While some have argued that ebbs and flows in the Sun’s activity are driving the climate – overriding the effect of greenhouse gas emissions, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concludes that solar variation only makes a small contribution to the Earth’s climate.
How often have we been told that the sun plays little to no part in the planet’s climate? It’s the CO2 stupid!
Wriggle room in the climate research labs:
Is our Sun falling silent?
“I’ve been a solar physicist for 30 years, and I’ve never seen anything quite like this,” says Richard Harrison, head of space physics at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire.
He shows me recent footage captured by spacecraft that have their sights trained on our star. The Sun is revealed in exquisite detail, but its face is strangely featureless.
“If you want to go back to see when the Sun was this inactive… you’ve got to go back about 100 years,” he says.
This solar lull is baffling scientists, because right now the Sun should be awash with activity.
The Sun’s activity may be falling faster than at any time in 10,000 years
It has reached its solar maximum, the point in its 11-year cycle where activity is at a peak.
Dr Green says: “There is a very strong hint that the Sun is acting in the same way now as it did in the run-up to the Maunder Minimum.”
“We estimate that within about 40 years or so there is a 10% to 20% – nearer 20% – probability that we’ll be back in Maunder Minimum conditions.”
The era of solar inactivity in the 17th Century coincided with a period of bitterly cold winters in Europe.
Londoners enjoyed frost fairs on the Thames after it froze over, snow cover across the continent increased, the Baltic Sea iced over – the conditions were so harsh, some describe it as a mini-Ice Age.
So could this regional change in Europe have a knock-on effect on for the rest of the world’s climate? And what are the implications for global warming?
“If we take all the science that we know relating to how the Sun emits heat and light and how that heat and light powers our climate system, and we look at the climate system globally, the difference that it makes even going back into Maunder Minimum conditions is very small.
Ah…hang on….a mini ice age…but it’s not really ‘significant’…it’s only going to be in Europe….globally the effect is insignificant….curious how global warming in the Arctic region drives climate around the globe but a mini ice age in the Northern hemisphere has no effect on global climate….do you think they make the science up to suit their own prejudices?
Oh…hang on again……this from rebel weatherman Paul Hudson who curiously reported this exact story in October last year…..
Although the biggest impact of such solar driven change would be regional, like here in the UK and across Europe, there would be global implications too.
According to research conducted by Michael Mann in 2001, a vociferous advocate of man-made global warming, the Maunder minimum of the 1600s was estimated to have shaved 0.3C to 0.4C from global temperatures.
Though he adds:
It is worth stressing that most scientists believe long term global warming hasn’t gone away. Any global cooling caused by this natural phenomenon would ultimately be temporary, and if projections are correct, the long term warming caused by carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases would eventually swamp this solar-driven cooling.
But keep panicking….if you think you’re safe in a colder world think again:
BBC Laughter: Less warming may cause more damage
From BBC Radio’s Today program.
The BBC’s Roger Harrabin reports:
So it is possible that the climate would warm less than predicted, but the effects of the warming at a low level might be greater than predicted.
Good old Roger….would have made a great priest.
The scientists can’t agree…..regional or global…..
The thames may well have frozen over as recently as the 1960s had it not been canalised , the water flow in the 17th century being much slower because the river then followed its natural course.
Interesting; I didn’t know that – or at least I didn’t know that the flow had speeded up that much. Thanks.
Dick R is absolutely right. Using ‘ the Thames froze over’ as an argument is utter nonsense. Only someone with no knowledge of London before he 19th century could spout such rubbish.
That said, there genuinely was a period of intense cold – in fact there has been more than one, remember those Dickensian winter scenes?
Part of the problem in the AGW myth creation is the lack of any historical perspective among its inventors and hawkers. Even a faint knowledge of history would have made them aware that ‘climate change’ is a nonsense phrase. Our climate has always changed – that’s what climate does. We have suffered feast and famine in these islands due to climatic fluctuations long before the internal combustion engine was a remote possibility.
“we do think there is a mechanism in Europe where we should expect more cold winters when solar activity is low”
Is that the sound of somebody wriggling off a hook I can hear?
As I posted earlier this article presents two extremes, but the statement by the climate change professor is risible, that the sun has no effect on the surface temperature on earth.
I find this article deeply confusing because it appears to be diametrically opposed to previous BBC thinking. Now we hear about global cooling which is the point climate change sceptics have been making for a long time.
‘appears to be diametrically opposed to previous BBC thinking’
No matter what on, or that it can flip on a sixpence, they think so they are… entitled to limitless exemptions.
It’ll take a while and be messy, but even supertankers can change course so we’ll soon be treated to 10,000 cubicle dwellers singing from the new hymn sheet they are given if they expect to stay employed. That’s just nast… another unique.
The global warming hysterics are so committed to their religion that even if the world starts to enter a period of cooling, they’ll still spout their nonsense regarding use of fossil fuels. Only this time it will be along the lines that because weather will be colder, people will want to use more fuel to keep warm. But, they will say, mother earth doesn’t have enough fuel for everyone so the developed western world will have to go without so that those loveable people in the developing and third world countries can have as much as the want. Hence, they’ll say, we must keep on building the ridiculous wind turbines and solar farms etc. You see; with one bound they are free, lol.
And Alan, you suggest that Mr Harrabin would make a good priest. I’m not sure what you are implying but isn’t he actually some kind of religious zealot for his AGW belief system?
How can anybody think that solar activity/output doesn’t have an effect on our temperature? How many years has this professor been at school? He sounds like one of the people my great aunt used to describe as “educated until they are daft”.
One of the main problems I have with the global warming wallahs is that you can’t ask them sensible questions; they simply resent it and get defensive if not unpleasantly hostile. That’s never a good sign. There are all kinds of questions which arise as a result of their theory – the list is far too long for me to be bothered typing it – and if they could answer them satisfactorily I would be inclined to take them more seriously.
Anyway, I suppose everybody here has heard of Piers Corbyn, but if you haven’t I can recommend Gurgling him. He makes an interesting read.
Who is this perfesser? Whats his name?
This is a man who has backed himself into a corner, and has no way of sensibly addressing the issue without either admitting he was wrong all along – and the whole climate change house of cards comes crashing down around his ears, or coming out with something plainly ridiculous.
Even though we can all see how crazy he sounds, his research grant is safe and he can carry on with the deception.
The Sun is a factor which has been quoted for a long time by the CC sceptics / deniers there’s no way the CC lobby can admit the rest of us were ever right !
The sun has nothing to do with global warming. This pic proves it!
http://s776.photobucket.com/user/stanarnold1/media/Solaractivityandearth_zps016013c5.jpg.html?sort=3&o=0
“The Sun has got his hat on”
(2 mins).
No, he would not have made a great priest, unless you`re thinking of the kind like Savile…who was certainly a Media Priest for the Sun God that is the BBc until recently.
A decent priest would have to think these days-the BBC and UEA/IPCC don`t want thinkers, just compliance.
Harrabin is just a Lysenko scribe, attached slavishly to Gores slave train.
And no sun activity…are they leaving their fridges on too long on the suns surface then?
The BBC environmental types surely have world exclusive details about those sun dwellers that are stiffing all their research grants down here.
Maybe one of Milibands Challengers could be spare to send them all up ti the sun to investigate….warmer socks might be needed.
Those Antarctic goons might still have a few pairs spare.
Dr. David Gregory-Kumar, call your office.
I do find it puzzling that all of the heliologists interviewed are utterly amazed by the quiet period, given that I have read over the last fifteen years about Finnish scientists who have been predicting exactly such a fall in sunspots