Senegoid

[The high-pressure ridge] blocks all the wet air from the north Pacific from making it to land. So I guess it’s been raining as much as ever, except it’s all falling out there over the ocean.

As a resident of Western Oregon, I can assure you the rain is NOT falling out in the ocean … sheesh … we were hit with TWO atmospheric river events in February, that’s a lot of rainfall.

We have El Nino conditions in the Eastern Pacific right now, with above average probability for this to persist into 2016 perhaps intensifying. This should break the drought in California. We’ll know for sure at the end of 2016 …

[GIGObuster]

@Quartz

Actually, The Independent is a significant UK newspaper. And Zharkova is a professor at a minor UK university. And the National Astronomy Meeting appears to be a big deal. She’s probably not a ‘lone Russian quack’.

I’m sure one of the resident astrophysicists will be along shortly to speak about the actual science.

Well, at least the Independent did bother to ask more than one expert, the proper experts are not ignoring the big picture:

Natural cooling of the Sun 'won't save Earth from global warming'

Natural cooling of the Sun will not be enough to save Earth from global warming, warn scientists

However, a study has found that the expected fall in global average temperature resulting from the natural, long-term fluctuations in solar activity will be dwarfed by the projected rise in temperatures due to man-made emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.

Recycled Climate Crock in the News Again

Financial Times:

Overall, however, winters are likely to become milder, the researchers say. “What this study shows is that the sun isn’t going to save us from global warming,” said Met Office scientist, Sarah Ineson, lead author of the study.

Responding to Climate Change:

According to models which simulate conditions from 2050 to 2099, a possible “grand solar minimum” would cool the planet by just 0.1C. Parts of northern Europe would feel a larger cooling effect of between -0.4 and -0.8C.

The planet could overheat by as much as 5C on pre-industrial levels in the same period, if greenhouse gas emissions follow current trends.

“The research shows that the regional impacts of a grand solar minimum are likely to be larger than the global effect, but it’s still nowhere near big enough to override the expected global warming trend due to man-man change,” said Sarah Ineson, a scientist at Britain’s Met Office and lead author in a statement.

“This means that even if we were to see a return to levels of solar activity not seen since the Maunder Minimum, our winters would likely still be getting milder overall.”

[Senegoid]

@watchwolf49

We have El Nino conditions in the Eastern Pacific right now, with above average probability for this to persist into 2016 perhaps intensifying. This should break the drought in California. We’ll know for sure at the end of 2016 …

Yeah, yeah, they said that last summer too. Maybe this year will be IT?

I read that El Nino brings torrential rain to southern California but drier weather to the Pacific Northwest. If that’s so, I wonder how far north that rain will hit. As far north as the San Francisco area? As far as southern Oregon? Southern Washington? Vancouver?

El Nino rains might not be a great solution for California drought anyway. It brings lots of rain, but it comes from the tropical Pacific region (the “Pineapple Express”) so it’s warmer rain, and it doesn’t produce a lot of snow pack in the Sierras, which is what California really needs in order to have a repository of water to last all summer.

[watchwolf49]

@Senegoid

Yeah, yeah, they said that last summer too. Maybe this year will be IT?

All I said was “above average probability” … [giggle] … hedging that bet for sure.

The afore mentioned Northeast Pacific High Pressure ridge breaks down allowing the entire coast to get hit with storms, so the Maritime Pacific Northwest will still see adequate rainfall. I average 100" a year here, due to topography and elevation, a single Pineapple Express would dump 8" over a couple days. So that’s fairly small in comparison.

The El Nino conditions only break down the high pressure ridge. That would allow an atmospheric river event to occur in California, but only if an atmospheric river were to occur. AFAIK, there’s no cause and effect between El Nino and Pineapple Expresses. They’re not exactly common, maybe average one every third year. That’s why it was startling to get two in month, especially since I had just finished touring California’s drought devastated Central Valley. Thank God OUR reservoirs were empty …

But back to the subject, I predict that the rainy season in California will start out normally, with maybe a bit above average rainfall until mid-November. Then the air flow will switch and come from the Northwest straight out of the Gulf of Alaska. This will bring lots and lots and lots of wet sloppy snow down to a very low elevation, I’m thinking 25,000 sq miles covered four feet deep in a couple weeks. That’s not a big stretch if the snow level is only 1,000 foot elevation.

Then the air flow will switch again this time from the Southwest, directly from sub-tropical Hawai’i. Plume after plume of 60ºF heavy rainfall causing 6" of rain every day for a week on top of all the wet sloppy snow. The Army Corp of Engineers already know what to do, they’ll have opened all the floodgates on all the dams in the Sierras by this time because they’re not allowed to let their dams get over-topped.

The Carquinez Strait isn’t wide enough to allow all that water to flow out into San Pedro Bay (a part of San Francisco Bay), the backed up water will form an inland lake running from Turlock to Colusa, Sacramento and Stockton will be under 40 feet of water and the water under the Golden Gate bridge will be fresh, just boil it and you’ll be able to drink it.

No Pineapple Express required …

[ftg]

Here’s The Bad Astronomer’s take on this. Note how horrible the news synopses are compared to the start of the actual paper. There’s another Slate article debunking it here.

Much of the previous ballyhoo about the Maunder Minimum being such a cold era as well as it being linked to sunspot cycles has been debunked. E.g., the Thames freezing over may have been more due to narrow bridge pilings than cold temperatures.

Remember, we just went thru a very low sunspot cycle. And things continued to get warmer.

[watchwolf49]

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.

Bullshit … the majority of scientists are waiting to see if the Zharkova experiment can be duplicated. The publication of this paper is just the first step in the scientific process, we’ll need years if not decades of further study to even determine if this “double dynamo” is reality or if Zharkova forgot to convert Guass’ to Teslas … it happens sometimes.

As far as the rest of that quote … c’mon Phil … at least pretend the first law of thermodynamics applies here.

[pool]

The Sun may not be the only factor in this, I’ve been reading about the effects of global warming on the Greenland Ice Sheets and how this could actually exacerbate and cause global cooling especially in the Northern Hemisphere. Kind of just makes you wish this was like an episode of Futurama and if we could just heat up the globe enough through inaction that will counteract some impending ice age. :rolleyes:

http://www.livescience.com/7981-big-freeze-earth-plunge-sudden-ice-age.html

[GIGObuster]

@watchwolf49

Bullshit … the majority of scientists are waiting to see if the Zharkova experiment can be duplicated. The publication of this paper is just the first step in the scientific process, we’ll need years if not decades of further study to even determine if this “double dynamo” is reality or if Zharkova forgot to convert Guass’ to Teslas … it happens sometimes.

That better be a poe.

@watchwolf49

As far as the rest of that quote … c’mon Phil … at least pretend the first law of thermodynamics applies here.

Or not, gee, at least read the rest of the article.

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:

In a nutshell, the Sun goes through an 11-year cycle of magnetic activity. When it peaks, sunspots are more common. You might think that means less heat from the Sun, since sunspots are cooler and darker. But they have bright rims (called faculae) that more than make up for the cooler interior regions. So, when solar activity is high, and sunspots abound, the Sun is actually very marginally warmer.

The sunspot cycle this go-round was weak, and may be weak in the next cycle as well. No one really knows. There has been research asking what would happen if it is weak next time and concludes it will have moderate localized effects—not global cooling. In fact, the very first line of the abstract of that paper is this:

Any reduction in global mean near-surface temperature due to a future decline in solar activity is likely to be a small fraction of projected anthropogenic warming. 

I mean, how much more clear can they be? None. None more clear: The Sun only has a small effect on Earth compared with what we humans are doing.

And again, all of this is a drop in the bucket. Any cooling effects by the Sun would be on top of a much larger heating trend due to global warming. Climate scientist Gavin Schmidt put out a series of tweets showing why (similar to what I’ve written here), and don’t forget that 2015 is gearing up to be the hottest year on record, too. My Slate colleague Eric Holthaus has written about this as well, and Think Progress also has a good article on it.

Of course, the usual suspects are running with this. The Daily Mail manages to make this sound like a certain apocalypse—it almost seems as if they’re trying to obfuscate reality—and many other publications repeated the claims without looking into them much, like the Australian, the Telegraph, and UPI.

But don’t be fooled. Global warming is real, and we’re headed, literally, for a world of trouble.

[watchwolf49]

@pool

The Sun may not be the only factor in this, I’ve been reading about the effects of global warming on the Greenland Ice Sheets and how this could actually exacerbate and cause global cooling especially in the Northern Hemisphere. Kind of just makes you wish this was like an episode of Futurama and if we could just heat up the globe enough through inaction that will counteract some impending ice age. :rolleyes:

http://www.livescience.com/7981-big-freeze-earth-plunge-sudden-ice-age.html

Wait a week … we’ll have headlines saying the opposite … The Master is right, someday cigarettes, booze and red meat will be the true health foods …

---

“at best it might slow warming a bit”
“completely overwhelm the Sun’s influence”

Either it slows warming a bit OR it completely overwhelms the Sun, I’m voting for the first. Sure, the Sun’s influence is overwhelmed, but not completely, the rate of solar energy input directly effects the rate of Global Warming. Also the rate of change of CO[sub]2[/sub] concentrations direct effect the rate of Global Warming … one equation in two variables both of which change with respect to time … that’s why UCLA requires two years calculus before they’ll let you take Climatology.

Unca Cece is sure fond of his 30 year time interval when discussing climate change, that’s almost three complete solar sunspot cycles. Perhaps not long enough to call these cycles completely “white noise”, but a good part of these variation are averaged out. It also makes the 11 year sunspot cycle immaterial to climate change, all the variation would be considered part of the current climate …

… keep the SPF 10,000 sunscreen handy …

[Senegoid]

@watchwolf49

All I said was “above average probability” … [giggle] … hedging that bet for sure.

< . . . >

The Carquinez Strait isn’t wide enough to allow all that water to flow out into San Pedro Bay (a part of San Francisco Bay), the backed up water will form an inland lake running from Turlock to Colusa, Sacramento and Stockton will be under 40 feet of water and the water under the Golden Gate bridge will be fresh, just boil it and you’ll be able to drink it. . . .

(Nit-pick: San Pablo Bay, not San Pedro.)

That’s quite the precipitous prediction you prophecy there. I’ll believe that when I’m chest-deep in it. (Yes, I live in the vicinity of this Great San Joaquin Lake you foresee.)

ETA: BTW: Why do you predict that we will know by the end of 2016, rather than by the end of 2015?

[GIGObuster]

@watchwolf49

Either it slows warming a bit OR it completely overwhelms the Sun, I’m voting for the first. Sure, the Sun’s influence is overwhelmed, but not completely, the rate of solar energy input directly effects the rate of Global Warming. Also the rate of change of CO[sub]2[/sub] concentrations direct effect the rate of Global Warming … one equation in two variables both of which change with respect to time … that’s why UCLA requires two years calculus before they’ll let you take Climatology.
…

Not sure why then we should ignore what the majority of the experts are telling us, they already did go through all that.

[watchwolf49]

@Senegoid

(Nit-pick: San Pablo Bay, not San Pedro.)

That’s quite the precipitous prediction you prophecy there. I’ll believe that when I’m chest-deep in it. (Yes, I live in the vicinity of this Great San Joaquin Lake you foresee.)

ETA: BTW: Why do you predict that we will know by the end of 2016, rather than by the end of 2015?

Doesn’t your rain year begin Oct 1[sup]st[/sup]? Then I guess we’d have a very good idea by August of 2016, by then the new lake will have reached maximum levels.