NCDC Winter data – CONUS and all 9 climate regions down the last 20 years

Joe’s Blog has the details at ICECAP, on the 9 climate regions and the NCDC data, this winter was a cold one. However, the CONUS trend for the last 20 years, down 2.26F (1.13F per decade). This is the trend from NCDC for the period 1995-2014. The base period is the conventional last 3 complete decades -1981-2010.

 

Joe has the details for all nine regions HERE. The question is, will this trend continue and is it an indicator that we are on the cusp of the next grand minimum? Check out the data and see what you think.

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Global Cooling by Dr Gerrit J. van der Lingen

Dr van der Lingen has written a long paper on global cooling and the impact that solar cycles have on the earth’s climate, with supporting material from recognized scientist.

The full paper is HERE:global_cooling

He concludes:

There are many scientific indications that we may be entering a period of global cooling. The most important indicator is the fact that the sun has become very quiet, not experienced for a hundred years.

The main question now is: how long will the present 17 year warming standstill continue? An associated question is: will global cooling become more obvious in the coming years? The final question then will have to be: provided these two questions will be answered in the positive, how long will the DAGW promoters, especially the IPCC, persevere in maintaining that their hypothesis is the correct one? Time will tell.

I want to finish with an appropriate comment attributed to the US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan: “You are entitled to your own opinions, but not to your own facts.”

I agree. Time will reveal the truth. If the planet cools as CO2 increases it will eventually prove those promoting anthropogenic global warming wrong. The real question is how long will the DAGW crowd be able to sustain their CO2 modeling fraud?

The long way to solar maximum

Posted: March 06, 2014 by: http://sidc.oma.be/news/240/welcome.html

Everybody has noticed it: Over the last few months, solar activity has shifted into a higher gear.

Since October last year, more and bigger sunspot groups have appeared on the solar disk, gradually driving the monthly sunspot number to new heights. Indeed, in February, preliminary values (SILSO) for the international sunspot number reached 102.8, the highest so far this solar cycle. Also the smoothed sunspot number is on the rise and easily surpasses the previous “maximum” that occurred late 2011-early 2012. Five years after its start in December 2008, Solar Cycle 24 (SC24) seems finally to have arrived at its maximum.

This upswing in solar activity is also noticeable in other parameters, such as the radio-flux or the number of solar flares. As can be seen in the chart underneath (data from NOAA/NGDC), the number of medium (M) and extreme (X) flares has been at a relatively high level. So far this solar cycle, there have been 8 months with more than 20 M- and X-class flares, and half of those have occurred over the last 5 months. Over the same time period, one third of all M/X-flares in SC24 were produced.

This ongoing maximum of SC24 seems to be on the account of the southern hemisphere, contrary to the 2011-2012 bump which happened mostly on the northern hemisphere. These timings are in line with the onset of solar activity as well as with the reversals of the polar magnetic fields of the Sun (see this STCE news item). Double peaked maxima are by no means exceptional, they happened for example also during the previous 2 solar cycles. Nonetheless, cycles with lower amplitudes such as SC24 have a longer and more complex maximum phase, quite different from a “classical” single or double sharp peak. These are actual manifestations of the solar dynamo, which are not encompassed by most solar cycle models which only show a smooth, asymmetric cycle shape.

Pending the further evolution of the solar activity, the (smoothed) maximum is expected to occur late 2013 or in 2014. That means the time of rise would be around 5 years, which is relatively long compared to the “average” solar cycle. However, as the maximum is forecast to be relatively low too, these timings are perfectly similar to previous solar cycles with comparable amplitude (e.g. SC12). It is also possible that another “bump” occurs during the declining phase of the solar cycle, as has been observed in various other solar cycles such as SC17. It is clear we’re not done yet with this solar cycle!

Credits – Sunspot data are available at SILSO, and the flare data at NOAA/NGDC.

via The long way to solar maximum.

Homewood: Storminess Of The Little Ice Age

Paul Homewood has an excellent analysis of Little Ice Age storms. Cold brings more powerful storms than warming.  Warming has produced fewer hurricane and tornado, but a colder earth has produced some earth changing storms.

Brian Fagan, in his book “The Little Ice Age”, states that,”throughout Europe, the years 1560-1600 were cooler and stormier, with late wine harvests and considerably stronger winds than those of the 20th Century. Storm activity increased by 85% in the second half of the 16th Century and the incidence of severe storms rose by 400%.”.

HH Lamb comes to similar conclusions, “there was a greater intensity, and a greater frequency, of intense storm development during the Little Ice Age”, in his book “Historic Storms of the North Sea, British Isles and Northwest Europe”.

Edward Bryant, in the book, “Natural Hazards”, gives us a rundown of some of the biggest storms:-

• Four storms along the Dutch and German coasts in the 13thC killed at least 100,000 each. The worst is estimated to have killed 300,000.
• North Sea storms in 1099, 1421 and 1446 also killed 100,000 each in England and the Netherlands.
• By far the worst storm was the All Saints Day flood of 1570, when 400,000 people were killed throughout Western Europe.
• The Great Storm of 1703 sank virtually all ships in the English Channel, with the loss of 8000 to 10000 lives.
• Other storms with similar death tolls occurred in 1634, 1671, 1682, 1686, 1694 and 1717.
• Much of the coastline of northern Europe owes its origin to this period of storms. For instance, storms reduced the size of the island of Heligoland from 60km to 1km.
• The Great Drowning Disaster of 1362 eroded 15km landward of the Danish coast, destroying over 60 parishes.
• The Lucia storm of 1287 carved out the Zuider Zee.

It was not just flooding that was a problem. There were many sand storms that caused great destruction, such as the great Culbin Sands storm in 1694, which blew so much sand over the Culbin Estate in Scotland, that the farm buildings themselves disappeared. The Estate became a desert and was never reclaimed.

Full Story is HERE.