Guest Post by Ric Werme
Nils-Axel Mörner, best known for his career of studying sea level and sea level records, reported in the April 2011 issue of the journal Energy & Environment that:
At around 2040-2050 we will be in a new major Solar Minimum. It is to be expected that we will then have a new “Little Ice Age” over the Arctic and NW Europe. The past Solar Minima were linked to a general speeding-up of the Earth’s rate of rotation. This affected the surface currents and southward penetration of Arctic water in the North Atlantic causing “Little Ice Ages” over northwestern Europe and the Arctic.
At the time I thought this was a bit of a reach, and still do, but it fits in well with:
- today’s earlier post, Study: solar activity lull increases chances of cold UK winters
- discussions at ICCC #6 about more coming cold winters and realizing that some people were quite familiar with the paper, e.g. Nicola Scafetta but some were not (I gave Bill Gray my copy) and
- a “flurry” of reports from the southern hemisphere and July skiing in the northern hemisphere.
Mörner claims
During the Spörer, Maunder and Dalton Solar Minima, Arctic water was forced southwards all the way down to Mid-Portugal and the adjacent land areas experienced “Little Ice Ages” (Mörner, 1995, 2010). At the same time, however, the Gibraltar and NW Africa experienced warm events. This North-South opposed climate conditions are well understood in terms of differential distribution of current flow-masses along the northern and southern branches, respectively, of the Gulf Stream (Mörner, 1995, 2010).
While he mentions Svensmark’s “brilliant new theory,” Mörner refers to changes in the Earth’s rotation rate due to changes in the solar wind. I have a lot of trouble with that. I’m more comfortable with changing rates due to build up of seasonal snow and ice at high latitudes. Nevertheless, Mörner explains:
Due to the changes in rotation, the oceanic surface current system is forced to respond (Figure 1). As a function of this, the Gulf Stream alters its main distribution of water along the northern and southern branches, and simultaneously cold Arctic water can, at the speeding-up phases of Solar Minima, penetrate far down along the west coasts of Europe creating Little Ice Age environmental conditions (Figure 2).
Note this is a regional change, any global effects will like be much milder.
As for the timing of all this:
The date of the New Solar Minimum has been assigned at around 2040 by Mörner et al. (2003), at 2030-2040 by Harrara (2010), at 2042 ±11 by Abdassamatov (2010) and at 2030-2040 by Scafetta (2010), implying a fairly congruent picture despite somewhat different ways of transferring past signals into future predictions.
The onset of the associated cooling has been given at 2010 by Easterbrook (2010) and Herrara (2010), and at “approximately 2014” by Abdassamatov (2010). Easterbrook (2010) backs up his claim that the cooling has already commenced by geological observations facts.
At any rate, from a Solar-Terrestrial point of view, we will, by the middle of this century, be in a New Solar Minimum and in a New Little Ice Age. This conclusion is completely opposite to the scenarios presented by IPCC (2001, 2007) as illustrated in Figure 3. With “the Sun in the centre”, no other conclusion can be drawn, however.
While the official home for the article is at Energy & Environment, a non pay-walled version is at eike-klima-energie.eu
H/t to David L. Hagen
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Damn…guess I had better step it up gathering firewood…
I honestly hope that we don’t see another Little Ice Age, at least in my and my children’s lifetime. The prospects are chilling (said in all seriousness).
I await tyhe day when the CAGW’ers will then say the reduction in CO2 was the driver of this colder weather.??!
Sorry but it won’t happen, there will be too many off shore wind turbines around the uk, the vibrations from which will prevent the build up of ice. Most people think that the UK government is stupid to be building these turbines but you will see, it’s all part of the plan, almost.
/sarc
It is doubtful that I can stick around until 2050 to observe this new ice age. Maybe it can arrive in a more timely manner, for me. However, failing either of the above – can a real mechanism between solar minimums and climate on Earth be shown? The explanation given in this post is still a bit of a reach for me, also.
Regardless, this reasoning says nothing about AGW and the adherents there of can simply say the onset of catastrophic warming is just being delayed.
Some say the world will end in fire
Some say in ice.
From what I know of man’s desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But now, til slumbering Helios wakes
’tis ice will rime the fields and lakes.
Thats why many westernised countries are rushing to install some form of cap and trade, carbon tax or ETS. It will get cold.
Can’t burn firewood here in California. It isn’t totally banned, but the rule are such where it’s hardly ever permitted.
First claims by the (C)AGW-pushers that Energy & Environment is not a real peer-reviewed science journal thus this can be completely ignored as unscientific nonsense, shall be arriving in 4… 3… 2…
Now—following the risk theory of AGWists, otherwise known as “giving the planet the benefit of the doubt”— would be the time for those in temperate zones to plan for any forthcoming little ice-age: constructing more power-stations; preparing for walled and even roofed orchards; designing intensive, multi-storeyed, hydroponics farms; ensuring that roads, bridges and other infrastructure can withstand ice; and so on.
Unfortunately, I suspect that, with so many alleged scientists, along with the compliant journalists and credulous politicians, maintaining a belief in the conjecture that anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide cause floods as well as droughts, coolth as well as warmth, and more storms as well as fewer, our gullible leaders will blame any ice-age, even as lakes and rivers freeze, on “the big polluders” (as our Australian Prime Minister calls them). Instead of mitigation, politicians will do even more to reduce our capacity to engineer projects to keep humanity warmed and fed.
I notice increasing commentary on this point of a solar based cooling. A lot of us have been following this for several years. Now its reaching the point of actuation.
So the point becomes which direction of adaptation do we follow? My preference would be to plan for the effects of the cold. These impacts are so much more damaging.
To governments here and afar I would suggest that we immediately stop trying to over price carbon for political purposes and instead ask what you can do to buffer the impacts of crop failures due to cold. If its coming, and it looks more and more like it is, isn’t the prudent step to prepare for that result, instead of taxing people to death in the name of the Carbon villan?
Where are our environmentalist friends when we need them most?
I blame Global Warming! It’s caused everything else hasn’t it? I mean absolutely everything! Smallpox, measles, polio, malaria, volcanoes, earthquakes, asthma, AIDS, banking failures, economic failures in Europe (PDREU), the list is endless! The science is irrefutable, alledegedly. :-))
Agree with other commenters that Ice is Bad.
Interesting though the parallels between the CAGW debate and the debate on Copernican vs Ptolmic solar system.
The CAGW (Ptolmic) theory puts the Earth at the centre of the universe, and requires increasingly dubious and complex adjustments to the core theory to keep its results within spitting distance of past events, and it is incapable of handling new data. It is a very poor predictor.
The Svensmarkian theory put the Sun at the centre, and is simple and elegant, and completely capable of handling new information and also doesnt demand to be the one and only theory, theres room for other things in that model.
Are we witnessing another geocentric to heliocentric shift, with the UN playing the role of the Church?
Change in rotation speed and the wobbling, even though very little may have influence on the ocean currents and thus even be one of the major drivers we are looking for. One thing is obvious, CO2 is not one. CO2 is only the driver of taxation, invented and used by politivians.
The earth is decelerates each time Al Gore takes his enormous mass up in that private jet of his. The earth accelerates each time he comes back down to earth. It’s a “conservation of angular momentum” thing that has nothing to do with solar activity. Big Al is diverting the Gulf Stream! We can stave off this predicted “Little Ice Age” by keeping The Goracle at high altitude. It will be tough duty, but I believe Al is the man for the job and there are tremendous benefits for the rest of us.
I think there would be more influence in the Earth’s spin rate due to major subduction zone quakes. We have seen the quake in Indonesia in 2004, now the quake in Japan. Both of these have acted to speed up the rotation of the Earth.
I see no problems.
The new ice age [little/big/minuscule] will arrive.
We will be well prepared, the country will be awash in massive amounts of bird choppers (but no birds).
After the initial storms (during which the blades have to be “feathered” to avoid damage, and hence generate nothing) the wind steadies. Then drops to nothing. Large amounts of people slowly die from the cold. Larger amounts starve.
Sounds like a “green” utopia.
They’ll all be tucked-up in their universities and parliaments.
Until we arrive.
Jumping from one extreme hypothesis of the Arctic free ice, to another the LIA setting in Europe is just a plain nonsense. So it is projected date of the new solar minimum. Any hypothesis should at least be supported by some of the available past data, and none of the above appears to be so. Data based on reliable sources for the future climate suggest moderate cooling:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NAO-.htm
and for solar activity projection Dalton type minimum:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC7.htm
The new phoney battlefield:
Catastrophic Global Warming vs. Catastrophic Global Cooling
Carbon Dioxide vs. Sunspots.
Enjoy the fun !
My layman’s thoughts; if the MASS of ice increases at the poles, earth rotation must increase?
(mass loss from equitorial waters.) What then melts the ice?
Um.. Will it be called the “Mörner Minimum” ?
Interesting parallels with Copernicus etc as well stated by RichyRoo2001.
As I understand it, the Japanese earthquake changed the speed of the earth’s rotation. I wonder if this will impact the coming minium?
So if this is true, we will have to stop wasting fossil fuels, as our grandchildren will need them 50 years from now to heat their homes.
OMG, just like the warmistas say!
RichyRoo2011: July5, 10:58pm
I thoroughly agree. We will shortly find emissaries from the UN moving from town to town, and village to village burning AGW non-believers at the stake.
Whereas the act of “moral justice” should go some way to offsetting the lowering temperature, the said emissaries will have to self-flaggelate themselves every evening, to atone for all the carbon released during the holy “cleansing” rituals.
Life will not be easy, when you are engaged in the pious service of Gaia, and conducting her will.
Right – the ocean pattern makes a lot of sense and explains why ice floes and polar bears could be seen off the coast of Scotland in the previous Little Ice Age. My hypothesis for the mechanism though would be different and would fall around persistent negative NAO conditions driving northerly winds down from the Arctic and down the Eastern side of Iceland and down the North and Irish Seas – this would counteract and work against the North Atlantic Current, disrupting it to some extent. While the main impacts would be felt in Europe and Eastern North America, I would think global temperatures would average out quite a bit lower as a result of the cooling across the North Atlantic. An increased temperature gradient on the Eastern Atlantic would make for some potent low pressure systems at times too.
RichyRoo2011 says:
July 5, 2011 at 10:58 pm yes, Ptolemaic vs Copernican! And what else? The pagans worshiped the sun and were resigned to their fate under it’s power, before the Theologians came along and preached humanity in control of its destiny…by repentance and doing good works….bonfire of the vanities and all that. We are cast as the pagans professing unrestrained fatalism, even if not all of us worship the sun.