Posted on 02/09/2008 12:21:56 AM PST by publana
The Sun Also Sets By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, February 07, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Climate Change: Not every scientist is part of Al Gore's mythical "consensus." Scientists worried about a new ice age seek funding to better observe something bigger than your SUV — the sun.
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Related Topics: Global Warming
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Back in 1991, before Al Gore first shouted that the Earth was in the balance, the Danish Meteorological Institute released a study using data that went back centuries that showed that global temperatures closely tracked solar cycles.
To many, those data were convincing. Now, Canadian scientists are seeking additional funding for more and better "eyes" with which to observe our sun, which has a bigger impact on Earth's climate than all the tailpipes and smokestacks on our planet combined.
And they're worried about global cooling, not warming.
Kenneth Tapping, a solar researcher and project director for Canada's National Research Council, is among those looking at the sun for evidence of an increase in sunspot activity.
Solar activity fluctuates in an 11-year cycle. But so far in this cycle, the sun has been disturbingly quiet. The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century.
Such an event occurred in the 17th century. The observation of sunspots showed extraordinarily low levels of magnetism on the sun, with little or no 11-year cycle.
This solar hibernation corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. Frigid winters and cold summers during that period led to massive crop failures, famine and death in Northern Europe.
Tapping reports no change in the sun's magnetic field so far this cycle and warns that if the sun remains quiet for another year or two, it may indicate a repeat of that period of drastic cooling of the Earth, bringing massive snowfall and severe weather to the Northern Hemisphere.
Tapping oversees the operation of a 60-year-old radio telescope that he calls a "stethoscope for the sun." But he and his colleagues need better equipment.
In Canada, where radio-telescopic monitoring of the sun has been conducted since the end of World War II, a new instrument, the next-generation solar flux monitor, could measure the sun's emissions more rapidly and accurately.
As we have noted many times, perhaps the biggest impact on the Earth's climate over time has been the sun.
For instance, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Solar Research in Germany report the sun has been burning more brightly over the last 60 years, accounting for the 1 degree Celsius increase in Earth's temperature over the last 100 years.
R. Timothy Patterson, professor of geology and director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Center of Canada's Carleton University, says that "CO2 variations show little correlation with our planet's climate on long, medium and even short time scales."
Rather, he says, "I and the first-class scientists I work with are consistently finding excellent correlations between the regular fluctuations of the sun and earthly climate. This is not surprising. The sun and the stars are the ultimate source of energy on this planet."
Patterson, sharing Tapping's concern, says: "Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth."
"Solar activity has overpowered any effect that CO2 has had before, and it most likely will again," Patterson says. "If we were to have even a medium-sized solar minimum, we could be looking at a lot more bad effects than 'global warming' would have had."
In 2005, Russian astronomer Khabibullo Abdusamatov made some waves — and not a few enemies in the global warming "community" — by predicting that the sun would reach a peak of activity about three years from now, to be accompanied by "dramatic changes" in temperatures.
A Hoover Institution Study a few years back examined historical data and came to a similar conclusion.
"The effects of solar activity and volcanoes are impossible to miss. Temperatures fluctuated exactly as expected, and the pattern was so clear that, statistically, the odds of the correlation existing by chance were one in 100," according to Hoover fellow Bruce Berkowitz.
The study says that "try as we might, we simply could not find any relationship between industrial activity, energy consumption and changes in global temperatures."
The study concludes that if you shut down all the world's power plants and factories, "there would not be much effect on temperatures."
But if the sun shuts down, we've got a problem. It is the sun, not the Earth, that's hanging in the balance.
IBD is great, but this is a misuse of the term and a classic example of a journalist not being quite familiar enough with their subject. We could be going into a minimum, that's true, but the "Maunder Minimum" was a specific minimum from about 1645 to 1715; it's not a general term.
It goes without saying that a protracted period of unusual cold will be blamed by the Democrats, the Drive-By Media, and the international Left on industrial capitalism
Thats why the mantra has changed. Its no longer “GLOBAL WARMING”. Its now “CLIMATE CHANGE”. That way, whatever the scenerio, Al Gore & his Cult of Gaia is always in the right. Nice, huh?
BINGO! This allows the BS Science to continue to flourish with aid from the MSM!
Washington's three major mountain highways all closed Friday because of foul weather and avalanche danger, the first time Snoqualmie, Stevens and White passes have been closed simultaneously in 11 years.
Officials began to worry that their two-year snow-and-ice removal budgets might run over because of the unusually nasty weather in the passes.
"All across the Cascades, the avalanche danger is really high," said Mike Westbay, spokesman for the state Department of Transportation.
At Snoqualmie, this season's snowfall exceeded 390 inches Thursday. It wasn't a record, but it was approaching the highest recent levels -- 435 inches that fell during the 1971-72 season and 427 inches in 1973-74. Seasonal snowfall totaled 440 inches at Stevens Pass as of Friday and 509 inches at White Pass; no comparable historic figures were available.
Bart Lutton, terminal manager for Peninsula Truck Lines, said the shutdowns were adding about 4,400 more miles daily to his company's routes, at a cost of several thousand dollars. Some drivers were approaching their mandatory driving-hours limits.
"In my 15 years in Washington this is the worst I've ever seen," Lutton said.
The moon puts out a lot more heat (reflected from the sun) than all the stars combined.
If it gets too cold we can simply scatter lampblack on the snow and increase ground temps. Likewise if it gets too warm we can add sulfates to the fuel of commercial jets transitting the Arctic; the resulting high altitude clouds will cool the polar region. There is a macroengineering fix for most problems. Oh yeah, and if CO2 is really a concern we can add trace minerals to the oceans to increase algae growth and lock up the carbon. The whole climate change propaganda blitz is about hamstringing our economy to the benefit of Europe and others less dependent on hydrocarbon fuels.
If things get cold, Algore will simply reverse himself and declare that man is causing another ice age by burning so many fossil fuels, and the Nobel committee will give him another Nobel Prize.
Sounds like the futures market for carbon credits is gonna take a hit.
Them boys are gettin paid!!
This is sort of a "Duh" quote. The "perhaps" quote is intended to keep the author from getting flamed from the liberal MSM establishment.
According to this article, we're going to wish AlGore wasn't so incredibly stupid.
I already wish that, but wishing won't make it so.
Alfred Nobel was a scientist. I have to wonder what he'd think of his name and a portion of his fortune being attached to a charlatan junk science mongerer like Al Gore.
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Let me humbly submit that a "portion" of Alfred Nobel's greatest creation, trinitrotoluene, be "attached" to Al Gore's nether parts!
Ka-boom!
Translation: Now the idiot left has to get back together and agree on disagreeing.
This data has been around for quite awhile but has only been recently covered by the MSM. I guess if you are interested in Astronomy you know about it, if not you don’t see it at all.
The results of the ongoing research are solid facts, not whispy computer models. Another Maunder type minimum may be in the works.
...there ya have it. :o)
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