Sun and Earth Moving in Opposite Directions?
A few months ago, I discussed the challenges that forced me to modify the methodology that I use in making the long-range weather forecasts for The Old Farmer’s Almanac.
The two primary challenges were that (1) increasingly, over the past two decades, the actual weather has been warmer than that forecast by our traditional forecast methodology, and (2) we are in a period of low solar activity that is cooling Earth, thereby offsetting some of that warming.
I offered that the fact that solar activity (the driver of the Almanac’s long-range forecasts) in recent years has suggested that temperatures should have been relatively cool represents strong evidence that there is some other factor causing warming, which would most likely be the increase in greenhouse gasses caused by human activities.
Further, I cautioned that “I do expect that solar activity over the next 15 to perhaps 50 years will remain low. And if I am correct, this will keep Earth’s temperatures cooler than they would otherwise be, although still continuing a general year-to-year warming trend. Then, once solar activity returns to near-normal levels, temperatures would jump significantly higher—perhaps on the order of one to two degrees F.”
Since I wrote those words, solar researchers have raised similar concerns. Recent research, led by Valentina Zharkova at the UK’s Northumbria University, predicted rapidly decreasing magnetic waves for the three solar cycles from 2021 to about 2054. According to her model, solar activity as expressed by sunspots and solar flares will be reduced by as much as 60 percent during this period.
Leading solar researcher Javaraiah Javaraiah of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, in a paper published in the journal Solar Physics in November 2017, agreed, predicting that cycles 25 and 26 would be weaker than cycle 24, which was the weakest cycle in more than 100 years.
According to Zharkova: “In cycle 26, the two waves exactly mirror each other, peaking at the same time but in opposite hemispheres of the Sun. We predict that this will lead to the properties of a ‘Maunder Minimum.’”
The Maunder Minimum was the period from about 1645 to 1715, when sunspots and related solar activity were practically nonexistent and there was a time of unusually cold weather in much of the world.
Zharkova expressed the same concern that we did, when she stated, “I hope that global warning will be overridden by this effect, giving humankind and Earth 30 years to sort out our pollution. The downward impact on global warming will last until the 2050s, when the Sun’s two magnetic waves become active again.”
Find the long-range forecasts in this year’s edition of The Old Farmer’s Almanac.
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Planning an outside party evening of March 31
A great job by the Almanac staff on this issue. Yes, the earth is definitely warming and 2017 becomes another year of above average temperatures. But the Almanac is the only source I know talking about the effect low sunspot activity is likely to have to temporarily offset some of the warming. Fascinating stuff and thank you.
A fellow in Urbana, IL went through local temperature records covering 1914-1964. These temps had been measured 3 feet down in the soil and the air temp by the local university. He found a 1.4F increase in average temperatures. It has continued through today.
The excess CO2 in the atmosphere will exacerbate this warming trend in the next 100 years, causing the temp to increase more than normal.
So the overall warming is a normal cycle but the warming will be increased by CO2 blocking the normal radiation of heat from the earth into space.
I cannot believe the level of tripe I am reading in this comments section! From rad this and next level that and the "deep state" sending hurricanes to specific places and directing weather catastrophes to California! Get a job, buy a book, and try educating yourself instead of wallowing in whatever nonsense you are buying into on Facebook. You've done nothing but enrich Mark Zuckerberg, that little weasel.
Everything that's happening, has got to come to pass,yes we as a whole do make some things worse,but the bible has to full fill,Jesus is soon to come !!!
Amen
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