The below article is a discussion topic I wrote for a leadership class back in 2013. This wasn’t unexpected or a surprise to anyone who actually looks a science from a scientific standpoint. As noted, the next SC is even more mundane than what we are seeing today. Think of about 22 years of solar minimums starting this year.
The embedded graphic did not paste so you will need to go to the links for them.
Enjoy:
NASA’s Long Range Solar Forecast from 2006 indicated that the upcoming solar cycle (cycle 24) will be at best, similar to the cycle in effect at press time (cycle 23). More importantly, cycle 25 which will cover the time period 2020-231, is projected to be well below the current cycles.
Solar cycles are approximately 11 years in duration, and are measured in terms of the amount and intensity of sun spot activity. Sun spots are eruptions of highly energetic magnetic fields that originate deep within the core of the sun. Scientists tract the sun spot over time and compute a rate of occurrence and that rate of occurrence is then measured by movement of the sun spots along the surface of the sun. The normal rate of movement has been observed since the late nineteenth century at about one meter per second,; however, according to this 2006 article, the “conveyor belt, the areas of the sun that show most sun spot activity, has slowed to .75 mps in the northern area, and .35 mps in the southern area, indicative of a significant decrease in sun spot activity over time.
The significance of this rather dated report is that the energy released by the sun, which directly affects the earth’s climate, is lessening and the result of that would logically be the cooling of the earth over time as heat is lost and not replaced by lower solar radiation concentrations reaching the earth. Conversely, during solar maximums, the earth is heated to a greater extent (laws of thermodynamics- conservation of energy).
My assessment of this report agrees with the plethora of other reports available through open-sources that are indicative of global cooling due to the decrease of solar activity, not due to some illicit result of man’s industriousness and activity.
I offer up the concept that man indeed has little to no intentional or planned control over the earth’s climate, except perhaps in the case of micro-climate phenomenon around large metropolitan areas, but then only to the extent that the atmospheric currents allow those conditions to exists.
I found several graphs which depict the solar cycles from antiqity through present and we can clearly see that the suns activity and consequently the earth’s exposure to solar energy varies quite a bit. Not coincidently, the weather patterns of the earth reflect those changes with some lag and the surges and ebbs of the solar activity directly affect our weather.
Cynical opinions carolmore.net
Reference: Long Range Solar Forecast-NASA Science, May 10, 2006. http://www.science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/10May_longrange/
http://cynicalopinions.blogspot.com/2010/11/closer-look-at-climate-change-part-6.html
http://www.carolmoore.net/articles/sunspot-cycle.html
The sun spot cycles have been diminishing for decades and are well summarized here, http://www.sidc.be/silso/ssngraphics
The effect on climate will lag but we have certainly paused the warming trend and should begin to see cooling over the next few decades. The libs will latch on to the snowball Earth as a way to manipulate the masses forthwith. People don’t remember last month much less last generation.
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