Solar Cycles, Climate Change and the Giggling Party
As an amateur radio operator, I’m familiar with the 11-year solar cycles because they strongly affect the ionosphere and thus the kind of long-range radio propagation many hams enjoy.
I’m also somewhat familiar with longer cycles, like the predicted Grand Minimum, called the “Maunder Minimum when it last occurred in the 17th century. Apparently, that was a period of reduced sunspot activity unrelated to the 11-year cycle.
Despite the giggling that occurs every time we get a cold January morning in South Florida, there’s little doubt that Earth’s climate is getting hotter on the average and the effect is strong and observable in high latitudes, but the question of the rate of heating is subject to some uncertainty.
An article in The Astrophysical Journal: “Ultraviolet Flux Decrease Under a Grand Minimum from IUE Short-wavelength Observation of Solar Analogs, ” predicts that the coming Grand Minimum starting around 2020 will give us an additional 7% reduction in solar output, and probably, much to the annoyance of HF band users, fewer sunspots.
You’re right, that should reduce the rate of increase in global warming for a time, but not the warming itself. If you’re cynical and think that the giggling party will use this to deny the whole thing and all the data, I agree with you. They will fight this to the death. Not their own death, of course, they’ll already be dead when the world climate goes to hell and the land and sea become far more toxic and inhospitable.
It’s my grandchildren and their children who will, barring some technological miracle, pay the price.
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Glenn Geist
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I hope this doesn’t sound naive but what the hell Mikes a friend of mine: what does cause global warming?
Greenhouse gasses like Carbon Dioxide, water vapor, Methane and others. The CO2 comes from burning carbon compounds like Coal and Oil. These trap heat and the increasing heat releases more buried greenhouse gases trapped in the deep soil like Methane. It can become a vicious cycle running away with itself, both because of gasses released from underground and the reduced capacity of water to absorb those gases.
Those whose livelihood depends of burning fuel, and the politicians they own – along with the “cultural” conservatives are the only ones trying to blame it on some natural cycle, the evidence for which doesn’t seem to exist.
The myth:
Solar cycles cause global warming: A new peer-reviewed study on Surface Warming and the Solar Cycle found that times of high solar activity are on average 0.2°C warmer than times of low solar activity, and that there is a polar amplification of the warming. This result is the first to document a statistically significant globally coherent temperature response to the solar cycle, the authors note (source: Mark Morano).
Mark Morano has no credentials in any science other than a BA in Political Science. His group is a front for the GOP. He’s worked for Cybercast news, who launched the disgusting lies about John Kerry being a traitor and murderer. He’s worked for Rush Limbaugh. Everything he says about climatology is a lie. No actual peer reviewed studies support him unless you consider the oil companies and Donald Trump to be “peers”
His support comes from the GOP and every bogus report he excretes is fake and intended to support fossil fuel burning at the expense of everything that breathes.
His supporters had better hope not to live long enough.
Just thought I’d point that out.
I’m with Lyndon 100% on this, the learning part and the Hitler reference.
You’ll never change the minds of the climate deniers. That would be like telling Hitler Youth the Jews weren’t a threat to the Fatherland. Ain’t gonna happen. Interesting though the solar cycles. I learned something and for that I am most grateful.
As I said, the 11 year solar or sunspot cycle has a huge bearing on radio propagation. Since the one that peaked in the late 1950s the peaks have been getting weaker. The most recent one in 2013 was pretty feeble.
Another period like the Maunder Minimum with no sunspots could have an effect on agriculture and other things, masking the man made heating effect. If we’re lucky that might give us extra time to develop alternate sources of energy, but counting on the intelligence of the oil mafia or the ability of science to counter them doesn’t make me optimistic particularly when we have his satanic majesty trying to destroy mountains of data collected by NASA and NOAA and others. Data that we paid a lot of money to acquire.
We have developed some alternate sources of energy such as wind and solar, but as you point out the Trump Gang won’t spend a dime to support them unless there’s something in it for them. Oddly, there is, as both are big business, but Trump’s blinded by his own stupidity and his giggling gaggle of climate deniers.
If even I know climate change is real then it is.
You’re right of course. Our grandchildren will pay the price.
What a bloody world eh? 😢
Unless it’s broadcast on Fox News it isn’t real; it’s fake news. That’s where we are today, and that’s fcked up.