Scientists Warn of Rare 'Hiberation' of Sunspots: Extremely Low Solar Activity in Combination with a Cool PDO and Increased Volcanic Eruptions Could Be a 'Perfect Storm' for Plummeting Temperatures That Would Send Our Planet into a Long-term Cool-down Lasting 20 or 30 Years or Longer (Updated 6/16/11)

“Global warming” may become one of those quaint cocktail party conversations of the past if three key climate drivers [the Triple Crown of Global Cooling] — cooling North Pacific sea surface temperatures (PDO), extremely low solar activity, and increased volcanic eruptions — converge to form a “perfect storm” of plummeting temperatures that send our planet into a long-term cool-down lasting 20 or 30 years or longer. “There are some wild cards that are different from what we saw when we came out of the last warm PDO and entered its cool phase [1947 to 1976]. Now we have a very weak solar cycle and the possibility of increased volcanic activity. Together, they would create what I call the ‘Triple Crown of Cooling’,” says Accuweather meteorologist Joe Bastardi. If all three climate-change ingredients come together, it would be a recipe for dangerously cold temperatures that would shorten the agricultural growing season in northern latitudes, crippling grain production in the wheat belts of the United States and Canada and triggering widespread food shortages and famine. - Kirk Myers, Triple Crown of Global Cooling Could Pose Serious Threat to Humanity, Seminole County Environmental News Examiner, May 19, 2010

Government-funded Scientist See Sunspot 'Hibernation' But No Ice Age

June 15, 2011

Reuters – Sunspot cycles -- those 11-year patterns when dark dots appear on the solar surface -- may be delayed or even go into "hibernation" for a while, a U.S. scientist said on Wednesday.

But contrary to some media reports, this does not mean a new Ice Age is coming, Frank Hill of the National Solar Observatory said in a telephone interview.

"We have not predicted a Little Ice Age," Hill said, speaking from an astronomical meeting in New Mexico. "We have predicted something going on with the Sun."

The appearance of sunspots helps predict solar storms that can interfere with satellite communications and power grids.

Hill and other scientists cited a missing jet stream, fading spots and slower activity near the Sun's poles as signs that our nearest star is heading into a rest period.

"This is highly unusual and unexpected," he said in a statement released on Tuesday. "But the fact that three completely different views of the Sun point in the same direction is a powerful indicator that the sunspot cycle may be going into hibernation."

That hibernation would not begin now, as the current sunspot cycle, the 24th, has recently passed its minimum. Hill and his colleagues pondered a slowdown in sunspot activity in the 25th cycle, expected sometime around 2019.

They also wondered whether this possible slowdown, or even a long cessation of sunspot activity, indicates an upcoming return of the Maunder Minimum, a 70-year sunspot drought seen from 1645-1715.

'HUGE LEAP'

They had no answer as to whether this might be true, and said nothing about whether the Maunder Minimum -- named for astronomer E.H. Maunder -- was related to a long cold period in Europe and other parts of the Northern Hemisphere known as the Little Ice Age.

How strong a connection is there between a Little Ice Age and a Maunder Minimum?

"Not as strong a connection as people would like to believe," Hill said by phone.

"The Little Ice Age actually lasted for hundreds of years, of which the Maunder Minimum was only a small segment ... My personal opinion is that there is only an anecdotal connection without a whole lot of scientific background behind it."

Several websites and blogs have argued that the potentially cooling influence of a lower level of sunspot activity could cancel out the warming caused by human activities that generate climate-warming greenhouse gases. Hill disputed this.

"In my opinion, it is a huge leap ... to an abrupt global cooling, since the connections between solar activity and climate are still very poorly understood," he said in an e-mail.

Scientists Predict Rare 'Hibernation' of Sunspots

June 15, 2011

AFP – US scientists say the familiar sunspot cycle seems to be entering a hibernation period unseen since the 17th century, a pattern that could have a slight cooling effect on global temperatures.

For years, scientists have been predicting the Sun would by around 2012 move into solar maximum, a period of intense flares and sunspot activity, but lately a curious calm has suggested quite the opposite.

The signs include a missing jet stream, fading spots and slower activity near the poles, said a trio of studies presented Tuesday at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Solar Physics Division in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

"This is highly unusual and unexpected," said Frank Hill, associate director of the National Solar Observatory's Solar Synoptic Network.

"But the fact that three completely different views of the Sun point in the same direction is a powerful indicator that the sunspot cycle may be going into hibernation."

Solar activity tends to rise and fall every 11 years or so. The solar maximum and solar minimum each mark about half the interval of the magnetic pole reversal on the Sun, which happens every 22 years.

Experts are now probing whether this period of inactivity could be a second Maunder Minimum, a 70-year period when hardly any sunspots were observed between 1645-1715 known as the "Little Ice Age."

"If we are right, this could be the last solar maximum we'll see for a few decades. That would affect everything from space exploration to Earth's climate," said Hill.

Solar flares and eruptions can send highly charged particles hurtling toward Earth and interfere with satellite communications, GPS systems and even airline controls.

Geomagnetic forces have been known to occasionally garble the world's modern gadgetry, and warnings were issued as recently as last week when a moderate solar flare sent a fiery coronal mass ejection in the Earth's direction.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The rest of this article is pure government propaganda, which blames man for global warming so that the global elite can impose carbon taxes on the people in order to fund their world government while at the same time reducing the world's population.

However, the temperature change associated with any reduction in sunspot activity would likely be minimal and not enough to offset the impact of greenhouse gases on global warming, according to scientists.

"Recent solar 11-year cycles are associated empirically with changes in global surface temperature of 0.1 Celsius," said Judith Lean, a solar physicist with the US Naval Research Laboratory.

If the cycle were to stop or slow down, the small fluctuation in temperature would do the same, eliminating the slightly cooler effect of a solar minimum compared to the warmer solar maximum. The phenomenon was witnessed during the descending phase of the last solar cycle.

This "cancelled part of the greenhouse gas warming of the period 2000-2008, causing the net global surface temperature to remain approximately flat -- and leading to the big debate of why the Earth hadn't (been) warming in the past decade," Lean, who was not involved in the three studies presented, told AFP.

Less sunspot activity means the Sun will radiate lower levels of energy, ultraviolet rays, solar wind and a weaker magnetic field, explained climate scientist and author Rasmus Benestad of the Norwegian Meteorological Institute.

"Historical data suggest that solar activity, however, only appears to have a weak effect on our climate," said Benestad.

A study in the March 2010 issue of Geophysical Research Letters explored what effect an extended solar minimum might have, and found no more than a 0.3 Celsius dip by 2100 compared to normal solar fluctuations.

"A new Maunder-type solar activity minimum cannot offset the global warming caused by human greenhouse gas emissions," wrote authors Georg Feulner and Stefan Rahmstorf, noting that forecasts by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change forecast a maximum 4.5 degree Celsius rise by this century's end compared to the latter half of the 20th century.

"Moreover, any offset of global warming due to a grand minimum of solar activity would be merely a temporary effect, since the distinct solar minima during the last millennium typically lasted for only several decades or a century at most."

Other experts were skeptical about whether the latest data actually predict a long-term solar minimum.

"There is no compelling reason to think that the Sun is about to go into hibernation," said Yi-Ming Wang of the Naval Research Laboratory.

"On the other hand, we don't understand the solar dynamo well enough to make any reliable prediction about what cycle 25 will be like."

Implications of PDO, NAO, Glacial Fluctuations, and Sun Spot Cycles for Global Climate in the Coming Decades

In a Geological Society of America abstract, Dr. Don Easterbrook, Professor of Geology at Western Washington University, presented data showing we were in a global warming cycle from 1977 to 1998, at which time we entered into a new global cooling period that should last for the next three decades.

The Pacific Ocean has a warm temperature mode and a cool temperature mode, and in the past century it has switched back and forth between these two modes every 25-30 years (known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation or PDO). The PDO typically lasts 25-30 years and assures North America of cool, wetter climates during its cool phases and warmer, drier climates during its warm phases.

Back in 1977, the Pacific abruptly shifted from its cool mode (where it had been since about 1945) into its warm mode, and this initiated global warming from 1977 to 1998.

In 1998, the Pacific shifted back to its cool mode. The establishment of the cool PDO, together with similar cooling of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), virtually assures several decades of global cooling and the end of the past 30-year warm phase.

It also means that the IPCC predictions of catastrophic global warming this century were highly inaccurate. Dr. Easterbrook also suggests that since the IPCC climate models are now so far off from what is actually happening, that their projections for both this decade and century must be considered highly unreliable.

Triple Crown of Global Cooling Could Pose Serious Threat to Humanity

Seminole County Environmental News Examiner
May 19, 2010

The Triple Crown of Global Cooling:

1. Cooling North Pacific sea surface temperatures (Pacific Decadal Oscillation or PDO),
2. Extremely low solar activity, and
3. Increased volcanic eruptions.

The second climate driver in the Triple Crown of Cooling is extremely low solar activity. In May 2009, we exited the longest solar minimum in 100 years — this continued stretch of weak solar activity lasted 12.7 years, compared to the 11-year average (it was a historically inactive period in terms of sunspot numbers). If the low levels of solar activity during 2006 - 2009 continue through the current solar cycle (Solar Cycle 24), which is expected to peak in 2013, we could be facing a severe temperature decline within the next five to eight years (2010 - 2018) as Earth’s climate begins to respond to the drop-off in solar activity.Read more here and here and here.