More on the coming Ice Age

I've been having a very interesting, very civil blog conversation about climate change with an intelligent person named Alexandre.

Alexandre is convinced the earth is warming up. I think it more likely that we are on the verge of a shift back towards global cooling.

I posted something on this last week.

Here's more.

The man I referred to in the previous post, "Enjoy it while you can", is none other than Dr. Nigel Weiss, Professor Emeritus at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge, and past President of the Royal Astronomical Society -- eminent qualifications, no?

According to Dr. Weiss, the so-called settled science of global warming is anything but, except for one virtual certainty: the world is about to enter a cooling period.

Here's an extract from the relevant National Post article by Lawrence Solomon in the January 12th, 2007 National Post:

* * *

Dr. Weiss believes that man-made greenhouse gases have recently had a role in warming the earth, although the extent cannot yet be known.

What is known, however, is that throughout earth's history climate change has been driven by factors other than man: "Variable behaviour of the sun is an obvious explanation," says Dr. Weiss, "and there is increasing evidence that Earth's climate responds to changing patterns of solar magnetic activity."

The sun's most obvious magnetic features are sunspots, formed as magnetic fields rip through the sun's surface.

Typically, sunspots flare up and settle down in cycles of about 11 years. In the last 50 years, we haven't been living in typical times: "If you look back into the sun's past, you find that we live in a period of abnormally high solar activity," Dr. Weiss states.

These hyperactive periods do not last long, "perhaps 50 to 100 years, then you get a crash," says Dr. Weiss. 'It's a boom-bust system, and I would expect a crash soon."

In addition to the 11-year cycle, sunspots almost entirely "crash," or die out, every 200 years or so as solar activity diminishes. When the crash occurs, the Earth can cool dramatically. Dr. Weiss knows because these phenomenon, known as "Grand minima," have recurred over the past 10,000 years, if not longer.

"The deeper the crash, the longer it will last," Dr. Weiss explains. In the 17th century, sunspots almost completely disappeared for 70 years. That was the coldest interval of the Little Ice Age, when New York Harbour froze, allowing walkers to journey from Manhattan to Staten Island, and when Viking colonies abandoned Greenland, a once verdant land that became tundra. Also in the Little Ice Age, Finland lost one-third of its population, Iceland half.

In contrast, when the sun is very active, such as the period we're now in, the Earth can warm dramatically. This was the case during the Medieval Warm Period, when the Vikings first colonized Greenland and when Britain was wine-growing country.

* * *

So, the sun warms the earth, and when it is less active, the earth cools.

And there is nothing we can do about it.

Russian scientists are in agreement. An article on their views may be found at

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2006/08/25/globalcooling.shtml

Now, why do I tend to believe those who are predicting global cooling rather than global warming?

Because it looks and sounds like actual dispassionate science to me. The global warming advocates are exactly that -- advocates -- who now get buckets and buckets of money from governments. Their funding is proportionate to the alarm of their reports. There is a shrillness to the global warming advocates, and there is the usual undercurrent of western capitalist consumptive guilt about it all -- "if you don't believe us, you are bad, selfish capitalists; if you don't do as we say, catastrophe awaits".

Meanwhile, the cows and cattle are contentedly chewing away, happily contributing to more greenhouse gases than all human activity combined.

And tomorrow the sun will rise as it always has, and set as it always does, until the Lord Jesus Christ comes.

Now that's something to look forward to!

And that's the way the Ball bounces.