An Inconvenient Ice Age
Part I
The sun is the source and cause of all weather. The aggregate of weather is climate. When the sun changes, climate changes.
These are irrefutable truths of science, even though Dr. Mann, Al Gore, and the global warming hysteriacs skipped that chapter in their science books.
Part II
The downside of global cooling, or ice ages, is far worse for humanity and most species of fish, plants, and animals than the worst predictions of global warming. Warming four degrees over 100 years might challenge or kill hundreds of species. Cooling 5 to 10 degrees in 50 years would thousands and thousands beyond those destined for extinction on purely evolutionary grounds.
Part III
The evidence that the world is on the precipice of a new ice age far outweighs the evidence that it is on the verge of catastrophic warming.
Referring to the chart below, meteorologist [Anthony Watts](Notice the sharp drop in the magnetic index and the continuance at low levels, almost as if something “switched off”.) describes with frightening eloquence a solar event that took place three years ago:
Notice the sharp drop in the magnetic index and the continuance at low levels, almost as if something “switched off”.
Today, Mr. Watts found a disturbing scientific paper with an ominous conclusion. The domain jargon might be foreign to you, but it provides a beautiful set up to the final sentence (speaking literarily):
A linear fit to the changing magnetic field produces a slope of 77 Gauss per year, and intercepts the abscissa at 2015. If the present trend continues, this date is when sunspots will disappear from the solar surface.
On Financial Post, Lawrence Solomon describes circumstances the last time the sun failed to spot:
The consequences of the Little Ice Age, because they occurred in relatively recent times, have come down to us through literature and the arts as well as from historians and scientists, government and business records. When Shakespeare wrote of “lawn as white as driven snow,” he had first-hand experience - Europe was bitterly cold in his day, a sharp contrast to the very warm weather that preceded his birth. During the Little Ice Age, the River Thames froze over, the Dutch developed the ice skate and the great artists of the day learned to love a new genre: the winter landscape.*
As a hockey player and winter-lover, all sounds great. But as a man who must commute to work, who must earn a wage, and who must heat a home, the next paragraph sounds frightening:
In what had been a warm Europe , adaptations were not all happy: Growing seasons in England and Continental Europe generally became short and unreliable, which led to shortages and famine. These hardships were nothing compared to the more northerly countries: Glaciers advanced rapidly in Greenland, Iceland, Scandinavia and North America, making vast tracts of land uninhabitable. The Arctic pack ice extended so far south that several reports describe Eskimos landing their kayaks in Scotland. Finland’s population fell by one-third, Iceland’s by half, the Viking colonies in Greenland were abandoned altogether, as were many Inuit communities. The cold in North America spread so far south that, in the winter of 1780, New York Harbor froze, enabling people to walk from Manhattan to Staten Island.
While the global warming hysteriacs drive their hybrids to Whole Foods for some organic alfalfa sprouts and Ethos water, the wise will plan for the cold. The last time climate turned cold, the world changed. The New World was settled. The Protestant Revolution erupted. Confined to their homes, people demanded that Gutenberg invent the printing press to give them something to read (or something like that).
Anyway, Tom Buchanan was right the second time: the sun is getting colder every year.
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