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
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Solar wind affecting earth’s rotation and causing a LIA……….hmmm, I’m not at all sure about that I’m afraid. Now if he’d referred to a solar minimum causing changes in cloud cover and albedo then I might have been with him. This article seems a little cranky IMHO.
Needs a reality check.
1. How big are the earth’s rotational changes causes by solar wind changes: I am betting zero
2. How big a rotational change is it going to take to affect ocean curents: I am going to bet humongous
I hope everything will be fine and it will not cost any damages.
Interesting, very interesting, not very funny but very interesting. The UN and governments will if this report in correct be telling us that they may have got it wrong. CO2 is not the cause of AGW but it is cooling the world down and still want to tax us. It will be called AGC ‘c’ for cooling.
It would not seem that Nils-Axel Mörner informed the Arctic about his plan, as she seems to not be playing ball
http://nsidc.org/images/arcticseaicenews/20110606_Figure3.png
His views on sea level, the above theory and dowsing? are all at odds with the scientific community, which is pretty much confirmed by the journal that published the above, yet again E&E.
But then Mörner does have a bit of a history
http://www.environmentaldefense.org/documents/3868_morner_exposed.pdf
@RichyRoo2011
Interesting theory; except I would suggest that the CAGW (Ptolemic) theory puts man at the centre of the universe as it is only man-made CO2 having any effect and only man-legislated laws can adjust the system back to “normal”. The Earth is clearly incapable of looking after itself with natural feedbacks etc.
Does this mean that the IPCC will not be needed any more?
Maybe, if we ask them nicely, the army of hangers-on will stay in the job and redirect their talents to combating Global Cooling.
I think Nils-Axel Mörner could well be right, although I think his timing of 2040 is way too late (we are already starting to see both NH and SH weather patterns shifting as our climate system returns to ‘cool mode’). Paradoxically, I think this will result in the combined polar/temperate zones becoming less cold on average, with increased precipitation and more snow at lower latitudes.
The other effect I expect to see is an increase in warming in the ITCZ, as Earth’s cooling system becomes less efficient in these latitudes and the system tries to restore N/S temperature differentials. As far as climate science is concerned, cooling will become (is becoming?) the new warm…
I think the (very slight) increase in the Earth’s rotation that Dr Morner talks about would be caused by sea level fall. It’s a conservation of angular momentum argument.
Global warming caused Julia Gillard? actually, no, just simple human indulgence, in a grab for power as she stabbed her former leader in the back, then became a born again green carbon warrior to get green support to keep her in power. Global Cooling, bring it on and lets see her spin on that, if she lasts much longer as the most hated (useless) PM in living memory!! She and her party was going to get a cool reception from voters at the next election anyway!
My own very rough educated guess …
*if* we have entered a 25-30 year cooling micro-cycle it could reach out to 2030-ish.
*if* after that there is a corresponding 25-30 year warming micro-cycle it could reach out past 2060-ish.
*if* after that there is a corresponding 25-30 year cooling micro-cycle it could reach out past 2090-ish.
*if* the prediction by Nils-Axel Mörner of a 2040-2050 Solar Minimum is true, it will serve to tamp down the latter half of the warming cycle 2030-2060. And will enhance the following cooling perhaps to epic levels (“a new “Little Ice Age” over the Arctic and NW Europe“). This LIA would occur at least a decade after his stated prediction though.
Hey this is fun! I’m a climatologist now. And I won’t be here to be held accountable either. 🙂
A change in the Earth’s rotation would affect ocean circulation but how is it proposed that changes in the solar wind could affect the Earth’s rotation?
One could get just the same effect on the ocean currents from changes in surface air pressure distribution changing the prevailing wind directions.
That seems a far more fruitful area for investigation. Several are currently proposing just such top down solar effects.
As regards Svensmark’s cosmic ray idea I’m more inclined to think it is a matter of solar induced changes in the vertical temperature profile of the atmosphere.
I’m currently out on a limb with that though because I require a cooling stratosphere and mesosphere when the sun is active and warming of those layers when the sun is less active. However that is the only way to get the observed effects on the surface pressure distribution. If the polar air masses are to expand at a time of less active sun then the stratosphere at the poles has to warm in order to suppress upward energy flow at the poles thereby causing the polar air masses to spread horizontally.
More alarmist drivel!
—well, this will probably see a flood of immigrants from Europe into Africa. That’ll make a change!
RichyRoo2011 says:
Are we witnessing another geocentric to heliocentric shift, with the UN playing the role of the Church?
Ha! Exactly.
We need not worry about the threat of a new Little Ice Age. All those coal fired power stations the Chinese are building will save us by increasing the green house effect. Hang on, I forgot that the latest “research” shows that the Chinese power stations are pumping out particles that reflect the sunlight back into space. Hence the lack of warming over the past decade.
Therefore the world must obviously continue with the present policy of curbing CO2 emissions. That will save us from the terrible threat of having runaway global warming and a little ice age at the same time. Whatever the question the answer is still the same!
Roy
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2011667/Global-warming-new-ice-age-YOURE-paying-politicians-hysteria.html
Read the Mail…………..says it all really!
The likelihood of this happening is zero, as radiative forcing during Solar minnimum drops by around 0.2 w/m2, far less than the forcing increase due to increased Greenhouse gasses.
What I want to know is, will we be able to put enough CO2 into the atmosphere in time to counteract this cooling, especially if the climate sensitivity is only 1.5 deg. C per doubling?
no sarc…this time 🙁
OK, so what explains the ice age in Greenland, that is still there!
What is all this about the earths rotation rate? Is that something lost in translation? Crazy Talk? Can that really happen in such a short period of time?
Well, I’m skeptical; I’ll wait and see. Of course, we will be told that this cold spell is due to global warming.
RichyRoo
Good observation!
The idea that a solar minimum will bring us into a little ice age is fantasy. Neglecting the rise in greenhouse gases is foolhardy and leads to dumb conclusions such as this “paper” makes. We’ll see who turns out correct in the coming decade, a lot of “cooling” predictions by a good many people who should know better. I fully expect the world to continue warming, with the consequence of egg on certain faces.
I presented Morner’s theory to a warmist blog and they accused me of being sarcastic.
Mmmmm…..