Volcanic and Seismic Awakening of Pan-America

Robert Felix writes at Ice Age Now:

“The seismic and volcanic awakening of Pan-America is now well underway,” says this article on the Extinction Protocol.

The whole region is becoming more violent as geological forces increase plate pressures on the region and the sea-floor is violently stirred along the Puerto Rico trench. The trench has an unsettling history of producing very powerful earthquakes- 8.1 magnitude earthquakes struck the region both in 1787 and 1946.

As a result of the mounting seismic tension on the western region of the plate, we’re already witnessing the volcanic and seismic awakening of much of Pan-America.

• On November 20, Mexico’s Popocatepetl volcano unleashed a 5 km ash cloud.
• On November 22nd, Guatemala’s lofty Fuego volcano followed suit with a 2 km cloud of dark ash.
• On November 25th, the alert status of Colombia’s Gelaras volcano was raised to orange.
• On November 26th, the dense upper volcanic belt of El Salvador was shaken by a swarm of over 700 tremors in a 24-hour-period.
• Now Ecuador’s Tungurahua volcano is the latest telltale sign that the time-bomb in the Atlantic is still ticking.

via Volcanic and seismic awakening of Pan-America.

During past Grand Minimums volcanism has played a large role in the cooling during some phases. Some scientist have suggested a quiet sun increases volcanic activity on early, but I have not found any smoking gun evidence. However, will continue to monitor volcanic activity.   Not sure that I buy the message on the Extinction Protocol web site, but this information is useful.

 

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Volcano Update El Hierro and Katla

Russ Steele

El Hierro is becoming more active and Katla is growing quiet. It makes me wonder it the two events are some how connected. More details at the Vulcanism Navigation button above.

THE NORTHERN U.S. AND NORTHERN EUROPE ARE COOLING

Russ Steele

Long Range Weather is listed in the links above. Here is an interesting look at current climate changes (my emphasis added):

By Climatologist Cliff Harris

According to recent studies by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature team of scientists at the University of California at Berkeley, our current global temperatures “are all over the map.”

The scientist’s graphs following an exhaustive two-year study show that temperatures since the last cycle of global warming ended in the late 1990s have been “relatively stable.”

While wide fluctuations in both land and sea-surface water temperatures have occurred on a global scale in the past 13-plus years since 1998, both northern Europe and much of the U.S. north of I-80 have seen “substantial cooling and a huge increase in winter snowfall that has led to widespread spring flooding.” The spring seasons have been “unusually chilly and wet” with a record number of tornadoes sighted last spring along the violent ‘clashline’ points between I-80 and I-70 in the south-central U.S.

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Even with tens of thousands of weather stations worldwide, most of the Earth’s surface is not being monitored. And, some stations are more reliable than others, especially during these lean times of economic recession.

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Climate researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle were recently asked about future climate patterns of the Pacific Northwest.

They said that their climate models are predicting “increasing precipitation in the next decade in the northern latitudes.” This should mean more snowy winter seasons across the Inland Empire and other regions of the U.S. near the Canadian border.

As far as temperatures are concerned, the University of Washington scientists say, “there’s a tremendous amount of uncertainty” in their models, both locally and globally.

European, Russian and Japanese climate scientists are each predicting “an increase in global cooling and expanding glaciers worldwide by 2014.”

My climatological opinion is that we’re entering a much cooler cycle with snowy winters already becoming commonplace. The spring seasons will continue to be chilly and wet. The shorter summers will be warm, but not hot, and very dry with little precipitation and high fire danger levels.

via THE NORTHERN U.S. AND NORTHERN EUROPE ARE COOLING.

Arctic Oscillation: Meet El Niño’s Cold Cousin | Farmers Almanac

Russ Steele

We have had two wild winters in a row and now the Framer Almanac is predicting another. If this trend continues for multiple years, this is how Little Ice Ages start, a long sequence of wild wet winters.  Stay tuned.

by Caleb Weatherbee

Every few years, and more often in recent years, meteorologists start talking about a something called El Niño, or its opposite effect La Niña. Collectively known as Southern Oscillation, these two phenomena can have a dramatic effect on global weather patterns.Less well-known, and even less understood than its southern cousins, but with just as much impact on the weather in North America, Europe an Asia, is a pattern called “Arctic Oscillation.” An atmospheric phenomenon, unlike El Niño and La Niña, which are caused by temperature shifts in the Pacific Ocean, AO refers to shifts in atmospheric pressure between the Arctic Circle and much of the Northern Hemisphere. In the “positive phase” of AO, atmospheric pressure lessens over the Arctic Circle and increases in southern latitudes. In its negative phase, it’s just the opposite. Atmospheric pressure is higher over the Arctic Circle and lower in the south. A related phenomenon, North Atlantic Oscillation, refers to shifts in pressure over the northern Atlantic Ocean.What that means for our weather is that, when AO or NAO are in a positive phase, low-pressure systems – which cause cold, stormy weather – stay trapped in the extreme north. In a negative phase, those low-pressure systems are forced southward, bringing frigid air from the polar region down with them.Over the last two winters, when cold temperatures and snow pounded much of the U.S. and Canada, AO was in an extremely negative phase. Combined with the effects of La Niña, which magnifies normal weather patterns, we’ve seen some extreme storms, prompting names like Snomageddon and Snowpocalypse.We’re expecting the upcoming winter to once again be dominated by AO’s negative phase! On top of that, many meteorologists believe last year’s La Niña has returned for an encore performance. All I can say is, fasten your “sleet belts,” friends. As I said in the 2013 Farmers’ Almanac, we’re in for a “wet, wild winter!”

via Arctic Oscillation: Meet El Niño’s Cold Cousin | Farmers Almanac.

Russian Scientist Predicts The Next Grand Minimum

Robert Felix writes at Ice Age Now: Russian scientist predicts 100 years of cooling.

In a study of cyclic behavior of the Sun, Russian scientists now predict 100 years of cooling.

These are not just any scientists. This forecast comes from astrophysicist Dr Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of the Russian segment of the International Space Station, and head of Space Research of the Sun Sector at the Pulkovo Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

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The 200-year variations in sunspot activity and total solar irradiance (TSI) are the dominating reason for climate change, says Abdussamatov. “In whole, the solar cycles are a key to our understanding of different cyclic variations in the nature and society.”

You can read the entire paper HERE.  While Abdussamatov predicts the start of The Next Grand Minimum in 2014, Livingston and Penn have forecast that sun spots will disappear by 2015.

We have observed spectroscopic changes in temperature sensitive molecular lines, in the magnetic splitting of an Fe I line, and in the continuum brightness of over 1000 sunspot umbrae from 1990-2005. All three measurements show consistent trends in which the darkest parts of the sunspot umbra have become warmer (45K per year) and their magnetic field strengths have decreased (77 Gauss per year), independently of the normal 11-year sunspot cycle. A linear extrapolation of these trends suggests that few sunspots will be visible after 2015.

Livingston and Penn Paper is here: livingston-penn-2008

Volcano Updates

Update (11-12-11): El Hierro Volcano, Canary Islands and more on Iceland’s  Katla, with multiple 3+ Quakes over the last week.  Details under the Vulcanism Tab above.  

Life with out energy is short and brutal

Russ Steele

I have been reading Brian Fagan’s Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History. My first post is HERE.

Paul Homewood has also been reading Fagan’s book and has drafted series of essays on his blog “Not a lot of people know that” about how difficult life was during the Little Ice Age.

I encourage readers to review these essays. Life was brutal and short during the Little Ice Age. While we have many modern devices to help us cope with the kind of climate that was present on earth during the Little Ice Age, we may soon discover that they do not work as well we planned and will have to struggle to survive.

Part I of Paul Homewood’s essay starts with a review of  Brian Fagan’s book “The Little Ice Age.”  You can read Part I here.

It is widely accepted that the planet has warmed up by a degree or so since the end of the Little Ice Age about 150 years ago. We are regularly told that this increase in temperature has already  caused  widespread damage to the global environment, from dead polar bears and rising sea levels to extreme weather and famine. The implication is clear – the world was a much better place 200 years ago. But what was it like back then? Were conditions then really better than now?

You can read Part II  HERE.

Wine Grape Production as a Climate Change Indicator

Russ Steele

In November of 2007 I wrote a post at NC Media Watch Why should grape growers worry about a cold phase PDO? This was in responses to a paper written by Gregory V. Jones and  Gregory B. Goodrich Influence of climate variability on wine regions in the western USA and on wine quality in the Napa Valley 

ABSTRACT: [emphasis added] Trends in climate variables important to wine grape production in the western United States include fewer frost days, longer growing seasons and higher spring and growing season temperatures. These trends have been related to a steady increase in wine quality and a decrease in year to year variability. While the trends in climate have been linked to increasing sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the eastern Pacific, it is unknown whether this is caused by climate change or may be part of natural oscillations in the Pacific. In this study, fifteen climate variables important to wine grape production were analyzed for ten wine regions over the western USA. The variables were stratified by phases of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) both separately and then in combination (modulation effect) to determine if there are any significant differences between teleconnections. Wine Spectator vintage ratings for Cabernet Sauvignon wines from the Napa Valley were also stratified in the same method and multivariate statistics were used to determine which variables are most important to wine quality. ENSO phase by itself was not found to be important to either climate variability in wine regions in the western USA or wine quality in Napa Valley, but the cold phase of the PDO was found to be associated with increased spring frosts and a shorter growing season that results in lower ratings relative to warm PDO. The combination of neutral ENSO conditions during the cold phase of the PDO was nearly always associated with low quality wine in the Napa Valley, which is a function of cold springs with increased frost risk, cool growing seasons, and ripening period rainfall (cold PDO) and above average bloom and summer rainfall (neutral ENSO). While climate trends to generally warmer growing seasons with less frost risk have occurred, this research highlights the impact of climate variability on wine quality where, should the PDO return to a multi-decadal cold phase, wine growers in the Napa Valley and across the western USA will likely experience greater variability in wine quality.

We are now in a cold phase PDO with a La Niña weather pattern. During cold phases the La Niña is the dominate pattern, and we can expect more of these cold events like we have had in 2010 and 2011 over the next twenty to thirty years. The impact of cool phase PDO could be amplified by the return of another grand minmum.

Lisa Baertlein, wrote about the current impact of the cool and wet conditions in Reuters on the 19th of October, Cool California weather keeps winemakers waiting

Growers around the Golden State are harvesting grapes later than usual this year. The take is anticipated to be smaller than normal, due to heavy spring rains and the second summer in a row of cooler-than-normal temperatures.

Here in Nevada County the wine grape production in 2010 dropped by 31 percent. Yields were significantly down, due primarily to hail and frost at critical moments, according to a County Ag Report.  A cool phase PDO is not uniformly cold, the climate will vary from warm to cold and back again, riding on a declining temperature trend. This uncertainty will make wine grape growing a risky business. The Reuters article has some insight into 2011 crop decline, and 2012 has the potential to be repeat of 2010. Stay tuned, as we maybe on the cusp of the next grand minimum. The last grand minimums restricted grape growing in England and other northern countries in Europe due to shortened growing season and cool to cold summers.  I will continue to track the decline in wine grape production as a climate change indicator.

From 2001 to 2011 — Summers cooler, winters colder

Russ Steele

Anthony Watts has a very interesting post at Watts Up With That which I will not recreate here. His lead in headline:

NCDC data shows that the contiguous USA has not warmed in the past decade, summers are cooler, winters are getting colder.

Anthony has a series of very telling graphic evidence of the climate change over the last ten years. Here is a sample:

Be sure the read Anthony’s Update. It is a real eye opener.  The current NCDC data shows cooling, but the cooling is even more telling once the NCDC “adjustments” are removed.  We maybe on the cusp of the Next Grand Minimum!

Keep an Eye On the Sun

Russ Steele

The largest sunspot of Solar Cycle 24 is sliding into view on the surface of the sun. Sunspot AR 1339 is large enough it can be seen at sunset through the mist over the ocean or low clouds. Do not look directly into the sun. AR 1339 has been quiet since November 3rd, when is unleashed a X2 flare, with an X28 being the largest observed in history.

According to Space Weather this “behemoth sunspot has a “beta-gamma-delta” magnetic field that harbors energy for more X-flares. Eruptions this weekend could be Earth-directed as AR1339 turns toward our planet.”

 I was looking at the size of this huge spot and was reminded of the 1859 “Carrington Event which was a X28+ flare.

 More details on this event can be found in THE 1859 SOLAR–TERRESTRIAL DISTURBANCE AND THE CURRENT LIMITS OF EXTREME SPACE WEATHER ACTIVITY1859 Storm – Extreme Space Weather

Here is a list of recently recorded flares with class ratings from Space Weather:

 Hazards from these flares as listed at Wikipedia include:

The soft X-ray flux of X class flares increases the ionization of the upper atmosphere, which can interfere with short-wave radio communication and can heat the outer atmosphere and thus increase the drag on low orbiting satellites, leading to orbital decay. Energetic particles in the magnetosphere contribute to the aurora borealis and aurora australis. Energy in the form of hard x-rays can be damaging to spacecraft electronics and are generally the result of large plasma ejection in the upper chromosphere.

More on Solar Flares HERE.   Keep an eye on the sun at SpaceWeather.com