From Radio Voice of Russia:
Russia’s Pulkovo Observatory: “we could be in for a cooling period that lasts 200-250 years”
Scientists at Russia’s famous Pulkovo Observatory are convinced that the world is in for a period of global cooling.
Graph by David Archibald
Global warming which has been the subject of so many discussions in recent years, may give way to global cooling. According to scientists from the Pulkovo Observatory in St.Petersburg, solar activity is waning, so the average yearly temperature will begin to decline as well. Scientists from Britain and the US chime in saying that forecasts for global cooling are far from groundless. Some experts warn that a change in the climate may affect the ambitious projects for the exploration of the Arctic that have been launched by many countries.
Just recently, experts said that the Arctic ice cover was becoming thinner while journalists warned that the oncoming global warming would make it possible to grow oranges in the north of Siberia. Now, they say a cold spell will set in. Apparently, this will not occur overnight, Yuri Nagovitsyn of the Pulkovo Observatory, says.
“Journalists say the entire process is very simple: once solar activity declines, the temperature drops. But besides solar activity, the climate is influenced by other factors, including the lithosphere, the atmosphere, the ocean, the glaciers. The share of solar activity in climate change is only 20%. This means that sun’s activity could trigger certain changes whereas the actual climate changing process takes place on the Earth”.
Solar activity follows different cycles, including an 11-year cycle, a 90-year cycle and a 200-year cycle. Yuri Nagovitsyn comments.
“Evidently, solar activity is on the decrease. The 11-year cycle doesn’t bring about considerable climate change – only 1-2%. The impact of the 200-year cycle is greater – up to 50%. In this respect, we could be in for a cooling period that lasts 200-250 years. The period of low solar activity could start in 2030-2040 but it won’t be as pervasive as in the late 17th century”.
Even though pessimists say global cooling will hamper exploration of the Arctic, experts say it won’t. Climate change and the resulting increase in the thickness of the Arctic ice cover pose no obstacles to the extraction of oil and gas on the Arctic shelf. As oil and gas reserves of the Arctic sea shelf are estimated to be billions of tons, countries are demonstrating more interest in the development of the Arctic. Climate change will also have no impact on the Northern Sea Route, which makes it possible to cut trade routes between Europe, Asia and America. Professor Igor Davidenko comments.
“The Northern Sea Route has never opened so early or closed so late over the past 30 years. Last year saw a cargo transit record – more than five million tons. The first Chinese icebreaker sailed along the Northern Sea Route in 2012. China plans it to handle up to 15% of its exports”.
As Russia steps up efforts to upgrade its icebreaker fleet, new-generation icebreakers are set to arrive in the years to come. No climate changes will thus be able to impede an increase in shipping traffic via the Northern Sea Route.
Read more: http://english.ruvr.ru/2013_04_22/Cooling-in-the-Arctic-what-to-expect/
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It looks like some 19,000 cubic kilometres of ice melted in the Arctic Ocean over the 2012 melt period. The isothermal melting of ice requires some 334 kilojoules per kilogram at 273.16 K. That figure applies only to the change of state from solid to liquid between the temperatures of -0.01C to +0.01C (or from 273.14K to 273.16K). Most people seem to blame the Arctic Ocean for melting that ice so I try a simple check. The WUWT ice page provides data on sea surfaces temperatures. I decided to use a broad average of 6C for the water temperature. Now 1 litre of sea water at 6C will hold 4 x 6 = 24 kilojoules of energy. Thus 14 litres will hold enough energy to melt 1 kilogram of ice and turn it into 1 litre of water and we end up with 15 litres of water at 0.01C (273.16K).
Thus 19,000 cubic kilometres of melting ice will produce 17,100 cubic kilometres of water plus the 239,400 cubic kilometres that provided the energy to melt the ice leaving us with a grand total of 256,500 cubic kilometres of water now at 0.01C. If that amount of water was spread around all the world’s oceans it would take the top 71 centimetres to 0.01C. Good thing it gets all mixed up before that can happen. But it just goes to show ice is a very effective cooling agent.
The point I am trying to make is that A LOT OF ICE MELTED in 2012 and provided a lot of cooling. Other years when minimum Arctic ice is not so low there is less cooling.
Stephen Wilde says:
April 30, 2013 at 2:13 pm
Ian W said:
2the small drop in UV and short wave radiation – balanced by perhaps an increase in longer wave radiation, leads to the sea surface temperatures at the ITCZ dropping a little as short wave radiation is what warms the oceans and the longwave doesn’t penetrate. The reduction in the strength of the convection at the equator leads to the Hadley cells shrinking and the Ferrel cells and associated jet streams moving equatorward2
Observations suggest that the initial solar effect is expansion or contraction of the polar vortices which cause expansion or contraction of the polar air masses at the surface causing in turn more loopy or zonal jets which cause cloudiness to increase or decrease and the change in energy into the oceans than affects the ITCZ and the Hadley and Ferrel cells.
Stephen,
The energy input into the system is at its maximum at the equator if you turn the input down just a little the effect will be seen at the poles. How can a lack of energy at the darkened pole cause the polar vortex to increase in size and push against the energy rich systems nearer the equator? I think the thrust for this particular swing door is at the equator although the effect is seen more immediately at the poles. An analogy would be a large flat pan of boiling water with heating at the center (the equator) turn the burner up slightly and the welling up of the water over the heat increases in size, turn the heat down slightly and the welling up reduces in size – is this the cooler edges pushing back or the warmer water not welling up so much?
brad says:
May 1, 2013 at 12:36 am
Pamela-
LOL! 99.97% of the incoming energy to the planet is from the sun. Ummm, thus your argument is it does not mater if the sun varies even a little? Laughable.
“The total rate at which the energy enters the Earth’s atmosphere is estimated at 174 petawatts. This flux consists of:
solar radiation (99.97%, or nearly 173 petawatts)
This is equal to the product of the solar constant, about 1,366 watts per square metre, and the area of the Earth’s disc as seen from the Sun, about 1.28 × 1014 square metres, averaged over the Earth’s surface, which is four times larger. (That is, the area of a disc with the Earth’s diameter, which is effectively the target for solar energy, is 1/4 the area of the entire surface of the Earth.) The solar flux averaged over just the sunlit half of the Earth’s surface is about 680 W m−2
This is the incident energy. The energy actually absorbed by the earth is lower by a factor of the co-albedo; this is discussed in the next section.
Note that the solar constant varies (by approximately 0.1% over a solar cycle); and is not known absolutely to within better than about one watt per square metre. Hence geothermal, tidal, and waste heat contributions are less uncertain than solar power.[citation needed]
geothermal energy (0.025%; or about 44[2] to 47[3] terawatts)
This is produced by stored heat and heat produced by radioactive decay leaking out of the Earth’s interior.
tidal energy (0.002%, or about 3 terawatts)
This is produced by the interaction of the Earth’s mass with the gravitational fields of other bodies such as the Moon and Sun.
waste heat from fossil fuel consumption (about 0.007%, or about 13 terawatts)[4] The total energy used by commercial energy sources from 1880 to 2000 (including fossil fuels and nuclear) is calculated to be 17.3×1021 joules.[5]
There are other minor sources of energy that are usually ignored in these calculations: accretion of interplanetary dust and solar wind, light from distant stars, the thermal radiation of space. Although these are now known to be negligibly small, this was not always obvious: Joseph Fourier initially thought radiation from deep space was significant when he discussed the Earth’s energy budget in a paper often cited as the first on the greenhouse effect.[6]“
Brad,
They are very big figures – you did not of course include the fact that the Earth is radiating 174 petawatts as well – as it is in equilibrium or close to it. So the system is a seesaw with huge values each side. A small perturbation will result in the seesaw becoming unbalanced and moving toward the hotter or cooler. In consequence, ENSO type radiation that results in the oceans cooling more rapidly will result in the Earth cooling as the seesaw is unbalanced.
What Pamela was saying was that there are a multiplicity of perturbations that may act to increase or reduce the input or output side of the equilibrium. These perturbations are the result of chaotic systems so linear projection and Fourier analysis will be of limited use in forecasting the net result of their chaotic outputs. But they cannot be ignored however small as they are the balance mechanisms that have resulted in the climate equilibrium of the Earth.
Thanx for the sunspot graph David. That’s the best looking one I’ve seen since the one in Willie Soon’s book on the Maunder Minimum.
GES
@Michael Cook
Very good! I like that.
Does anyone here know whatever happened to CERN’s CLOUD project led by Jasper Kirkby? I know it was sort of stonewalled by CERN’s bosses as soon as the first resuts indicated that the sun does have a significant forcing on climate, and then I heard nothing. I think the Russians are now carrying the torch, sort of.
well, doesn’t really matter. the same idiots can dust off their old stories from the ’70’s that predicted a new ice age, and go back to their original story, the one where mankind is going to cause a new ice age.
Climate deniers! :-))))
There is no scientific theory that supports Global Warming as presently defined in the media. There are some hypothesis; that is, guesses, both pro and con, but scientific theories are just below laws and can almost be considered established fact as they are pretty much undisputable. The theory of relativity is an example. Not as strong as the law of gravity but close.
People point to Venus. However, the atmosphere of Venus is 90 times heaver than the Earth’s atmosphere. This is like what a submarine experiences at 3000 ft below the surface of the Earth’s ocean. And the atmosphere of Venus is 97 percent CO2 while the Earth’s atmosphere is 0.03 percent CO2. Otherwise Venus has 90×0.97/0.0003 or about 300,000 (scientist claim 250,000) times as much CO2 in their Atmosphere as the Earth.
Fact: Carbon dioxide is not the major greenhouse gas (water vapor is).
Carbon dioxide accounts for less than ten percent of the greenhouse effect, as carbon dioxide’s ability to absorb heat is quite limited.
Only about 0.03 percent (1 part in 3,000) of the Earth’s atmosphere consists of carbon dioxide (nitrogen, oxygen, and argon constitute about 78 percent, 20 percent, and 0.93 percent of the atmosphere, respectively). For billions of years the atmosphere has been losing CO2. 570 million years ago there was about 20 times as much CO2 in the atmosphere, the temperature was similar, and life was booming. The earth’s atmosphere is CO2 starved and life would be better if the earth had double to ten times as much CO2 in the atmosphere. If anything more CO2 would help cool the earth since it aids plant growth which absorbs sunlight.
The sun, not a gas, is primarily to “blame” for global warming — and plays a very key role in global temperature variations as well.
Fact: Most of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does not come from the burning of fossil fuels. Only about 14 percent of it does.
Fact: Most of 20th Century global warming occurred in the first few decades of that century, before the widespread burning of fossil fuels (and before 82 percent of the increase in atmospheric CO2 observed in the 20th Century).
If global warming was true they would not have had to fake all the temperatrure records:
“The IPCC are an abject lesson in how to hide a message in plain sight
“In the new report they have dumped their former fingerprint predictions which looked so definitively and technical, but proved to be so wrong. However they will not join-the-dots. They won’t admit this is a major point their models have failed on, instead they flat out deny the results from 28 million weather balloons are conclusive.
“In a sense, in AR5, the IPCC just throws up its hands and says “yes ok, the models don’t align with the data, but the data might be wrong, and rather than fix those models, we’ll quietly dump that test and the awkward results and pick a different set of inconclusive tests instead. It’s known as shifting the goal-posts.” http://joannenova.com.au/2013/04/ipcc-plays-hot-spot-hidey-games-in-ar5-denies-28-million-weather-balloons-work-properly/
And someone mentioned Goddard and Hansen:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/hansen-the-climate-chiropractor/
“The figure below shows Hansen’s remarkable changes to the pre-1975 temperature data. He simply removed that pesky warm period from 1890 to 1940.”
Have these charlatans destroyed the original records while trashing them?
Look, what is happening all around the world, from the freezing cold in Europe late this march to right now, the snowstorm hitting from northern Arkansas to Wisconsin. Iowa just broke snow records for may,that weren’t even set during the ice scare of the 1970’s. We are heading for an ice age whether we want to or not. Just look at all the increase in severe weather. Also, look at how high the minimum sea ice extent is for Antarctica. I do believe we need to stop burning fossil fuels, but not for environmental reasons, but for the air pollution risk that is causing respiratory issues.
Arthur, in regard to the point about fossil fuel burning causing increasing pollution, it is important to be more specific as to how the fuel is burned, and the flue technology applied. A while ago Anthony interviewed Ross McKitrick, a professor of environmental economics at the University of Guelph, Canada. One of Ross’s points was that while developed countries like UK, US and Canada burned more fossil fuels, their air pollution figures improved dramatically at the same time. This is of course through improved burning technology and stack filters.
On the other hand if good burning technolgy, or filter technology is not applied, as might be the case in some developing countries, then your point might hold water. However, the reality is, that ‘pollution control’ is manageable and we know how to do it well. But in all this please remember that CO2 is not pollution.
Cheers
Robin
NASA predicted that solar cycle 25 could be one of the weakest solar maximums in a centuries, however solar cycle 24, the current cycle is already the weakest in a century, so it looks like Habibullo Abdussamatov and other scientists of the Habibullo Abdussamatov were right all along, so no coastal flooding at least! However, hurricanes will get worse, why? Because as the world cools, the tropics will remain hot, while the poles will get colder, so there will be a wilder temperature contrast, therefore increasing the coriolis effect will get more intense and therefore any systems that form in the tropics will have no problem becoming stronger. Some of the strongest hurricanes to hit the noetheast us happened during the little ice age during the 1800’s.
In the two latest solar threads there is disconcerting absence of Dr. S.
Although few days ago he said “ I must be preaching to choir today”, I expect his timely return in the next thread.
vukcevic:
At May 3, 2013 at 2:50 am you say
Yes, I noticed that, too.
He is a valued member of the ‘WUWT community’. Does anybody know if he is OK?
Richard
richardscourtney says: May 3, 2013 at 3:11 am
…..
I think Dr. S. might have been busy (in Boulder) presenting paper on ‘Solar Synoptic Measurements’.
Much as I admire your confidence I still see nothing more here than a 50/50 bet. My point was that the alarmists have at least proposed a physical mechanism. All I see here is a bet that, at the end of the current ‘neutrality’, temps will fall. Well I can guarantee one of two outcomes … up or down.
Since 2006, I’ve forecasted that global cooling was ahead for our planet. This was in the middle of the raging debates over ‘man-made global warming,’ which I have always stated (and continue to state) is impossible because of the laws of physics that govern the Earth’s climate.
There is no such thing as man-made climate change or man-made global warming. It cannot happen on our planet.
My astrometeorological calculations have confirmed time and again that we are in the waning years of solar-forced global warming (since 1980-81.)
At this time, in solar year 2013, we are about 3-4 years away from the end of the global warming regime and the official start of the global cooling regime.
During these remaining years of solar-forced global warming, we will continue to see anomalous weather events that clearly show signs of the new climate regime to come.
Moreover, we will see and experience both weather extremes of global warming and global cooling: drought, floods, high gusting winds, warmer-than-normal and colder-than-normal average temperatures featuring sometimes radical temperature spikes of 20-30 degrees Fahrenheit or more in some regions.
For instance, the radical temperature spikes occurred here in North America with the cold, wet spring months of March and April that delayed farmer’s planting season 3-4 weeks this year.
Although Russia’s Pulkovo Observatory said that, “we could be in for a cooling period that lasts 200-250 years,” according to my forecast, the new global cooling regime that’s just ahead (a kind of mini-ice age of a neo-boreal climate type in the 21st century) will last ONLY 36 years – not the 200-250 years the Russian scientists have said. That is conjecture.
And again, I continue to say that global warming has been good for the Earth; while global cooling is not.
The years of raging debates and ideological warring over the outrageous lie of ‘man-made global warming’ has wasted valuable resources and time (at least 25-30 years) in preparing our infrastructures, agriculture and lives for the reality – and that’s Global Cooling, something far worse than global warming could ever be.
– Theodore White, astrometeorologist.sci