THE DEMISE OF SUNSPOTS—DEEP COOLING AHEAD?
Don J. Easterbrook, Professor of Geology, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA
The three studies released by NSO’s Solar Synoptic Network this week, predicting the virtual vanishing of sunspots for the next several decades and the possibility of a solar minimum similar to the Maunder Minimum, came as stunning news. According to Frank Hill,
“the fact that three completely different views of the Sun point in the same direction is a powerful indicator that the sunspot cycle may be going into hibernation.”
The last time sunspots vanished from the sun for decades was during the Maunder Minimum from 1645 to 1700 AD was marked by drastic cooling of the climate and the maximum cold of the Little Ice Age.
What happened the last time sunspots disappeared?
Abundant physical evidence from the geologic past provides a record of former periods of global cooling. Geologic records provide clear evidence of past global cooling so we can use them to project global climate into the future—the past is the key to the future. So what can we learn from past sunspot history and climate change?
Galileo’s perfection of the telescope in 1609 allowed scientists to see sunspots for the first time. From 1610 A.D. to 1645 A.D., very few sunspots were seen, despite the fact that many scientists with telescopes were looking for them, and from 1645 to 1700 AD sunspots virtually disappeared from the sun (Fig. 1). During this interval of greatly reduced sunspot activity, known as the Maunder Minimum, global climates turned bitterly cold (the Little Ice Age), demonstrating a clear correspondence between sunspots and cool climate. After 1700 A.D., the number of observed sunspots increased sharply from nearly zero to more than 50 (Fig. 1) and the global climate warmed.
The Maunder Minimum was not the beginning of The Little Ice Age—it actually began about 1300 AD—but it marked perhaps the bitterest part of the cooling. Temperatures dropped ~4º C (~7 º F) in ~20 years in mid-to high latitudes. The colder climate that ensued for several centuries was devastating. The population of Europe had become dependent on cereal grains as their main food supply during the Medieval Warm Period and when the colder climate, early snows, violent storms, and recurrent flooding swept Europe, massive crop failures occurred. Winters in Europe were bitterly cold, and summers were rainy and too cool for growing cereal crops, resulting in widespread famine and disease. About a third of the population of Europe perished.
Glaciers all over the world advanced and pack ice extended southward in the North Atlantic. Glaciers in the Alps advanced and overran farms and buried entire villages. The Thames River and canals and rivers of the Netherlands frequently froze over during the winter. New York Harbor froze in the winter of 1780 and people could walk from Manhattan to Staten Island. Sea ice surrounding Iceland extended for miles in every direction, closing many harbors. The population of Iceland decreased by half and the Viking colonies in Greenland died out in the 1400s because they could no longer grow enough food there. In parts of China, warm weather crops that had been grown for centuries were abandoned. In North America, early European settlers experienced exceptionally severe winters.
So what can we learn from the Maunder? Perhaps most important is that the Earth’s climate is related to sunspots. The cause of this relationship is not understood, but it definitely exists. The second thing is that cooling of the climate during sunspot minima imposes great suffering on humans—global cooling is much more damaging than global warming.
Global cooling during other sunspot minima
The global cooling that occurred during the Maunder Minimum was neither the first nor the only such event. The Maunder was preceded by the Sporer Minimum (~1410–1540 A.D.) and the Wolf Minimum (~1290–1320 A.D.) and succeeded by the Dalton Minimum (1790–1830), the unnamed 1880–1915 minima, and the unnamed 1945–1977 Minima (Fig. 2). Each of these periods is characterized by low numbers of sunspots, cooler global climates, and changes in the rate of production of 14C and 10Be in the upper atmosphere. As shown in Fig. 2, each minimum was a time of global cooling, recorded in the advance of alpine glaciers.
The same relationship between sunspots and temperature is also seen between sunspot numbers and temperatures in Greenland and Antarctica (Fig. 3). Each of the four minima in sunspot numbers seen in Fig. 3 also occurs in Fig. 2. All of them correspond to advances of alpine glaciers during each of the cool periods.
Figure 4 shows the same pattern between solar variation and temperature. Temperatures were cooler during each solar minima.
What can we learn from this historic data? Clearly, a strong correlation exists between solar variation and temperature. Although this correlation is too robust to be merely coincidental, exactly how solar variation are translated into climatic changes on Earth is not clear. For many years, solar scientists considered variation in solar irradiance to be too small to cause significant climate changes. However, Svensmark (Svensmark and Calder, 2007; Svensmark and Friis-Christensen, 1997; Svensmark et al., 2007) has proposed a new concept of how the sun may impact Earth’s climate. Svensmark recognized the importance of cloud generation as a result of ionization in the atmosphere caused by cosmic rays. Clouds reflect incoming sunlight and tend to cool the Earth. The amount of cosmic radiation is greatly affected by the sun’s magnetic field, so during times of weak solar magnetic field, more cosmic radiation reaches the Earth. Thus, perhaps variation in the intensity of the solar magnetic field may play an important role in climate change.
Are we headed for another Little Ice Age?
In 1999, the year after the high temperatures of the 1998 El Nino, I became convinced that geologic data of recurring climatic cycles (ice core isotopes, glacial advances and retreats, and sun spot minima) showed conclusively that we were headed for several decades of global cooling and presented a paper to that effect (Fig. 5). The evidence for this conclusion was presented in a series of papers from 2000 to 2011 (The data are available in several GSA papers, my website, a 2010 paper, and in a paper scheduled to be published in Sept 2011). The evidence consisted of temperature data from isotope analyses in the Greenland ice cores, the past history of the PDO, alpine glacial fluctuations, and the abrupt Pacific SST flips from cool to warm in 1977 and from warm to cool in 1999. Projection of the PDO to 2040 forms an important part of this cooling prediction.
Figure 5. Projected temperature changes to 2040 AD. Three possible scenarios are shown: (1) cooling similar to the 1945-1977 cooling, cooling similar to the 1880-1915 cooling, and cooling similar to the Dalton Minimum (1790-1820). Cooling similar to the Maunder Minimum would be an extension of the Dalton curve off the graph.
So far, my cooling prediction seems to be coming to pass, with no global warming above the 1998 temperatures and a gradually deepening cooling since then. However, until now, I have suggested that it was too early to tell which of these possible cooling scenarios were most likely. If we are indeed headed toward a disappearance of sunspots similar to the Maunder Minimum during the Little Ice Age then perhaps my most dire prediction may come to pass. As I have said many times over the past 10 years, time will tell whether my prediction is correct or not. The announcement that sun spots may disappear totally for several decades is very disturbing because it could mean that we are headed for another Little Ice Age during a time when world population is predicted to increase by 50% with sharply increasing demands for energy, food production, and other human needs. Hardest hit will be poor countries that already have low food production, but everyone would feel the effect of such cooling. The clock is ticking. Time will tell!
References
D’Aleo, J., Easterbrook, D.J., 2010. Multidecadal tendencies in Enso and global temperatures related to multidecadal oscillations: Energy & Environment, vol. 21 (5), p. 436–460.
Easterbrook, D.J., 2000, Cyclical oscillations of Mt. Baker glaciers in response to climatic changes and their correlation with periodic oceanographic changes in the Northeast Pacific Ocean: Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs, vol. 32, p.17.
Easterbrook, D.J., 2001, The next 25 years; global warming or global cooling? Geologic and oceanographic evidence for cyclical climatic oscillations: Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs, vol. 33, p.253.
Easterbrook, D.J., 2005, Causes and effects of late Pleistocene, abrupt, global, climate changes and global warming: Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs, vol. 37, p.41.
Easterbrook, D.J., 2006, Causes of abrupt global climate changes and global warming; predictions for the coming century: Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs, vol. 38, p. 77.
Easterbrook, D.J., 2006, The cause of global warming and predictions for the coming century: Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs, vol. 38, p.235-236.
Easterbrook, D.J., 2007, Geologic evidence of recurring climate cycles and their implications for the cause of global warming and climate changes in the coming century: Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, vol. 39, p. 507.
Easterbrook, D.J., 2007, Late Pleistocene and Holocene glacial fluctuations; implications for the cause of abrupt global climate changes: Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs, vol. 39, p.594
Easterbrook, D.J., 2007, Younger Dryas to Little Ice Age glacier fluctuations in the Fraser Lowland and on Mt. Baker, Washington: Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs, vol. 39, p.11.
Easterbrook, D.J., 2007, Historic Mt. Baker glacier fluctuations—geologic evidence of the cause of global warming: Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs, vol. 39, p. 13.
Easterbrook, D.J., 2008, Solar influence on recurring global, decadal, climate cycles recorded by glacial fluctuations, ice cores, sea surface temperatures, and historic measurements over the past millennium: Abstracts of American Geophysical Union Annual Meeting, San Francisco.
Easterbrook, D.J., 2008, Implications of glacial fluctuations, PDO, NAO, and sun spot cycles for global climate in the coming decades: Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs, vol. 40, p. 428.
Easterbrook, D.J., 2008, Correlation of climatic and solar variations over the past 500 years and predicting global climate changes from recurring climate cycles: Abstracts of 33rd International Geological Congress, Oslo, Norway.
Easterbrook, D.J., 2009, The role of the oceans and the Sun in late Pleistocene and historic glacial and climatic fluctuations: Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs, vol. 41, p. 33.
Eddy, J.A., 1976, The Maunder Minimum: Science, vol. 192, p. 1189–1202.
Hoyt, D.V. and Schatten, K.H., 1997, The Role of the sun in climate change: Oxford University, 279 p.
Svensmark, H. and Calder, N., 2007, The chilling stars: A new theory of climate change: Icon Books, Allen and Unwin Pty Ltd, 246 p.
Svensmark, H. and Friis-Christensen, E., 1997, Variation of cosmic ray flux and global cloud coverda missing link in solar–climate relationships: Journal of Atmospheric and SolareTerrestrial Physics, vol. 59, p. 1125–1132.
Svensmark, H., Pedersen, J.O., Marsh, N.D., Enghoff, M.B., and Uggerhøj, U.I., 2007, Experimental evidence for the role of ions in particle nucleation under atmospheric conditions: Proceedings of the Royal Society, vol. 463, p. 385–396.
Usoskin, I.G., Mursula, K., Solanki, S.K., Schussler, M., and Alanko, K., 2004, Reconstruction of solar activity for the last millenium using 10Be data: Astronomy and Astrophysics, vol. 413, p. 745–751.
=================================================================
UPDATE: Bob Tisdale has posted a rebuttal. Here is what he has to say via email.
Hi Anthony: The following is a link to my notes on the Easterbrook post:
We should have progressed beyond using outdated TSI datasets, misrepresenting the PDO, and creating bogus global temperature graphs in our arguments against AGW.
I’ve advised Easterbrook, and we’ll see what he has to say – Anthony
The Inconvenient Minimum.
Bob Tisdale says:
June 17, 2011 at 7:07 am
Thanks Bob, one has to be sceptical about some sceptics’ predictions too.
Wikipedia and his personal home page describes Don Easterbrook as Professor Emeritus. This should probably be corrected here, no?
REPLY: The title is as he wrote it – I’ll leave it to him as to how he wishes to describe himself – Anthony
Interesting correlation and hypothesis. Remember: “It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future” (attribution contested: http://www.larry.denenberg.com/predictions.html )
GISS global temp. anomaly for May is 42 (down from 55 in April, a much sharper drop than UAH).
It is just weather.
http://www.arapahoebasin.com/ABasin/snow-conditions/web-cams.aspx
John A says:
I do not wish cooling upon the Earth simply to falsify the Greenhouse hypothesis. The stakes are much higher than the egos of a pampered, delusional few.
Don’t sweat it, 1] whatever cooling happens was going to happen anyway, and we can’t control it except to use our inherent rationality along with its creative, truly scientific process to anticipate it and adjust asap – in spite of the retardant actions of the various “pampered egos” operating directly against these functions; 2] we’re also due for a full-blown glaciation, so any smaller cool down will be a fortunate alert showing everyone else the enlightened way to proceed via real human progress based upon the action of creative, optimistic minds who actually love life and practical actions to support it; and 3] the pampered-ego “throwbacks”, who essentially worship the death and destruction of others as a way to enrich or otherwise gratify themselves in some way, will not be very easily dissuaded from continuing upon their existing course to produce their very own CO2 = CAGW Totalitarian shut down of Humanity, probably easily rivaling the ill-effects of any natural cause, as based upon their own “unnaturally” low lying and low functioning brains.
With apologies, the Universe acts in mysterious but miraculous ways.
Thought it was going to be rabid climate modeller Steve Easterbrook (*) which will undoubtedly have already written a new program to show that if the sun cools down a bit we will fry even faster and that is Much Worse Than We Thought.
* My favourite S Easterbrook quote – made to me directly : ‘Nobody without a PhD in Radiative Physics is even entitled to have an opinion about Climate Change’. The guy’s modesty overwhelms me…….
From many of the proxies I’ve seen the climate has become more variable over the last 2000 years. Some of it appears to be tied to variations in sunspots. Since we are due(?) for another glaciation it begs the question of whether this variation in the Sun may be related to glaciation. I realize the *consensus* gives Milankovitch cycles the honor of producing glaciation, but is it possible a quieter Sun may be a contributing factor?
Do we have any information on sunspot activity during glaciation events? Could it be possible that the combination of the reduced sunspots and axis tilt sets the Earth’s climate up for a jump from one chaotic attractor (interglacial) to another (glaciation)? Lot’s of questions for an enterprising young paleoclimatologist …
See Svensmarks:
http://ruby.fgcu.edu/courses/twimberley/EnviroPhilo/Svensmark.pdf
Svensmark says that this: J. R. Herman and R. A. Goldberg in. Sun, Weather and Climate [ Dover Publications, 1985,. 360 pp., originally published as NASA SP-426, GPO, influenced his work. I found it once on a NASA site to download, can’t find it again.
There has been scarfy, intellectually dishonest, whining critics on the AWG side…whose arguements against Svensmark’s work in particular don’t hold up!
Max
Juanslayton, the tribe is called Blackfoot in Canada and Blackfeet in the US.
Mods – this is the corrected post. TNX (if possible, delete this header)
Hmmm … have we here a ‘wolf’ in sheep’s dress? (Hoping to make someone perhaps ‘look bad’, sow seeds of dissent all the while dissembling?)
Been there; see “
Time Magazine and Global Warming” for some fun with the subject plus some serious links in the comments section addressing your ‘debunking’ effort.
Thomas C. Peterson – the infamous “talking points memo” writing Peterson?
As detailed here:
NCDC writes ghost “talking points” rebuttal to surfacestations project
Posted on June 24, 2009 by Anthony Watts
UPDATE: The “ghost author” has been identified, see the end of the article.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/24/ncdc-writes-ghost-talking-points-rebuttal-to-surfacestations-project/
A ‘credible’ source to be sure (wink wink).
Another familiar name … let me see, would this be the infamous RC and climate-wikipedia-editing Connelly?
Or another Connolley, wolf?
.
Hi,
My main problem is that he is using a TSI reconstruction that is way out of date and most agree now that TSI does not vary that much. Also the coldest part of the LIA was in the 1815 Tambora eruption. His PDO does not match up. Do get me wrong I think the sun does influence the climate but it looks like he is trying to blame it all on the sun. My two cents.
Jim Arndt
If we are going to name this solar minimum in advance (asuming it is going to continue), my vote is for calling it the VP Al Gore Solar Minimum. That way, everyone is reminded how wrong Gore and all the climate alarmists were about the AGW Theory whenever the Mimimum is mentioned.
“…Hardest hit will be poor countries that already have low food production…”
Not necessarily. Those countries are used to getting by in hard times. “Hardest hit” will be the countries that rely on the the “just in time” supply chain. For the most part they have no alternative method of subsistence since that part of the food infrastructure has long vanished or has been outlawed due to government regulation.
With a population that far exceeds the production ability of the locally generated food system, those regions are the people who will be hardest hit.
Dang Bob, you are such a party pooper.
John Finn, good scepticism. Do you ever apply it to the IPCC, Jones, and Mann mythology?
Oh wow…
I’m sitting here pondering my last post and it just hit me.
Squirrels and other woodland critters will put on a layer of fat prior to very harsh winters. Is it possible that this instinct is connected… maybe on a subconscious level, to the obesity problems of some western cultures?
(Just a thought)
RR Kampen says:
June 17, 2011 at 7:04 am
“Everyone in IPCC WG3 should be terminated.”
Steve McIntyre, http://climateaudit.org/2011/06/14/ipcc-wg3-and-the-greenpeace-karaoke/ .
I agree completely with Steve Mc. I would have terminated their employment the minute I realised they were not worth their salt and their output was, at the very least, not fit for purpose.
If there is some lag in the system (if, indeed there is a system;-) then: 179×2=358 and 2003-1645=358. Just sayin’.
Professor Easterbrook,
I was happy to see your post here at WUWT.
I found your post evocative of cooling concernism, to say the least.
After reading your above post I went back and reviewed your presentation at the Fourth International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC4), May 2010, Chicago, IL [ http://www.heartland.org/environmentandclimate-news.org/ClimateConference4 ].
I see that in ICCC4 you used 3 of the 5 figures you just used in this current post. Notably you also used your current post’s figure 5 in Chicago. Question: Can you explain the source of your black line (surface temp variation) in figure 5? Particularly, can you explain the source of your surface temp variation data for the period ~1990 to present? NOTE: I noticed that several other commenters here at WUWT have already questioned that part of your figure 5.
Also, another question: The MM causation of the LIA that you explicitly suggest does not appear to be consistent with the time correlation. How do you account for that discrepancy?
Finally, given that you endorse the correlation between the low solar activity and earth cooling, then how do you explain in your ICCC4 presentation (link above) your figure entitled “25 yr warm/cool cycles from 18O isotopes in the Greenland ice core”. The figure I am pointing out occurs about at 09:45 min into your video presentation. That figure appears to me to show some cooling and warm periods do have approximate correlation to solar activity lows and highs respectively BUT it shows to me that some cooling and warm periods do not have correlation to solar activity lows and highs respectively. So it appears to be a wash; therefore I find it difficult to understand when you say there is good correlation between cool periods and low solar activity and likewise I find it difficult to understand when you say there is good correlation between warm periods and high solar activity.
John
Sadly I see a lot of apparent errors/inconsistentcies in Don’s work here. (assessment of changes in PDO, the 20th century sunspot record, temperature record reported in Europe during Maunder, and the instrumental temperature record in figure 5 to name a few). These are inconsistent with the findings of Eddy. Perhaps he could list his specific supporting source documents for these so we could all see where this data is coming from. I too believe we are headed for a break in the 20th century warming but clear verifiable evidence is required on both sides of the AGW question.
kuhnkat says:
June 17, 2011 at 8:19 am
Dang Bob, you are such a party pooper.
John Finn, good scepticism. Do you ever apply it to the IPCC, Jones, and Mann mythology?
Yes.
On the projected changes chart, the Maunder is not even shown, the worst case scenario is the Dalton. Imagine the depth of the Maunder, it would literally be off that chart.
On that note, after yesterday’s dry cold front passage, we got a good Arctic blast. Lows here in the southern part of coastal Norcal were in the 40s this AM. Used the heat for a short while. Anyone long on JUNE heating degree days for the NW US?
Final note about dry cold fronts. They are more generally associated with early fall, in this area, than they are with spring. I do note some of the more sensitive deciduous trees in my area are just starting to turn.
Please stay away from the Koolaid! Warming or cooling.
Stay skeptical. Alarmist is alarmist no matter the trend.
If it cools, the Greens will shift gears and try to push a UN based world government based on catastrophic cooling rather than warming. Stay objective and skeptical with an open mind.
Stop the hand waving and let’s get back to Science.
RE: JohnA – I do not wish cooling upon the Earth simply to falsify the Greenhouse hypothesis. The stakes are much higher than the egos of a pampered, delusional few.
============================
At stake is the efficacy of Civilization itself.
The “myth” of the global cooling of the ’70s? How old are you? Had you been an adult during that time, I can assure you – you would have heard, seen and read stories warning of the coming ice age. It’s not a “myth”.