Following Facebook I have been vaguely aware of claims in the tabloid press about a new ice age starting in the 2030's. I have not bothered to follow it because even if it were true I would suggest that by 2030 human civilisation (if not the species itself) will be toast.
Here is the response from Guy McPherson:
"This
shit about the mini ice age is so fucking ignorant and stupid it
hurts. I'll address it for about the twentieth time today. And the
last, if all goes well.
"The
clathrate gun has been fired. There is no way the proposed mini ice
age will significantly slow the heating.
"Every
report I've read about this study misquotes it. Solar *magnetic*
activity was evaluated. Media reports are claiming solar *intensity*
will decline.
"The
anticipated 60% reduction in solar magnetic-cycle magnitude
translates to a climate forcing of -0.1 W/m2. That's equivalent to a
decrease of 8 ppm atmospheric carbon dioxide. The atmosphere
currently holds about 400 ppm CO2, with 350 ppm ultimately lethal to
humans. Subtracting 8 ppm at this point is analogous to giving a
blood transfusion to a dead man."
Speaking for myself, I have fairly successfully insulated myself from the worst of the nutcases.
Here are a couple of reports responding to the reports.
If you want to see the claims you can see them here -
River
Thames could freeze over in 2030s when Northern Hemisphere faces
bitterly cold winters, scientists say
Media
Reports The World Will Enter A ‘Mini Ice Age’ In The 2030s. The
Reverse Is True.
Joe
Romm
13
July, 2015
U.K.
tabloids, conservative media, and others are (mis)reporting that
the Earth will enter a “mini ice age” in the 2030s. In fact, not
only is the story wrong, the reverse is actually true.
The
Earth is headed toward an imminent
speed-up in
global warming, as many recent studies have made clear, like
this June
study by
NOAA. Indeed, a March
study,
entitled “Near-term acceleration in the rate of temperature
change,” makes clear that a stunning acceleration in the rate of
global warming is around the corner — with Arctic warming rising
1°F per decade by the 2020s!
Also,
right now, we appear to be in the midst of a long-awaited jump in
global temperatures. Not only was 2014 the hottest year on record,
but 2015 is in the process of blowing
that record away.
On top of that, models say a massive El Niño is growing, as USA
Today reported last
week.
Since El Niños tend to set the record for the hottest years (since
the regional warming adds to the underlying global warming trend), if
2015/2016 does see a super El Niño then next year may well crush the
record this year sets.
Whatever
near-term jump we see in the global temperatures is thus likely to be
followed by an accelerating global warming trend — one that would
utterly overwhelm any natural variations such as a temporary
reduction in solar intensity.
A recent
study concluded
that “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.”
That’s
true even for one as big as the Maunder Minimum, which was linked to
the so-called Little Ice Age.
The
“Little Ice Age” is a term used to cover what appears to have
been two or three periods of modest cooling in the northern
hemisphere between 1550 and 1850.
I
know you are shocked, shocked to learn that unreliable climate
stories appear in U.K. tabloids, the conservative
media,
and those who cite them without actually talking to leading climate
scientists. Often there is a half truth underlying such stories, but
in this case it is more like a nano-truth.
Last
week, in Llandudno, north Wales, the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS)
held Cyfarfod
Seryddiaeth Cenedlaethol 2015 —
the “National Astronomy Meeting 2015″ (in case you don’t speak
Welsh). An RAS news release had this startling headline, “Irregular
Heartbeat Of The Sun Driven By Double Dynamo.”
Okay,
that wasn’t the startling part. This was: “Predictions from the
model 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.”
CREDIT:
WIKIPEDIA
Ah,
but the word choice was confusing. We’re not going to have
temperature “conditions” last seen during the Little Ice Age. If
this one study does turn out to be right, we’d see solar conditions
equivalent to the Maunder Minimum in the 2030s.
This
won’t cause the world to enter a mini ice age — for three
reasons:
The
Little Ice Age turns out to have been quite little.
What
cooling there was probably was driven more by volcanoes than the
Maunder Minimum.
The
warming effect from global greenhouse gases will overwhelm any
reduction in solar forcing, even more so by the 2030s.
So
how little was the Little Ice Age?
The
most comprehensive reconstruction of the temperature of the past
2000 years done so far, the “PAGES
2k project,”
concluded that “there were no globally synchronous multi-decadal
hot or cold intervals that define a worldwide Medieval Warm Period
or Little Ice Age.”
Green
dots show the 30-year average of the new PAGES 2k reconstruction.
The red curve shows the global mean temperature, according HadCRUT4
data from 1850 onwards. In blue is the original hockey stick of
Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1999 ) with its uncertainty range (light
blue). Graph by Klaus Bitterman.
The
Little Ice Age was little in duration and in geographic extent. It
was an “Age” the way Pluto is a planet.
Writing
on Climate Progress, climatologist Stefan Rahmstorf noted the
researchers “identify some shorter intervals where extremely cold
conditions coincide with major volcanic eruptions and/or solar
minima (as already known from previous studies).”
That
brings us to the second point: The latest research finds that what
short-term cooling there was during the Little Ice Age was mostly
due to volcanoes, not the solar minimum. As “Scientific
American” explained in
its 2012 piece on the LIA, “New simulations show that several
large, closely spaced eruptions (and not decreased solar radiation)
could have cooled the Northern Hemisphere enough to spark sea-ice
growth and a subsequent feedback loop.” The period associated with
the LIA “coincide with two of the most volcanically active half
centuries in the past millennium, according to the researchers.”
The
cooling effect from the drop in solar activity during even a Maunder
Minimum is quite modest. Environmental scientist Dana Nuccitelli
discussed the literature underscoring that point in a U.K.
Guardian post from
the summer of 2013, the last time the “Maunder Minimum” issue
popped up.
That
brings us to the third point: Whatever cooling the Little Ice Age
saw as result of the Maunder Minimum, it pales in comparison to the
warming we are already experiencing — let alone the accelerated
warming projected by multiple studies. That’s clear even in Pages
2k reconstruction above.
Just
last month “Nature Communications” published a
study called,
“Regional climate impacts of a possible future grand solar
minimum.” This found that, “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.” As with the Little Ice Age, any significant effects are
likely to be regional in nature — and, of course, temporary, since
a grand solar minimum typically lasts only decades.
So,
no, the Daily Mail is quite wrong when it trumpets,
“Scientists warn the sun will ‘go to sleep’ in 2030 and could
cause temperatures to plummet.”
In
actuality, what is going to happen in the business-as-usual
emissions scenario (RCP8.5) is closer to the figure below, which
plots “rate of change” of warming:
Global
rates of decadal temperature change over 40-year periods. Results
are shown for: central climate assumptions (thick solid line), range
due to uncertainty in aerosol forcing (grey shading), and range due
to uncertainty in climate sensitivity (blue shading). The outer
bounding cases are shown as dotted lines. The thin solid black line
shows the historical rate of change using the HADCRU4 observational
data. The vertical dashed line indicates 2014. Via PNNL.
In
the RCP8.5 scenario, the rate of warming post-2050 becomes so fast
that it is likely to be beyond adaptation for most species — and
for humans in many parts of the world, as I discussed here.
The warming rate in the central case hits a stunning 1°F per
decade. Arctic warming would presumably be at least 2°F per decade.
And this goes on for decades.
No
Maunder Minimum can save homo
sapiens from
that catastrophic outcome. Only humanity can — by ignoring those
who deny or mislead on climate science and instead taking aggressive
action to slash carbon pollution ASAP.
This
shit about the mini ice age is so fucking ignorant and stupid it
hurts. I'll address it for about the twentieth time today. And the
last, if all goes well.
The
clathrate gun has been fired. There is no way the proposed mini ice
age will significantly slow the heating.
Every
report I've read about this study misquotes it. Solar *magnetic*
activity was evaluated. Media reports are claiming solar *intensity*
will decline.
The
anticipated 60% reduction in solar magnetic-cycle magnitude
translates to a climate forcing of -0.1 W/m2. That's equivalent to a
decrease of 8 ppm atmospheric carbon dioxide. The atmosphere
currently holds about 400 ppm CO2, with 350 ppm ultimately lethal to
humans. Subtracting 8 ppm at this point is analogous to giving a
blood transfusion to a dead man.
No,
Earth is not heading toward a ‘mini ice age’
By
Chelsea Harvey
A solar flare erupts on the sun’s northeastern hemisphere. Media coverage of research into a predicted solar minimum has indicated that Earth is heading toward another “mini ice age.” But climate scientists insist this isn’t the case. (NASA via AP)
14
July, 2015
This
week, warnings of an impending “mini ice age,” set to hit in the
2030s, have been circulating in the media. It’s a story that has
caused shivers among the public, but there’s one problem: Climate
scientists aren’t
buying it.
The
ice age idea got rolling last week when researcher Valentina
Zharkova,
a professor of mathematics at Northumbria University in
England, presented some of her recent research into solar
variations at the Royal Astronomical Society’s National Astronomy
Meeting in Wales. The presentation was based on a study she
had published
last year in
the Astrophysical Journal, which presented a technique for
understanding variations in solar radiation and made some predictions
about how this radiation will change in the near future. Most
notably, the research predicts that between 2030 and 2040, solar
activity should drop significantly, leading to a condition known as a
“solar minimum.”
According
to the research, solar activity at this time should resemble
conditions last seen in the mid-1700s during a period known of low
solar radiation known as the “Maunder Minimum.” The interesting
thing about this period was that it coincided with a “little
ice age” in Europe and North America — a time marked by unusually
cold temperatures and bitter winters. Now that Zharkova and her
colleagues are predicting another solar minimum coming up, media
coverage has jumped on the idea that a modern “mini ice age”
is in store.
It’s
a dramatic idea, but it isn’t being embraced by many climate
scientists, who argue that anthropogenic global warming —
brought on by a human outpouring of greenhouse gas emissions into the
atmosphere — will far outweigh any climate effects that might
be caused by the sun. As far as the solar variations go, “The
effect is a drop in the bucket, a barely detectable blip, on
the overall warming trajectory we can expect over the next
several decades from greenhouse warming,” said Michael
Mann,
distinguished professor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State
University, in an e-mail to The Washington Post.
However,
the issue isn’t so simple for Zharkova, who is openly skeptical
about the strength of anthropogenic greenhouse gases when
compared to the influence of the sun.
On
the one hand, Zharkova maintains that her research was not intended
to make assumptions about the effects of solar variation on climate —
only to lay out predictions about the solar activity itself. “What
will happen in the modern Maunder Minimum we do not know yet and can
only speculate,” she says. On the other hand, she adds, her
gut assumption is that temperatures will drop as they did 370
years ago.
The
reason, she says, is her belief that the sun is a bigger influence on
earthly climate than the effects of greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere. “I am not convinced with the arguments of the
group promoting global warming of an anthropogenic nature,”
Zharkova says, adding that she would need to examine more research
before she could take a clear stance on anthropogenic climate change.
Given the right evidence, she says she might accept that human-caused
climate change is a bigger factor — but her belief for the
time being is that changes in solar radiation are likely to have a
bigger influence on temperature changes on Earth, not just during
times of solar minimum, but throughout history.
However,
this belief is in direct contrast with much literature on the
topic. Georg Feulner, deputy chair of the Earth system analysis
research domain at the Potsdam Institute on Climate Change Research,
co-authored a paper
in 2011 specifically
examining the effect a solar minimum might have on Earth’s climate.
His paper, and subsequent related research has concluded that
any solar-related temperature drops would be far outweighed by
human-caused global warming. In the case of a solar minimum, such as
the one predicted by Zharkova and colleagues, “The expected
decrease in global temperature would be 0.1°C at most, compared to
about 1.3°C warming since pre-industrial times by the year 2030,”
Feulner wrote in an e-mail to the Post.
Complicating
the matter further is the idea that
the 17th century’s “little ice age” wasn’t even really the
result of the solar minimum going on at the time. Feulner also
authored another 2011
paper that
concluded that volcanic activity was the major cause of a cooler
climate during this time, rather than solar variations. The takeaway
is that changes in solar radiation are unlikely to hold a candle to
the climatic effects being brought about by human-related greenhouse
gas emissions.
While
Zharkova is one of a small minority of scientists who do not fully
accept human activities as the greatest drivers of current climate
change, she says she’s surprised at the media response her
study has garnered. “I didn’t realize there would be such a
strong response from the climate people,” she says, adding that she
would need to repeat the calculations of mainstream climate
scientists and examine the evidence herself to decide if she can
accept their point that anthropogenic influences outweigh those of
the sun.
So there
may well be a solar minimum in store for the near future — but
it’s still probably safe to put your scarves and mittens back
in storage for now. Research in the area suggests that
greenhouse gas-related warming, not solar variations, will be the
dominant climate factor for many years to come.
Still,
Zharkova cautions, there’s not much time left until her predicted
solar minimum hits. “We have only 15 years to wait, so we’ll
learn soon enough,” she says.
Posts
