The current cycle of the sun is taking a long time to start, triggering different explanations, writes Mark Lawson in an article entitled: 'Scientists disagree over lack of sunspots,' published in the Australian Financial Review (subscription required).
Excerpt: Despite being dismissed by a number of scientists as of little consequence to the present discussion of climate change, the issue of the sun's activity - or apparent lack of it - has been the subject of considerable debate in recent months. Scientists who concern themselves with the fledgling subject of space weather (changes in the sun's emissions) have been wondering where all the sunspots have gone, when they might come back and what effect this will have on climate.....
Another scientist who says he has identified a link between the sun's activity and climate - in particular between rainfall in Australia and sunspots - is Robert Baker, an associate professor at the University of New England's School of Human and Environmental Studies. Baker tells the AFR he has identified a strong correlation between sunspots, the sun's magnetic activity and the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI). He says variations in the earth's magnetic field account for about half of the variation in the SOI, and that changes in sunspot activity as an indicator of magnetic activity can be correlated with rainfall patterns in south-east Australia . The Bureau of Meteorology has rejected Baker's reasoning and a paper by him was not accepted by the Australian Meterological Magazine. But Baker says his analysis has been accepted by the peer-reviewed journal Solar Terrestrial Physics for publication in December.
"he Bureau of Meteorology has rejected Baker's reasoning and a paper by him was not accepted by the Australian Meterological Magazine."
So much for peer review. That ought to be the end of this particular cult. This shows that stupidity in the public sector is our gravest problem.
Of course heating is dead easy to reverse. We would simply take the SO2 that we had scrubbed out when making liquified coal. Then what we'd do is when a commercial airliner was flying near the equator in open water it would shoot an SO2 missile into the upper stratosphere. Cheap and easy. No problem at all. But the situation of problematic warming isn't going to occur in the first place.
I just told you. A number of things can be done to stop the glacial period being locked in. Nothing can be done to prevent this next little-ice-age. But there are some things that might be done to prevent such occurences from locking us into an endless deep freeze. The most important is heading off any obstruction to the gulf-stream.
For example Heinrich events lead to a lot of ice being dumped on the Gulf stream periodically. And each time this is done that sends us backwards and stops us getting out of the glacial period. Particularly harmful is the ice that leads to Heinrich events off Hudson bay.
We could find a way to reduce aerosols. Not only human aerosols but those from volcanoes. We could find a way to reduce friction here and there in the ocean currents and particularly the gulf stream.
Ice moves like a slow-motion river. We could strategically nuke some parts of the land ice sheet to stop it moving forward. We might cover large areas of farmland with Ethylene tetrafluoroethylene. Sometimes it may be possible for someone to buy up ice-covered land cheaply, cover it with Ethylene tetrafluoroethylene, and reclaim this land for agriculture. Certainly the ice-damaged land would be cheaper so thats an economic opportunity.
We don't want to be getting rid of sea ice. Because sea ice is a great insulator. Heinrich events happen, for example, due to heat buildup because of ices insulative capacity. But there is an exception where the ocean currents are concerned. We want to pre-empt ice getting near to anywhere that they may obstruct the oceans currents.
"We can stop this disaster if we try."
How? What do we have to do?
No no you have it wrong. Progressively worsening "little-ice-ages" have to be considered the default position.
As tragic as they are and will be for puny humans they are the norm. They require no predictive capacity. The idea that we might avoid them is where the speculative thought comes in.
The last glacial period apparently began in this slow fashion around 112000 years ago. That at least is what I've been able to glean. But it didn't really get locked in until much later. Perhaps from memory about 83000 years ago. The geneticists tell us that by 70 000 years ago most of the human race had been slaughtered.
I say this at the risk of getting our environmentalists excessively excited at the prospect of a renewed slaughter.
We were in full-blown glacial conditions at 70 000 years ago. And it oscillated up and down from there. Research needs to look at physical obstructions to the gulf stream to see how this nastiness gets locked in.
My understanding is that things were not too much different at 70,000 years ago, as compared to the ice maximum of 18000 years ago.
We can stop this disaster if we try.
It is plain silly to be predicting an ice age on a slow solar cycle.
The DAULTON MINIMUM is the only possibility at this time.Beyond that is sheer speculation.