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Don’t be too quick to guess that we’re entering a new ice age. Here’s the logic.

Think about a greenhouse. A greenhouse is a little warmer than the average temperature of the ambient air. However, temperature fluctuation is moderated. That is, when it is cold outside, a greenhouse will only get cool. When it is hot outside, the greenhouse will only be warm.

The opposite of a greenhouse effect is like what is observed on the surface of the Moon. With no atmosphere, there is no greenhouse effect at all. So when something is in the shade, it becomes intensely cold, but when illuminated by the Sun, it becomes intensely hot—and very quickly. There is no moderation.

The atmospheric blanket that surrounds the Earth is called the thermosphere. Most of our atmosphere is in the thermosphere, but the two are not identical. The thermosphere is the part of our atmosphere that traps, and *moderates* heat.

Just like a greenhouse.

Mysteriously, the size of the thermosphere reduced considerably.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/15/earths-thermosphere-collapses-film-at-11/

“The collapse happened during the deep solar minimum of 2008-2009—a fact which comes as little surprise to researchers. The thermosphere always cools and contracts when solar activity is low. In this case, however, the magnitude of the collapse was two to three times greater than low solar activity could explain.”

That is, we suddenly lost a LOT of the Earth’s greenhouse effect.

So think about the Moon. With a loss of greenhouse effect, what we notice is the loss of *moderation* in the weather.

In effect, hotter summers and colder winters. Higher highs and lower lows.

This means that it is unlikely that we will quickly move into a roasting or freezing world. Sure, summers will be unusually hot, but it will be balanced with winters that are unusually cold.

That is, of course, if the thermosphere would stay at its radically reduced size. So that is what matters. No guarantees for the thermosphere doing about anything.

Because we don’t really know how it works too well.

Thank you for a complex and thoughtful comment. People who have not studied science have no idea how complex and intertwined various factors are.

For example I recall seeing several years ago something about East Anglia reporting a slowing(cooling?) of the Gulf Stream. I think this may have been the origin of some of the funny business that went on subsequently of trying to protect the Global Warming hypothesis. On the other hand it could have just as easly been argued that GW was melting the polar ice, causing a reduction in super salty water due to freezing of surface ice, and thus slowing down the North Atlantic Oscillation. Thus one could easily say that GW was causing Gulf Stream cooling.

At any rate, it is all very complex, it needs to be studied with an open mind. Scientists should stop having to justify their funding on the basis of whether their research supports one idea or another. Unfortunately, the need for basic research is seriously undervalued, including by a lot of people here at FR.

Of course, like models that predict global warming without having a full understanding of the effects of things like ocean thermal sinking, the study you cite also does not understand what is going on.

What we do know is that the global average temperature is not trending up at the same rate as the global average concentration of CO2. Which means to me that CO2 does not explain everything either. http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/

So why won’t scientists admit that they don’t know and that they are going to study things for a few more years before they decide to change the global economic engine?

Interesting. Another thing to add to that is when the outer atmosphere cools substantially, it has more variability in external warming events, the best example being bursts of galactic cosmic rays which are uneven. Some solar effects are uneven as well. In any case the sharp temperature contrasts in the stratosphere create extreme large scale weather patterns in the troposphere. So we end up with extreme highs and deep upper lows. We are seeing those now since solar activity is relatively low and thus not blocking the GCRs.