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It’s known by climatologists as the ‘Little Ice Age’, a period in the 1600s when harsh winters across the UK and Europe were often severe.
The severe cold went hand in hand with an exceptionally inactive sun, and was called the Maunder solar minimum.
Now a leading scientist from Reading University has told me that the current rate of decline in solar activity is such that there’s a real risk of seeing a return of such conditions.
I’ve been to see Professor Mike Lockwood to take a look at the work he has been conducting into the possible link between solar activity and climate patterns.
According to Professor Lockwood the late 20th century was a period when the sun was unusually active and a so called ‘grand maximum’ occurred around 1985.
Since then the sun has been getting quieter.
By looking back at certain isotopes in ice cores, he has been able to determine how active the sun has been over thousands of years.
Following analysis of the data, Professor Lockwood believes solar activity is now falling more rapidly than at any time in the last 10,000 years.
He found 24 different occasions in the last 10,000 years when the sun was in exactly the same state as it is now – and the present decline is faster than any of those 24.
Based on his findings he’s raised the risk of a new Maunder minimum from less than 10% just a few years ago to 25-30%.
And a repeat of the Dalton solar minimum which occurred in the early 1800s, which also had its fair share of cold winters and poor summers, is, according to him, ‘more likely than not’ to happen.
He believes that we are already beginning to see a change in our climate – witness the colder winters and poor summers of recent years – and that over the next few decades there could be a slide to a new Maunder minimum.
It’s worth stressing that not every winter would be severe; nor would every summer be poor. But harsh winters and unsettled summers would become more frequent.
Professor Lockwood doesn’t hold back in his description of the potential impacts such a scenario would have in the UK.
He says such a change to our climate could have profound implications for energy policy and our transport infrastructure.
Although the biggest impact of such solar driven change would be regional, like here in the UK and across Europe, there would be global implications too.
According to research conducted by Michael Mann in 2001, a vociferous advocate of man-made global warming, the Maunder minimum of the 1600s was estimated to have shaved 0.3C to 0.4C from global temperatures.
It is worth stressing that most scientists believe long term global warming hasn’t gone away. Any global cooling caused by this natural phenomenon would ultimately be temporary, and if projections are correct, the long term warming caused by carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases would eventually swamp this solar-driven cooling.
But should North Western Europe be heading for a new “little ice age”, there could be far reaching political implications – not least because global temperatures may fall enough, albeit temporarily, to eliminate much of the warming which has occurred since the 1950s.
You can see more on Inside Out on Monday 28th October on BBC1, at 7.30pm.
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From http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/posts/Real-risk-of-a-Maunder-minimum-Little-Ice-Age-says-leading-scientist
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Back in 2011, Lockwood said something totally dissimilar:
“The Little Ice Age wasn’t really an ice age of any kind – the idea that Europe had a relentless sequence of cold winters is frankly barking” – Dr Mike Lockwood Reading University
From: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/10/bbc-the-little-ice-age-was-all-about-solar-uv-variability-wasnt-an-ice-age-at-all/
I have a follow-on article coming up on UV observations in a couple of hours, don’t miss it.
Meanwhile the sun has recently gotten more active in the last couple of weeks, indicating a possible second peak in the current solar cycle is upon us, see details on the WUWT Solar reference page – Anthony
Doug Danhoff says:
“I wonder if temporary means 30 – 60 years of the next minimum….hmmm… Is it time to have a poll to name it?”
Call it the “Mannder Minimum” – just to tweak him.
“Frost Tax”, anybody?
This is obviously a scam; Lockwood is a shill for the big wooly jumper industry!
but but but, I thought the sun had no impact on our earths temperature – I thought its all down to CARBON – sorry Carbon Dioxide
So Lockwood is switching horses the same way that MIchael Mann switched horses after his 2002 paper in which he claimed CO2 causes global cooling.
This way the same people stay on top of the game and in the best positions for garnering filthy lucre. Lockwoods timing is just about impecable I must say.
And this is the way it goes. The same people are always at the top.with no thought for anything but position, power and money. Real scientists, the good guys, are always recognised and supressed by the corrupt.
The people pay in more ways than one.
In reply to:
lsvalgaard says:
October 28, 2013 at 9:20 pm
William Astley says:
October 28, 2013 at 8:46 pm
The entire planet warmed in the last 50 years except for the Antarctic ice sheet which cooled, slightly.
Forget your ‘slightly’ and forget Svensmark. The cooling is a large effect:
“The last deglaciation: timing the bipolar seesaw” by Pedro, J. B.; et al. Climate of the Past, Volume 7, Issue 2, 2011, pp.671-683, 2011
William:
I used the word slight which is correct if the temperature measurement is the sum of high latitude Southern Ocean temperature which warmed and the Antarctic ice sheet temperature which cooled. The Antarctic ice sheet cooled around -2C which is greater than the amount the planet warmed.
The paper you quote supports Svensmark analysis. Svensmark’s analysis used ice core temperature data (direct measurement of temperature of the ice which is proportional to the temperature at the time of the ice forming and retains a record for up to around 6000 years due to insulation of the ice) comparing the Greenland ice sheet to the Antarctic ice sheet, that data also showed there was no time delay in the effect.
The paper you quote hypotheses (no details provided for the hypothesis) some imaginary internal mechanism which there is no paper reference or a waft an explanation as to what internal mechanism that can cause by teleconnection the Antarctic ice sheet which is isolated from by the polar vortex to cool or warm in opposition to the Greenland ice sheet. That is ridiculous, silly.
Svensmark proves a detail explanation of a mechanism is capable of causing what is observed (i.e. Svensmark mechanism is not blocked by the polar vortex) and shows using top of the atmosphere analysis of radiation over the Antarctic that the Antarctic does cool when there is an decrease in low level clouds to support a key pillar of his mechanism.
“Our results lend support to fast acting inter-hemispheric coupling mechanisms, including recently proposed bipolar atmospheric teleconnections and/or rapid bipolar ocean teleconnections.”
The paper I quoted noted there has been 340 warming and cooling cycles with a periodicity of – 1500 years and 400 years – of the Antarctic Peninsula which is not isolated from the Southern ocean by the polar vortex. Changes in atmospheric CO2 did not cause the 340 warming and cooling cycles, solar magnetic cycle changes did.
Observations will prove and are proving Svensmark to have been correct.
Good luck to Lockwood in trying to suggest how solar variations affecting climate could be limited to a single region.
There is a profusion of evidence that the effects were global.
Reg Nelson said:
“It has limited utility, but utility nonetheless.”
Thanks Reg. That is all I claim for it.
When we have more of the right data it can be refined.
The main issue is whether the cascade of cause and effect is correct and observations are in line with that currently.
I’m still suggesting changes in jet stream behaviour as the cause of global albedo changes rather than the Svensmark effect so I await further data on that.
I also need a reverse sign solar effect on ozone above 45km and towards the poles so I’m still waiting on that too.
Someone 10 years ago predicted that the coming Gleissberg minimum around 2030 will be a deep one, perhaps exceeding the Maunder LIA. His name has not been welcomed here on this blog.
Are there any educated guesses as to how cold it will get?
William Astley says:
October 29, 2013 at 2:24 am
The paper I quoted noted there has been 340 warming and cooling cycles with a periodicity of – 1500 years and 400 years
There are no 1500-yr cycles: http://www.leif.org/EOS/Obrochta2012.pdf
Someone was there long before paul hudson;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3641316/The-truth-is-we-cant-ignore-the-sun.html
and take a look at the reply;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/3641481/Letters-to-The-Sunday-Telegraph.html
Scientific community immune to spin – prof lockwood – pot, kettle, black.
Russian climatologist have been preaching this for years now. The very next solar cycle should be the answer!!
I see increased tax credits for the burning of CO2-generating fossil fuels on the horizon to fight global cooling. Investors in wind, solar, and nuclear power might want to reconsider (liquidate) their positions.
Interesting. So, I wonder where the CO2 “forcing effect” will go during this cooling period? And, how does it know when to come back out again? Is CO2 schizophrenic perhaps?
Ahh, the age of double-speak continues (the BBC hedging its bets).
So we are now going to have a little hot-cold, and some drought-floods, to be followed by periods of clear-fog. Did I get the climate forecast correct?
Funny that they couldn’t resist to mention Mann. He appears in the BBC report like (what Dutch Catholics used to say) Pontius Pilate in the Credo of the creed: nothing to do with essence of the story. I remember first reading Mann when sitting at my desk with a repro of a Breugel’s painting on the wall above it depicting a 17-e century skating scene. I read what Mann wrote, I looked at the painting and knew there and then that it was a fraud.
The BBC video can be seen here.
It’s 11 minutes long.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/10/29/bbcs-paul-hudson-on-a-new-maunder-minimum/
Reblogged this on CACA and commented:
Paul Hudson is suffering from a bad case of anti-groupthink disease. He needs to be brought back into line. Anyone who thinks the sun plays a significant role in Gaia’s current climate is a denier.
The rapid rate of decline suggests to me that the upcoming minimum will be briefer than the Maunder one. It appears to me as a combination of a Dalton repeat (of the ~210 year Seuss cycle) and a minimum of a shorter period cycle. There may be a temporary cycle with a period around 60 years currently underway.
In reply to: lsvalgaard says: October 29, 2013 at 5:50 am
William Astley says: October 29, 2013 at 2:24 am The paper I quoted noted there has been 340 warming and cooling cycles with a periodicity of – 1500 years and 400 years
Leif: There are no 1500-yr cycles: http://www.leif.org/EOS/Obrochta2012.pdf
William: Leif you appear to be confused. The paper you quote does not support the assertion there were no warming and cooling cycles. The paper you quote notes the timing of the cycles varies rather than being exactly 1500 years plus or minus 500 years which is reasonable, as the sun is causing what is observed and at this point in time the physical mechanisms that cause the solar magnetic to change are not understood. As Lockwood notes (the subject of this thread) the solar magnetic cycle 24 change is the most rapid reduction in the solar magnetic cycle in 10,000 years. The paper you are co-author of notes that if the current solar magnetic cycle change is extrapolated cycle 25 will have a peak of 20 sunspot groups which is a Dalton minimum like cycle. Obviously we will by observations (planet cools or does not cool) determine if that extraordinary change in the solar magnetic cycle from a grand maximum to a grand minimum is going to affect planetary temperature. It is not possible to hide a massive increase in sea ice both poles and a cooling of the planet from the general public or the media.
The paper quote you acknowledges that there is correlation of solar magnetic cycle changes with the timing of the warming and cooling cycles which supports the assertion that solar magnetic cycle changes are the cause of what is observed. There is hence no need for ‘heterodyne frequencies or combination tones to explain the phenomena’, as the paper alleges. The sun causes what is observed. The problem is to figure out what causes the timing of the solar magnetic cycle changes such as solar cycle 24.
The paper you quote states without a waft of explanation that the observed warming and cooling cycles ‘could’ (William: I repeat ‘could’) be caused by a mystery transient phenomenon, for example, ice sheet boundary conditions, which is ridiculous, silly, goofy. There is no explanation of why the disconnected ice sheets would surge and more importantly why they would surge simultaneously and why the same warming and cooling cycle would be observed in the Southern hemisphere. The surging ice sheet hypothesis was ruled out by specialists for at least ten years as the data indicates three physically disconnected ice sheet surge simultaneously and it is not possible for the ice sheets to surge simultaneously unless the forcing function is external. The dynamics of each ice sheet that affects surging is weather in the vicinity ice sheet, thickness of the ice sheet, temperature of the underlying base of the ice sheet, and so on which is different for each ice sheet there is hence no internal means to force the ice sheets to surge simultaneously.
Solar magnetic cycle changes can physically cause the entire Northern hemisphere to cool by Svensmark mechanism. Svensmark’s mechanism is physically capable of causing three separate ice sheets in the Northern hemisphere to surge and at the same time to cause the cooling in the Southern Hemisphere which proxy data shows did occur.
This is a link to paper Lief quotes and which he alleges disproves something, I am not sure what the paper disproves it certainly does not provide any data to support the conclusions the observed warming and cooling cycles do not occur or that internal climate fairies wave their wands to cause the warming and cooling of both hemispheres.
http://www.leif.org/EOS/Obrochta2012.pdf
A 1500-year oscillation is primarily limited to the short glacial Stage 4, the age of which is derived solely from an ice flow model (ss09sea), subject to uncertainty, and offset most from the original chronology. Results from the most well-dated, younger interval suggest that the original 1500 +/-500 year cycle may actually be an admixture of the 1000 and 2000 cycles that are observed within the Holocene at multiple locations. In Holocene sections these variations are coherent with 14C and 10Be estimates of solar variability. Our new results suggest that the “1500-year cycle” may be a transient phenomenon whose origin could be due, for example, to ice sheet boundary conditions for the interval in which it is observed. We therefore question whether it is necessary to invoke such exotic explanations as heterodyne frequencies or combination tones to explain a phenomenon of such fleeting occurrence that is potentially an artifact of arithmetic averaging.
The warming and cooling cycles are observed on the Greenland ice sheet and correlate with named warming and cooling cycles that affected our ancestors. Greenland ice temperature, last 11,000 years determined from ice core analysis, Richard Alley’s paper.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif
This paper finds 340 warming and cooling cycles in the Southern hemisphere over a period of 240,000 years. Come on man, there is overwhelming evidence that the warming and cooling cycles occur. The problem is not the data or the analysis but rather that it indicates that a significant portion of the warming in the last 50 years was caused by solar magnetic cycle changes rather than the increase in atmospheric CO2. If it is a fact that there is no CO2 warming problem to solve is that such a bad thing for humanity? What am I missing? That sounds like very good news.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/davis-and-taylor-wuwt-submission.pdf
Davis and Taylor: “Does the current global warming signal reflect a natural cycle” (William: Duh, yes) …We found 342 natural warming events (NWEs) corresponding to this definition, distributed over the past 250,000 years …. …. The 342 NWEs contained in the Vostok ice core record are divided into low-rate warming events (LRWEs; < 0.74oC/century) and high rate warming events (HRWEs; ≥ 0.74oC /century) (Figure). … ….The current global warming signal is therefore the slowest and among the smallest in comparison with all HRWEs in the Vostok record, although the current warming signal could in the coming decades yet reach the level of past HRWEs for some parameters. The figure shows the most recent 16 HRWEs in the Vostok ice core data during the Holocene, interspersed with a number of LRWEs. …. ….We were delighted to see the paper published in Nature magazine online (August 22, 2012 issue) reporting past climate warming events in the Antarctic similar in amplitude and warming rate to the present global warming signal. The paper, entitled "Recent Antarctic Peninsula warming relative to Holocene climate and ice – shelf history" and authored by Robert Mulvaney and colleagues of the British Antarctic Survey ( Nature , 2012, doi:10.1038/nature11391),reports two recent natural warming cycles, one around 1500 AD and another around 400 AD, measured from isotope (deuterium) concentrations in ice cores bored adjacent to recent breaks in the ice shelf in northeast Antarctica. ….
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/278/5341/1257
A Pervasive Millennial-Scale Cycle in North Atlantic Holocene and Glacial Climates by Gerard Bond, William Showers, Maziet Cheseby, Rusty Lotti, Peter Almasi, Peter deMenocal, Paul Priore, Heidi Cullen, Irka Hajdas, Georges Bonani
ggoodknight: You are discussing with Sheldon Cooper! Don’t you get it? There are clearly psychological issues on display. Oh, I should add that was about Sheldon Cooper, of course, not lsvalgaard…no, not lsvalgaard.
It’s known by climatologists as the ‘Little Ice Age’, a period in the 1600s when harsh winters across the UK and Europe were often severe.
The severe cold went hand in hand with an exceptionally inactive sun, and was called the Maunder solar minimum.
Now a leading scientist from Reading University has told me that the current rate of decline in solar activity is such that there’s a real risk of seeing a return of such conditions.
I’ve been to see Professor Mike Lockwood to take a look at the work he has been conducting into the possible link between solar activity and climate patterns.
************
Back in 2011, Lockwood said something totally dissimilar:
“The Little Ice Age wasn’t really an ice age of any kind – the idea that Europe had a relentless sequence of cold winters is frankly barking” – Dr Mike Lockwood Reading University
************
So you CAN teach an old dog new tricks, Dr. Lockwood.
Who’s barking now?
William Astley says:
October 29, 2013 at 11:48 am
William: Leif you appear to be confused.
I’m never confused, sometimes wrong, but never confused.
The paper you quote does not support the assertion there were no warming and cooling cycles.
There are warming and cooling episodes, which are not cyclic and have nothing to do with the Sun. There is a perfectly good explanation of those episodes: http://www.leif.org/EOS/palo20005-D-O-Explanation.pdf the episodes are self-sustaining and do not an external cause.
Leif:
Interesting concept which sounds like a reasonable explanation of the characteristics of the DO events. One thought came to mind when reading your paper.
In addition to the supposed ice shelf collapse by warm water erosion and eventual collapse, I wondered if you have considered physical triggers like large Atlantic basin tidal wave events? If such an event happened it might heave and break up an ice shelf at some random time earlier than it would otherwise collapse. Good modern examples might be major earthquakes such as the Alaskan Goodfriday earthquake and its well documented tidal surge. Some have commented in the past regarding potential for massive tidal wave events in the Atlantic basin due to landslides such as the suspected future land slide event anticipated from the island of La Palma in the Canaries.
Has any effort been made to sync known major tidal events in the are with the onset of DO events?
correction — Has any effort been made to sync known major tidal events in the area with the onset of DO events?
Larry Ledwick (hotrod) says:
October 29, 2013 at 1:29 pm
correction — Has any effort been made to sync known major tidal events in the area with the onset of DO events?
Dunno, is there data of the tidal events?