Study finds: ‘severe cold snap during the geological age known for its extreme greenhouse climate’

Watts Up With That?

Illustration originally from Wikipedia article “Geologic temperature record”, annotated by A. Watts

The Arctic: Interglacial period with a break

Reconstruction of Arctic climate conditions in the Cretaceous period

FRANKFURT. Scientists at the Goethe University Frankfurt and at the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre working together with their Canadian counterparts, have reconstructed the climatic development of the Arctic Ocean during the Cretaceous period, 145 to 66 million years ago. The research team comes to the conclusion that there was a severe cold snap during the geological age known for its extreme greenhouse climate. The study published in the professional journal Geology is also intended to help improve prognoses of future climate and environmental development and the assessment of human influence on climate change.

The Cretaceous, which occurred approximately 145 million to 66 million years ago, was one of the warmest periods in the history of the earth. The poles were…

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The Iceman Cometh?

Mike Lockwood :”He raised the likelihood of another grand minimum to 25% (from 10% three years previously). “

Watts Up With That?

Could a quiescent sun portend a new little ice age: a chilly era for humanity and agriculture?

Guest opinion by Paul Driessen

President Obama, Al Gore and other alarmists continue to prophesy manmade global warming crises, brought on by our “unsustainable” reliance on fossil fuels. Modelers like Mike Mann and Gavin Schmidt conjure up illusory crisis “scenarios” based on the assumption that carbon dioxide emissions now drive climate change. A trillion-dollar Climate Crisis industry self-servingly echoes their claims.

But what if these merchants of fear are wrong? What if the sun refuses to cooperate with the alarmists?

“The sun is almost completely blank,” meteorologist Paul Dorian notes. Virtually no sunspots darken the blinding yellow orb. “The main driver of all weather and climate … has gone quiet again during what is likely to be the weakest sunspot cycle in more than a century. Not since February 1906 has there…

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Solar Cycle Update

I am reposting David Archibald’s post, but I recommend that readers look at the comments. As expected Leif Lsvalgaard does not agree, but he provides some useful information. I found most of thoughtful comments to be interesting.

Watts Up With That?

Guest essay by David Archibald

Two useful things we would like to know are the length of Solar Cycle 24 and the amplitude of Solar Cycle 25. Figure 1 below shows the NOAA version of Solar Cycle 24 progression with the 23/24 transition copied onto the end of their projection. This crude method (we don’t have another) suggests that the 24/25 transition will be at the end of 2021 which would make Solar Cycle 24 twelve years long. Solar physicists have generally given up forecasting Solar Cycle 25 amplitude. The only extant forecast is Livingstone and Penn’s forecast of an amplitude of seven. In the bigger picture, almost a decade after Schatten and Tobiska forecast a return to a Maunder Minimum-like level of activity, another solar physicist, Mark Giampapa of the National Solar Observatory in Tuscon, Arizona, is of the opinion that “we are heading into a Maunder Minimum” that…

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GLOBAL WARMING? LOW SUN SPOT CYCLE COULD MEAN ‘LITTLE ICE AGE’

Story in the Breitbart News this morning:

The sun is known to be the main driver of all weather and climate. With 99.86% of the mass in our solar system, the great ball of violent fire in the sky, has recently gone quiet in what is likely to be the weakest sunspot cycle in more than a century. Weak solar cycles have been associated with very benign “space weather” that can cause a “Little Ice Age.”

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Strong solar activity has been studied by scientists since 1759 because it has a direct impact on change in temperatures in the “thermosphere,” which extends from about 56 miles to between 311 to 621 miles above the Earth. The thermosphere sits between the mesosphere below and exosphere above. As the biggest layer of the Earth’s atmosphere, temperatures rise and fall in the thermosphere, depending on the amount of highly energetic solar radiation that is release from flares and sunspot.

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There have been two notable historical periods with decades-long episodes of low solar activity. The first period is known as the “Maunder Minimum”, named after the solar astronomer Edward Maunder and lasting from around 1645 to 1715. The second one is referred to as the “Dalton Minimum”, named for the English meteorologist John Dalton and lasting from about 1790 to 1830. Both historical periods coincided with colder-than-normal global temperatures and are often referred to by scientists as the “Little Ice Age.”

Physicists have found a direct relationship between solar activity, cosmic rays, and clouds on Earth. In times of low solar activity that result in weak solar winds, more cosmic rays reach the Earth’s atmosphere. That, in turn, has been shown to generate an increase in certain types of cloud cover that can act to cool the Earth.

The current historically weak solar cycle is a continuation of the twenty-year downward trend in sunspot cycle strength that began in “Solar Cycle 22.” If this trend continues for the next couple of cycles, then the Earth could suffer another “grand minimum” event, similar to the “Maunder” and “Dalton” that caused the last “Little Ice Age.”

A quiet sun is beginning to attract more media attention.

Blank Sun

The sun is now virtually blank during the weakest solar cycle in more than a century

The sun is almost completely blank. The main driver of all weather and climate, the entity which occupies 99.86% of all of the mass in our solar system, the great ball of fire in the sky has gone quiet again during what is likely to be the weakest sunspot cycle in more than a century. The sun’s X-ray output has flatlined in recent days and NOAA forecasters estimate a scant 1% chance of strong flares in the next 24 hours. Not since cycle 14 peaked in February 1906 has there been a solar cycle with fewer sunspots. We are currently more than six years into Solar Cycle 24 and the current nearly blank sun may signal the end of the solar maximum phase. Solar cycle 24 began after an unusually deep solar minimum that lasted from 2007 to 2009 which included more spotless days on the sun compared to any minimum in almost a century.

More HERE:

http://vencoreweather.com/2015/04/30/845-am-the-sun-is-now-virtually-blank-during-the-weakest-solar-cycle-in-more-than-a-century/