No, We're Not Headed For a New Ice Age

purkinje writes "Unusual calm in the solar cycle — called a solar activity minimum — has sparked claims that the Sun will cool the Earth, leading us into a new ice age. While Europe did experience a Little Ice Age during a solar activity minimum three centuries ago, the connection between sunspots and climate is a lot more complicated, and it's unlikely this change in the Sun's activity will cool Earth down — or even affect the climate at all. Plus, any cooling that might come from this would be less than the global warming that's been going on. So don't pull out that parka yet; a new ice age seems more than unlikely."

We're already in one

[japhmi]

We're currently in an interglacial period of the current ice age, so it's not a matter of moving towards another one, but how long the interglacial period will last, and how if we're moving into a glaciation period will humanity be effecting that.

Trollololololo

[Silverhammer]

The writer of TFA is a well-known AGW advocate who routinely trolls everyone who isn't as pro-AGW as him, with all the charm and humor of a drunk fratboy. If you want to have serious discussion about this, find someone else to link to.

Re:The data shows...

[bunratty]

That's an interesting claim. That's the fabricated evidence I usually see in arguments against global warming. In fact, 2010 tied 1998 as the warmest year on record according to the NOAA [noaa.gov]. You can see the instrumental temperature record [wikipedia.org] to see the warming of the past several decades. If there were good evidence against global warming, you wouldn't need to fabricate any, would you?

Re:And we know this because...?

[codewarren]

False.

The ability to predict solar activity has nothing to do with climatologists. Climatologists don't predict what the sun will do, they look at past solar activity and past temperatures and past human activity and a whole host of other data and develop models that explain what the climate will do based on what any of the others will do. (e.g. if the solar activity is X, the earth's temperature will respond Y, etc).

If the sun goes into an unexpectedly deep minimum, that doesn't mean climatologists "don't have everything figured out" because it has nothing to do with climatologists.

If the Sun does cool and earth does cool as a result, exactly according to climatologist models, I predict that the climate change deniers will still not notice.

Re:Child of the 80s

[Foobar of Borg]

rather that the hole in the ozone layer and other environmental disasters would cause something I didn't pay attention to

FTFY

BTW, the reason things like the ozone layer and acid rain (which is one you apparently forgot) aren't so worrisome now is that we actually *did* something about them. Funny how seeing a problem, determining the correct solution, and then implementing the solution tends to actually produce positive results. It's certainly a lot better than sticking our heads in the sand or plugging our ears shouting "LA! LA! LA! I can't hear you!"

Re:Of course Discover magazine would say this

[freejung]

Um... because that theory is not real science and has been completely debunked.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/cosmoclimatology-tired-old-arguments-in-new-clothes/ [realclimate.org]

Re:And we know this because...?

[Carewolf]

Nice strawman argument. A 1% change in cloudiness would account for 100% of the surface temperature variability that we have seen since 1880. The climate models ignore the effects of changes in solar magnetic activity on cloudiness.

Strawman? Do you even know what that means??

He is right though, the climate models all take changes in solar activity into account. Just like they take many other effects into account as well for more accuracy.

Solar activity does fit pretty well with a lot of changes the last century when greenhouse-gasses while rising was still at low levels. Not 100% though, volcanic activity has also shaped the global mean-temperature the last century, and greenhouses gasses if counted in makes the models even more accurate.

Re:And we know this because...?

[Arlet]

No, climatologists listen to astrophysicists to explain what the sun is likely going to do, and then the climatologist put those results in their model.

And no, the sun is not the biggest factor in climate change. The sun variability is about 0.1%, that's much smaller than the changes due to the increased greenhouse effect.

Re:Of course Discover magazine would say this

[pjbgravely]

The last paper I read [agu.org] on the subject couldn't disprove it. This was done in the lab because doing real experiments in the real atmosphere with real cosmic rays is very hard. The best they can do is measure cloud formation in relation to solar wind levels. It will take a full normal solar cycle to do this.