In high school people would look at me in the hallway and say "That's the kid who thinks were going into an ice age. What a quack." I won't say who said it, but I heard it. It may seem like I'm just writing a bunch of non-sense but let me explain myself.
In 2007 the world temperature took a swing never recorded by humans. In one year time the temperature world wide dropped 0.6 degrees celcius. If you don't know, the global warming theory is based off of 1 degree temperture rise. So this is BIG! 
You can check out the full story right here: Dailytech.com
I'm going to get a little scientific here so try to keep up. We have 11 year solar cycles here on planet earth and in fact the solar system. These cycles have a significant impact on our planet, when it's an active cycle solar storms can knock out communications and impact air traffic, but when there is a minimum in the solar cycle it can cause big problems with the impact of global cooling. The Maunder minimum between the years 1645-1715 marked the end of a nice warm period in human history and came in the Little Ice Age. What worries me is crop failure. Yes, it's the most important thing in our society and if crops fail millions will starve and prices will go through the roof! I'm talking $13.00 for a loaf of bread, $8.00 for a box of cereal, and $50.00 for what was once a $2.00 bottle of wine. It could happen! And depression would seem likely to happen.
I'm not shouting out Ice Age or anything, but what I am saying is that if we don't start solar cycle 24 we could face one of the largest catastrophies since the last solar minimum. And if a volcanoe were to go off during a time of solar minimum it could result in a year without a summer such as 1819... It's something to think about.... If you have any questions or critism please email me at Millirod@kean.edu , I love questions, and I love a debate even more!
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4 comments:
Actually, the cooling is due to La Nina. The Pacific Ocean goes through cycles of El Nino and La Nina - warmer waters from El Nino warm the planet while cooler waters from La Nina cool the planet. You can see in that graph that in 1998, a strong El Nino caused a warming over a short period even faster than the current cooling. Similarly in 1999, La Nina produced a similar cooling.
Currently, the Pacific Ocean is in a strong La Nina phase. It's due to subside in mid 2008 so the global cooling will soon reverse.
Hmmm. I wonder if jc is john cross, the agw hystericyst...
Anyway!
La Nina is NOT the only source of cooling, and I will bet jc knows it.
two good sites for you to follow:
http://icecap.us/index.php
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/
No, I'm not John Cross. I have read both the icecap and Anthony Watts articles. Anthony Watts actually agrees that the cooling is most likely due to La Nina. As for the idea that falling solar activity might be the cause, satellite measurements have shown no dramatic drop in TSI over the past few years - certainly nothing of the magnitude required to cause 0.6 degrees of cooling.
Instead, the solar cycle is following its usual 11 year cycle, flattening out as it approaches solar minimum. A TSI plot is available at http://spot.colorado.edu/~koppg/TSI/. There is global cooling of about 0.18 degrees from solar maximum to solar minimum but that's stretched out from 2001 to now and has already happened.
Incidentally, it was the Icecap website where I first read of snow at Perisher Blue on Feb 29 (eg - on the last day of the Australian summer) with predictions of a bumper snow season due to La Nina giving the Australian east coast a cold wet winter. So we're strongly considering a skiing holiday this year :-)
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