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Igloo

Freak Arctic Weather Precursor to the Coming Ice Age?

Sott Editors
Sott.net
Fri, 07 May 2010 13:37 UTC
As regular readers of SOTT are aware, we collect weather reports from around the world which often point to weird weather occurring in locations experiencing unseasonable weather. This week there has been an especially weird spike in reports of sudden cold and snow affecting many areas of North America and Europe! We think this dramatically illustrates the alarming speed with which the weather can change from stable, warm and dry conditions to turbulent, cold and wet conditions. Global news networks are churning out endless reports on the UK election, the financial shockwaves hitting Europe and the Times Square hysteria over some fireworks left in a car. What is not being reported prominently are the unprecedented freak weather events happening around across the northern hemisphere: hail, sleet and snow slamming southern California, deluges devastating the central cities of Nashville in the US and Hunan in China, the Korean Peninsula shivering with a record-low spring chill and reports of snow in Mexico and France.

Are these just unseasonal conditions, an immediate knock-on effect from the recent volcanic eruption in Iceland perhaps? Or are we on the brink of entering an ice age as SOTT has been predicting for a number of years? Was the sudden flip this week - "as though a switch had been thrown" - a taster of the Ice Age to come? Is this 'mini Winter rebound' pointing out how suddenly glacial rebound can develop? When will we approach the tipping point as more volcanoes erupt and magma comes up from the ocean floor? Laura Knight-Jadczyk explains the mechanism that can precipitate sudden climate change towards an Ice Age:

That's the hard science. There's going to be the day. It's already happening. The magnetic field is degenerating. That means magma is going to start welling up under the oceans. It's already happening because it's heating the oceans up.

When the oceans start heating up, that means more evaporation. When that happens at the same time that the planet is being clouded by volcanic eruptions, which is cooling the atmosphere, you have precipitation that comes down as snow.

The geological record shows that the onset of every ice-age was so sudden as to be unbelievable. In other words, next winter could be the winter when a lot of undersea volcanoes begin to erupt and dump magma into the oceans. A lot of evaporation takes place.

If it happens in the winter time that means that snow can fall in amounts that are beyond your wildest imagining. It's happened! It's geologically a fact. It's happened repeatedly. Can you imagine 9 stories of snow in a single day?
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Arrow Down

Ireland will have record breaking snowfall and freezing temperatures once again: Possible 'Little Ice Age' for Ireland could last 11 years as sun cools

Bernie Malone
Irish Central
Thu, 07 Jul 2011 13:24 UTC
Image
© Photo by Lena Strom
Possible 'Little Ice Age' for Ireland could last 11 years as sun cools
According to British academics, Ireland and the UK should brace themselves for severe winters for the coming years, as solar activity is low. Last winter, the coldest in over 45 years, gave Ireland a taste of what's to come.

A United Kingdom-based forecaster Exacta Weather has issued a severe winter weather warning for 2011 - 2012. James Madden, from Exacta, said they have been correct over the last two years. This year they predict record breaking snowfall and freezing temperatures once again.

Madden said that as well as the lower solar activity, the dust and ash particles released by the recent volcanic eruptions in Iceland and Chile would also contribute to cooling down of global temperatures. He said, "Converted sulfur dioxide emissions from volcanic eruptions can also cause sunlight reflection in the atmosphere."


Comment: Not to mention other contributing factors, like comet dust.

Comet dust is electrically-charged and is causing the earth's rotation to slow marginally. The slowing of the rotation is reducing the magnetic field, opening earth to more dangerous cosmic radiation and stimulating more volcanism. The volcanism under the sea is heating the sea water which is heating the lower atmosphere and loading it with moisture.

The moisture hits the cooler upper atmosphere and contributes to a deadly mix that inevitably leads to an Ice Age, preceded for a short period by a rapid increase of greenhouse gases and "hot pockets" in the lower atmosphere, heavy rains, hail, snow, and floods.

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Gear

Global warming? A new ice age? The only certainty is that YOU'RE paying for the hysteria of our politicians

Christopher Booker
The Daily Mail
Wed, 06 Jul 2011 13:35 UTC
Who would possibly have thought it? The latest news is that the world may be threatened by a sharp drop in temperatures, possibly so severe that it could herald a new mini ice age.

And one reason being put forward for this is that all the pollution being chucked out by thousands of coal-fired power stations may be blocking the sun's heat from the Earth.

Dr Robert Kaufman of Boston University blamed China this week. 'During the Chinese economic expansion there was a huge increase in sulphur emissions,' he said. And this was the cause of global cooling.

Image
© Press Association
Ice age on its way? The latest news is that we may be threatened by a sharp drop in temperature
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Fish

Gray Whales Likely Survived the Ice Ages by Changing Their Diets


ScienceDaily
Thu, 07 Jul 2011 11:57 UTC
Image
© iStockphoto/Marshall Bruce
A grey whale mother and calf off the coast of Baja California. If ancient gray whale populations migrated and fed the same as today's whales, what happened during the Ice Ages, when their major feeding grounds disappeared?
If ancient gray whale populations migrated and fed the same as today's whales, what happened during the Ice Ages, when their major feeding grounds disappeared? UC Berkeley and Smithsonian paleontologists argue that gray whales utilized a range of food sources in the past, including herring and krill, in addition to the benthic organisms they consume today. As a result, pre-whaling populations were two to four times greater than today's population of around 22,000.

Gray whales survived many cycles of global cooling and warming over the past few million years, likely by exploiting a more varied diet than they do today, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, and Smithsonian Institution paleontologists.

The researchers, who analyzed California gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus) responses to climate change over the past 120,000 years, also found evidence to support the idea that the population of gray whales along the Pacific Coast before the arrival of humans was two to four times today's population, which stands at about 22,000. The whale is considered a conservation success story because protections instituted as early as the 1930s have allowed populations to rebound from fewer than 1,000 individuals in the early 20th century, after less than 75 years of systematic whaling.
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Ark

US: 4,517 Bones Found At Colorado Ice Age Fossil Site


TheDenverChannel.com
Fri, 01 Jul 2011 12:53 UTC
snowmass dig
© 7News

Snowmass Village -- Crews are racing against time to finish the dig at an Ice Age fossil site near Aspen.

Excavation began at the site last fall after a bulldozer operator uncovered a bone while working on an expansion of Ziegler Reservoir. Work stopped for the winter but resumed in mid-May.

Crews are finishing work this weekend before construction on the reservoir resumes next week.

During the last seven-week dig, crews found 4,517 bones from at least 20 different kinds of Ice Age animals, according to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
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Sun

Scientists See Sunspot Hibernation But No Ice Age

Deborah Zabarenko
Reuters
Thu, 16 Jun 2011 11:49 UTC
Image
© Reuters/NASA
An image of the sun taken by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft on June 15, 2011.
Washington - 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."
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Sun

New Maunder Minimum? Scientists Predict Rare "Hibernation" of Sunspots

Kerry Sheridan
Agence France-Presse
Wed, 15 Jun 2011 14:36 UTC
sunspots maunder minimum
© AFP/Getty Images/Jared C. Tilton
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.
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."

Comment: More on this subject:

Scientists: Sun's Approaching 'Grand Cooling" Assures New Ice Age

Global warming and the sun

Eminent geophysicist rejects global warming theory, says world on verge of 'mini ice age'

What those who pin their hopes on "global warming" to offset the effects of sun cycles seem ignore is that the onset of ice ages have been preceded by a drastic warming phase. Nothing could be further from the truth:

Climate Change Swindlers and the Political Agenda

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Sherlock

'Incredibly exciting' rare pre-Ice Age handaxe discovered on Orkney


news.stv.tv
Tue, 07 Jun 2011 22:06 UTC
Rare handaxe

Discovered: The tool could potentially 'set back our known history'.

A Palaeolithic handaxe has been found by a local walker on an Orkney beach.

An "incredibly rare" pre-Ice Age handaxe which may have been used to kill woolly mammoths, has been found on an Orkney beach.

The Palaeolithic - or Old Stone Age - tool, which could be anything between 100,000 and 450,000 years old, is one of only ten ever to be found in Scotland. The axe, which was found on a stretch of shore in St Ola by a local man walking along the beach, is the oldest man-made artefact ever found in Orkney.

The stone tool, which is around five-and-a-half inches long, has been broken, and originally would have tapered to a point opposite the cutting edge, but at some point in time, the point broke off and someone reworked the flint to its present straight edge.

Orkney-based archaeologist Caroline Wickham-Jones, who has studied the axe, described its discovery as "incredibly exciting".

Ms Wickham-Jones, who a lecturer in archaeology at Aberdeen University, said: "This axe is definitely older than 100,000 years - so old it's become geology.
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Snowman

Eminent geophysicist rejects global warming theory, says world on verge of 'mini ice age'

Matthew Cullinan
LifeSiteNews
Fri, 18 Feb 2011 08:03 UTC
Image
© NASA
Sunspot activity since 1990
An eminent Mexican geophysicist says that despite predictions of global warming based on computer models, the world may be on the verge of an eighty-year cold period similar to the "little ice age" experienced by Europe from 1300 to 1800 A.D..

Víctor Manuel Velasco, of the University of Mexico's Institute of Geophysics, says that recent winter conditions are similar to those of the "little ice age", and in particular the "Maunder Minimum," a period during which sunspot activity dropped significantly. He also notes that the Earth is in a similar position today in relation to the rest of the solar system, a fact which he regards as significant for climate.

"We are talking about the period between 1645 and 1715, which is known as the Maunder Minimum, a period in which the sunspots practically disappeared from the surface of the sun, and in which our planet occupied a position similar to which it has today, with respect to the center of gravity of our [solar] system." Velasco said in an interview published by the university.
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Info

Did Quiet Sun Cause Little Ice Age After All?

Govert Schilling
ScienceNow
Thu, 26 May 2011 12:44 UTC
Ice Age
© Hendrick Avercamp / Wikimedia Commons
Brrr ... Cold winters in 17th century Europe, as shown in this painting by Hendrick Avercamp, may have been caused by a lack of solar activity after all.

Boston - For decades, astronomers and climatologists have debated whether a prolonged 17th century cold spell, best documented in Europe, could have been caused by erratic behavior of the sun. Now, an American solar physicist says he has new evidence to suggest that the sun was indeed the culprit.

The sun isn't as constant as it appears. Instead, its surface is regularly beset by storms of swirling magnetic fields. As a result, like a teenager plagued with acne, the face of the sun often sprouts relatively dark and short-lived "sunspots," which appear when strong magnetic fields inhibit the upwelling of hotter gas from below. The number of those spots waxes and wanes regularly in an 11-year cycle. However, even that cycle isn't immutable.

In 1893, English astronomer Edward Maunder, studying historical records, noted that the cycle essentially stopped between 1645 and 1715. Instead, the sun was almost devoid of sunspots during this period. In 1976, American solar physicist John "Jack" Eddy suggested there might have been a causal link between this "Maunder Minimum" in the number of sunspots and the contemporaneous Little Ice Age, when average temperatures in Europe were a degree centigrade lower than normal.
      Read More...
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