Slashdot Mirror
Mini Ice Age: Nothing To Worry About
Geoffrey.landis writes: Last week a news story suggested that a new model of sunspot activity predicted a dramatic drop in solar activity coming up, possibly resulting in coming a mini-ice age. Take that prediction with a bit of skepticism, though-- later news analysis suggests that the story may be more media hype than science. Valentina Zharkova, the scientist whose research is being quoted, made no mention of a "mini Ice age"-- her work was only on modelling the solar dynamo. And, in any case, the solar minimum predicted was estimated to last only three solar cycles-- far less than the 17th century Maunder Minimum.
Phil Plait, known for his "bad astronomy" column, does a more detailed analysis of the claims, pointing out that the effect, if it even exists at all, is weak-- and the much discussed "Little Ice Age" is currently believed to most likely have been triggered by volcanic action, not sunspots. And, in any case, any predicted cooling is small compared to already-present global warming. So, probably no need to stock up on firewood, dried food, and ammunition quite yet-- the mini ice age isn't likely to be coming quite yet.
Phil Plait, known for his "bad astronomy" column, does a more detailed analysis of the claims, pointing out that the effect, if it even exists at all, is weak-- and the much discussed "Little Ice Age" is currently believed to most likely have been triggered by volcanic action, not sunspots. And, in any case, any predicted cooling is small compared to already-present global warming. So, probably no need to stock up on firewood, dried food, and ammunition quite yet-- the mini ice age isn't likely to be coming quite yet.
An "ice age" in the age of "global warming".
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
And focus on the global warming. Exclusively. Without deviation.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I was hoping the solar minimum would give us a little breathing room to get CO2 emissions under control before we cook the planet.
I read the internet for the articles.
Because humans can happily puke as much as CO2 as they can into the atmosphere, because apparently the chemistry and physics surrounding CO2 IR absorption and emission is all evil Commie lies! You agree with me that all climatologists should be forced to admit they are evil liars, right, and leading ones should be shot for economic crimes!
Let's join together to make every scientist that claims we can fuck ourselves over pay for the pinko evil ways! Let's get those fucking scientists now!!!!
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
After thinking about it for a few days I find Dr. Zharkova's double dynamo hypothesis interesting. Time and more study will tell if it holds up or not.
What I find amusing is all the breathless hype over a mini ice age. If if Dr. Zharkova's study is right and we do enter a Maunder Minimum-like period on the Sun we're talking about a reduction in insolation of at most about 0.2%, much less than the added forcing from the increase in CO2. At best it holds off some warming for a few years and that all goes away once the Sun returns to a more normal pattern.
That's easy. A few well placed h-bombs, perhaps in conjunction with some volcanoes, and we can put a nice sun-shield up into our atmosphere.
If man can affect global climate change, it can work both ways. What have we got to lose?
If it's been 400 years since the Maunder Minimum, and assuming we peak on temperature right now, wouldn't that mean the new minimum is still a problem for our [great-]+grandchildren?
The Little Ice Age followed immediately after the Medieval Warm Period. Just because it is warm doesn't mean it can't get cold.
Where I live the sun goes away at night.
imagine that
It's easy if you try
The National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, CO has this to say about a new Maunder Minimum: https://www.google.com/url?q=h... or, for the more scientifically literate: http://opensky.library.ucar.ed... The original hype would, therefore, appear to be pseudo-science.
No! Impossible!
This gives the Global Warming folks another "out" when their models are still failing in 2030
I would just like climatologists to admit that most of their prior models have had their faults and this one may as well. It's currently the best theory, but that doesn't give us the right to jump down everyone's throat that has a differing opinion.
Thinking like that is what got us into the obesity crisis in this country. Problem is, unlike the obesity crisis, we don't have 40 years to learn we were wrong.
In the summary Geoffrey.landis writes:
Phil Plait, known for his "bad astronomy" column, does a more detailed analysis of the claims,
I also find it ironic that, according to the Slashdot summary, Plait allegedly wrote, four years ago, a "detailed analysis" of last week's report (of a new solar model with a 97% match to the sun's actual behavior).
In the referenced article, Plait was deconstructing a previous report suggesting maybe the next solar cycle might be low, on the basis of extrapolations of the diclines seen in its two predecessors. He was not discussing the new model, which predicts, with substantial confidence, that (at least) the next TWO solar cycles would be almost nonexistent, comparable to the first two of Maunder Minimum's five nearly-missing cycles.
I also find it ironic that nobody else (that I've noticed) has commented on this yet.
If we're going to discuss this, let's at least have a reference to an authoritative article that is ACTUALLY TALKING ABOUT the model under discussion and the fallout if its predictions are accurate. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
What they say is that the short-term solar cycles have no effect on the climate.
"Little Substantial Effect" of the ups and downs of the individual cycles themselves and their usual cycle-to-cycle variations (rather than the exceptional cases of multi-cycle sunspot minimums), if I'm not mistaken.
If the Maunder Minimum (about five cycles long) was responsible, or even a substantial contributer to, the Little Ice Age, the effect of that variation Was substantial. It's the largest of three sunspot minima events that have been observed since sunspots were first noted as a significant phenomenon of scientific interest, and each of the minima was accompanied by a substantial worldwide cold snap. So let's not claim the scientists are dismissing it out-of-hand.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Where I live, I never see the sun. Someone let me out!
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
average and pleasant.
Oh Noes! We are experiencing increasing AGM (Anthropic Global Moderation). Do something! Anything!
Have gnu, will travel.
Once climate change really kicks in ... an Alaskan winter is going to feel more like Death Valley does today.
Really? I though even the worst models were only predicting single-digit C changes to temperature averages.
You're talking well over an order of magnitude more warming that the doom-and-gloom crowd. They're talking the ideal ranges of various crops moving a couple hundred miles toward the poles or a couple hundred feet upslope (even when trying to spin it into extinction events). You're talking frying eggs on the ground in the dead of the Alaskan winter. They're not comparable.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Quantum mechanics and GR have their flaws, and yet no one goes around declaring that electron tunneling and time dilation are part of an evil plot by Communist physicists.
No one is advocating radically altering the entire global economy because of electron tunneling, either.
Scientists can only report their findings. They can't force anyone to do anything. But it isn't helpful to have a legion of fossil fuel astroturfers and paid shills attacking their integrity at every point, nor is it helpful to have these same legions overstating the uncertainty, and making it sound as if industrial emissions are somehow magically inert.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If you don't like the conclusion, throw out the data.
So on one hand we have right-wing and tabloid outlets shouting "New Mini Ice Age", and on the other hand we have leftwing sites saying "No Possible Solar Changes Can Influence Climate" and referencing papers that are years old and don't even know of the new theory. How about going to the source? Interview with the scientists directly yesterday: http://www.iflscience.com/envi... Link to the paper being talked about: http://iopscience.iop.org/0004... She's an astrophysicist and seems pretty sure temps will be dropping due to noticeable solar activity drops. “During the minimum, the intensity of solar radiation will be reduced dramatically. So we will have less heat coming into the atmosphere, which will reduce the temperature.” Now we need some climate scientists to look at the new theories and new proposed solar activity levels and say how that will affect the AGW models.
Nice catch! The article: Are we headed for a new ice age? By Phil Plait | June 17, 2011
Unless Phil Plait is a time traveler then he didn't address this new model's predictions 4 years ago.
It is time to let your victims go.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I rarely post. I get mod points about every other week. You get it for just using the site.
Suborbital [spaceflight] is the special olympics of spaceflight. - Rei
True and Zharkova's double dynamo hypothesis doesn't have anything to say on climate change or a mini ice age, just that there may be lowered solar activity for a while. How such low solar activity affects climate has been examined before and what they found was it would only slow global warming down a bit but not stop it. RealClimate had a post on it in 2011.
Time to trot out the old "correlation isn't causation" meme. It could be a coincidence the the Dalton Minimum was at the same time or the DM could be a partial explanation. Remember that Mt. Tambora and the "Year without a summer" occurred during the DM.
Exactly. The "food pyramid" is EXACTLY why people don't trust "science". It turns out that the food pyramid makes you obese, and if you want to be thin, you should not worry about fats and eat a lot more protein and a lot less carbs.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
... as in FIVE YEARS OLD and has already been figured into the equations for AGW, which is real, and is getting worse.
Get a grip.
It doesn't matter whether the Global Warming is Anthropogenic or not (other than to tell us that, if anything needs to be done about it, anthropogenesis says we CAN affect it because we already DID).
What matters is where it's going, whether the destination is disastrous, annoying, ho-hum, or maybe even good, whether it will sort itself without help, and if not, how much and how we need to intervene to make things better than if we don't bother.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
It is technically possible for one of two things to occur that would create a mini ice age, even if those pushing this are really anti-science global warming deniers.
1. The Alaska to Northern California subduction zone "jumps", triggering massive tsunamis and setting off nearby earthquake unzipping along the Alaska, BC, Washington, Oregon, and Northern California linked fault lines, which could (but most likely would not) cause some of the active volcanoes near this line (like Mount Hood, Mount Rainier, and so on) to activate in full eruption. The resulting atmospheric emissions would cause a mini ice age similar to that during the last mini ice age (also called the Dark Ages).
2. Yellowstone could erupt. If that happens, you have a lot more to worry about, other than the mini ice age that would certainly occur.
That said, those pushing this are really just anti-science global warming deniers, desperate for continuing government subsidies for their dying fossil fuel industries.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I would just like climatologists to admit that most of their prior models have had their faults and this one may as well...
I'm going to take a wild guess here and say you don't really ever read research papers. Because if you did, you'd know that just about every piece of research includes a section for ERROR ANALYSIS. In other words, scientists know there are errors and they analyze them to describe what they are, how they're bounded, etc.
~X~
I believe you are projecting from your side of the Maginot line.
Sorry-- Phil Plait wrote a detailed analysis of the claims that decreases solar activity means that the Earth is likely to slip into a mini ice age.
The new model of the solar dynamo is new, but doesn't mention a "mini ice age". The part Plait analysed is not new.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
all climatologist admit that, and this in addition to existing error bars. This is why climatology is a science , because if it finds a better way to model, it drops the old model and take a new one. That is why we can speak of prior model: because better one came up.
No sorry indeed it does. Opinion are WORTHLESS sorry for the caps emphasis but it needs to be told. If you have a concurrent model which better model the data make a paper. Then we can talk. But opinion have no say in a science discussion. You may as well speaks about the opinion of 40+% of the american which have the opinion the theory of natural selection is bunk. That is why opinion are not worth anything whatsoever, and what claims can be advanced without evidence (deniers opinion) can be dismissed without hassle.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Seeing as you just described "model", I don't think they have to do shit. Maybe you should learn more about the terminology in play instead? No-one is getting throat-jumped for simply holding a differing opinion, but for categorically ignoring the science and substituting their own conjecture.
So you haven't read the IPCC reports. Thanks for letting everyone know you are making stuff up.
As has been pointed out you are confusing science with the USDA, which speaks more of your ability to understand what you learn than of science in general. Ouch.
Thanks for sharing just how little you know of this subject. It really helps those who are trying to have a decent discussion when you out yourself as not only not understanding the findings, but completely disinterested in doing so. Good jerb!
Then read the IPCC reports, and your ignorance will be cured. You seem to be acting like no-one's bothered to figure this stuff out, when it appears it's just you being massively ignorant of an entire field of study, then using your ignorance as evidence of why it should be trashed. Brilliant stuff.
Quantum mechanics and GR have their flaws, and yet no one goes around declaring that electron tunneling and time dilation are part of an evil plot by Communist physicists.
It appears you just made a statement in which you attempted to place a limit the raving insanity of true wingnuts. Of course, being a modern take on such matters, it's a liberal plot, nmot a communist one but I believe the principle is the same. Have fun with this:
http://www.conservapedia.com/C...
Here's the opening line:
The theory of relativity is disproved by numerous counterexamples, but is promoted by liberals who like its encouragement of relativism and its tendency to pull people away from the Bible.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Your post is yet another sad example of a classic Slashdot genre: "Scientists unsure if Sun exists".
It's pretty well accepted that solar output affects climate.
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