Don't Move North Yet.....
CURRENT EVENTSNot every scientist is part of Al Gore’s mythical “consensus.” Scientists worried about a new ice age seek funding to better observe something bigger than your SUV — the sun.
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.
linda said:
Sounds like Global Climate Change whether in the form of heating or cooling could put an end to all our other problems.
At least under the next president scientists can do their work, disagree among themselves - which should have the affect of making them all work harder to be correct. And, they shouldn't need to worry about being censored. The more studies the better and they will keep one another honest and accountable.
At least under the next president scientists can do their work, disagree among themselves - which should have the affect of making them all work harder to be correct. And, they shouldn't need to worry about being censored. The more studies the better and they will keep one another honest and accountable.
Tracy said:
Linda, AMEN.
Enough of Bush's war on science!
Once again I show my middle-of-the-road colors by posting both sides of the opinions.
When I hear AlGore, I believe him....
NOW THIS?
I'm confused.
Enough of Bush's war on science!
Once again I show my middle-of-the-road colors by posting both sides of the opinions.
When I hear AlGore, I believe him....
NOW THIS?
I'm confused.
linda said:
I have confidence scientists unfettered can figure it out. They are quite a competitive bunch and in the proper atmosphere of encouragement they want to be right and they want to be right first. Of course, it takes time to make that determination.
It isn't a subject I know much about. I think IF man is doing something to add to whatever MIGHT be happening it can't hurt to make small changes. Even if they aren't necessary it still doesn't hurt me to recycle, use those squiggly light bulbs, walk, turn down / up the thermostat, conserve energy in every way I can...
It isn't a subject I know much about. I think IF man is doing something to add to whatever MIGHT be happening it can't hurt to make small changes. Even if they aren't necessary it still doesn't hurt me to recycle, use those squiggly light bulbs, walk, turn down / up the thermostat, conserve energy in every way I can...
Vaughn Tolle said:
Not to mention, Linda, that attempts to conserve energy, together with a concentrated research effort into alternative energy sources, would contribute to the national well-being in a number of ways. Yes, it's going to take time to overcome the Ethanol fiasco; yes, it's going to take time to develop non-carbon based fuels; and yes, as Ben posts from time to time, there needs to be in the short term, at least, a considered use of nuclear energy, based upon in part a recycling of some of the excess warheads and waste generated from plants now as fuel sources. While all this is hopefully occurring, if we all conserve as best we can (sometimes difficult to know what we might do, at least for those of us already trying to do what we can through more efficient lighting, thermostat adjustments, etc.), this could affect the overall demand for petroleum in the U.S. Given the increase in world demand, that might not do a lot overall for the cost to us, other than reducing the rate of increase in price; but it's less expensive than doing nothing.
Tracy said:
No matter the cause of climate change, we do know one thing, fossil fuels are not a good thing.
For anybody.
For anybody.
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