Russian scientist predicts global cooling MOSCOW, Aug. 25 (UPI) -- A Russian scientist predicts a period of global cooling in coming decades, followed by a warmer interval.
Khabibullo Abdusamatov expects a repeat of the period known as the Little Ice Age. During the 16th century, the Baltic Sea froze so hard that hotels were built on the ice for people crossing the sea in coaches.
The Little Ice Age is believed to have contributed to the end of the Norse colony in Greenland, which was founded during an interval of much warmer weather.
Abdusamatov and his colleagues at the Russian Academy of Sciences astronomical observatory said the prediction is based on measurement of solar emissions, Novosti reported. They expect the cooling to begin within a few years and to reach its peak between 2055 and 2060.
"The Kyoto initiatives to save the planet from the greenhouse effect should be put off until better times," he said. "The global temperature maximum has been reached on Earth, and Earth's global temperature will decline to a climatic minimum even without the Kyoto protocol."
What do you think about this? ****************************************************** 09-15-06, 02:51 PM juanruiz
quote: "The Kyoto initiatives to save the planet from the greenhouse effect should be put off until better times,"
No country is meeting the Kyoto goals anyway, so it seems to be a moot point.
09-15-06, 03:54 PM Professor From Scotty's posted article: "Abdusamatov and his colleagues at the Russian Academy of Sciences astronomical observatory said the prediction is based on measurement of solar emissions..."
Variations in solar emissions have also been cited as a cause of global warming. Neither is true. It was reported just a couple of days ago that:
quote:
The sun's energy output has barely varied over the past 1,000 years, raising chances that global warming has human rather than celestial causes, a study showed on Wednesday.[Reuters]
Global cooling was a popular hypothesis -- in the 1970s! There's a nice discussion of the history of the assertion that the earth is in a cooling period at Wikipedia. In recent years the notion that we're headed for another ice age has been firmly discredited, and evidence now appears compelling that the earth is warming -- probably from human activity.
09-15-06, 04:42 PM Scotty There has been so much controversy about global warming, and both sides have credible arguments, pro and con, it is hard to know what to believe. I have heard this theory about global cooling before, that is why I was looking for opinions. I am stuck on what to believe.
09-15-06, 06:12 PM newnickname Another old thread on the topic.
The "Little Ice Age" like the "Medieval Warm Period" may not have been a global phenemonon.
'The Little Ice Age, and several preceding centuries, which are often called the "Medieval Warm Period," are the subject of controversy. Neither epoch is recognized at all locations around the globe, and indeed at some locations there is clear evidence of warming while others show distinct cooling. One author titled a paper: "Was there a Medieval Warm Period, and if so when and where?" Nevertheless, when data from all Northern Hemisphere locations are considered, the annual average summer temperature proves to be a few tenths of a degree lower during the coldest part of the Little Ice Age in the late 1500s and early 1600s.'www.whoi.edu
If Khabibullo Abdusamatov really expects another "Little Ice Age" - and that term is not just journalists' shorthand - the response might well be 'so what?' Of course, as the earth gradually warms up, there will be local variations and temporary reversals.
There is no controversy about the fact that the earth is currently getting warmer on a global scale. The controversy is about how significant this is, and what is causing it. Most scientists attribute it, at least partly, to human activities - notably our unprecedented pollution of the planet, and our extravagant use of millions of years worth of fossil energy inside a couple of centuries. The significance, given our current way of life - our coastal cities for example - could be catastrophic. Those who disagree with that - talking of natural cycles or whatever - tend to be in the pay of the polluters.
09-15-06, 06:37 PM DorianGreyed I think there wss a time period, possibly in the 18th-early 19th Century that could be called a "Little Ice Age." There was a terrible winter during Peter the Great's time (ice in Italian harbors, wine freezing in cellars in France), and I think that Dickens' stories have some winters that are no longer the norm in England.
09-15-06, 07:01 PM DorianGreyed What so many people fail to realize is just how narrow a span of global average temeratures that we can live in and still have the same style of living. A rise of just a few degrees of average annual temperature means that many coastal areas will be under water. I think that Florida's highest point is 345'. Manhattan's is 265' at Washington Heights, with an average elevation of 33'.* If just Greenland's ice cap goes, the estimate is that the oceans will rise 21'. And it is melting, as are most, if not all, of the world's glaciers. And the Arctic Ice Pack. And the Ice Shelves in Antarctica. Remember, if Greenland's ice goes, so will most of the other ice in the world. That 21' will be nothing compared to what would happen if all the ice melts. ---- Greenland Melt May Swamp LA, Other Cities, Study Says - National Geographic News ----
Using computer models, scientists have created a series of maps that show areas susceptible to rises in sea level. The above map shows that a 6-meter (20-foot) rise would swamp Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa, and the entire Florida coastline, in addition to parts of Orlando and other inland areas. -------- A one-meter sea level rise would wreak particular havoc on the Gulf Coast and eastern seaboard of the United States.
"No one will be free from this," said Overpeck, whose maps show that every U.S. East Coast city from Boston to Miami would be swamped. A one-meter sea rise in New Orleans, Overpeck said, would mean "no more Mardi Gras." - National Geographic News
*You can kiss those subways and tunnels goodbye.
09-15-06, 10:51 PM DvdGStwrt On no that is bad news, very bad news.
If the earth cools, then we here will see hotter dryer weather, as it warms we actually get cooler, wetter weather. Big Grin
If the seas don't rise, then I won't have ocean front property - actually a second bay area would arise in the central valley - leading to more cooling, more precipitation.
Seriously, considering that the majority of climatologists and other scientists (not just one lone astronomer) feel other wise, I think it is safe to say I will have ocean (bay) front property in the nearish future.
09-16-06, 10:13 AM sid1114 There are always voices out of the mainstream. I have no personal basis on which to judge this Russian guy, other than to say that he's among a very small minority. There are those that write articles about intelligent design, about the age of the earth being 6000 years, about the moon landing having been faked. Whereas not all such people are 100% wrong 100% of the time, I'm going with the thousands of earth science researchers who are warning us of global warming. As an aside, I'd also point out that the man quoted is an inheritor of the tradition of molding science to fit ideology, al a the Soviet Union. It's a tradition that is beginning to find fertil soil in the US as well, in the last, oh, six years. If one wants to make a personal singular decision on the matter of global warming, one needs, first, to divest oneself of wishful thinking and political prejudices (I mean all of us, not just Scotty) and critically look at the data presented by both "sides" (remembering that just because there may be one voice saying no while a thousand say yes doesn't mean there are two equal sides) and evaluate the science. Personally I have neither the knowledge nor the time nor the inclination to do so. I'm inclined to believe that most of the guys ringing the alarm bell -- given that they are certifiable scientists -- understand the scientific method well enough to provide meaningful data. And the fact that there are thousands of them against only a handful is persuasive to me. Lazy of me? Maybe. But that's the basis for my conclusions on evolution, age of the universe, CAT scans, and MRI machines as well. Same guys who give us immunology, DNA studies, new antibiotics. Reject one, reject them all, is what I sez.
OSLO, Norway (Reuters) -- The sun's energy output has barely varied over the past 1,000 years, raising chances that global warming has human rather than celestial causes, a study showed on Wednesday.
Researchers from Germany, Switzerland and the United States found that the sun's brightness varied by only 0.07 percent over 11-year sunspot cycles, far too little to account for the rise in temperatures since the Industrial Revolution.
"Our results imply that over the past century climate change due to human influences must far outweigh the effects of changes in the sun's brightness," said Tom Wigley of the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research.
A dwindling group of scientists says that the dominant cause of warming is a natural variation in the climate system, or a gradual rise in the sun's energy output.
"This basically rules out the sun as the cause of global warming," Henk Spruit, a co-author of the report from the Max Planck Institute in Germany, told Reuters.
Solar activity is now around a low on the 11-year cycle after a 2000 peak, when bright spots called faculae emit more heat and outweigh the heat-plugging effect of dark sunspots. Both faculae and dark sunspots are most common at the peaks.
Still, the report also said there could be other, more subtle solar effects on the climate, such as from cosmic rays or ultraviolet radiation. It said they would be hard to detect.- CNN
This group of sixty scientists appealing to the Canadian government seem to have a common sense approach.
Is anyone else skeptical of "science" that seems to have an agenda attached, especially if that agenda involves money?
Some snippets from their letter:
"Observational evidence does not support today's computer climate models, so there is little reason to trust model predictions of the future. Yet this is precisely what the United Nations did in creating and promoting Kyoto and still does in the alarmist forecasts on which Canada's climate policies are based."
"While the confident pronouncements of scientifically unqualified environmental groups may provide for sensational headlines, they are no basis for mature policy formulation."
"We appreciate the difficulty any government has formulating sensible science-based policy when the loudest voices always seem to be pushing in the opposite direction."
"We believe the Canadian public and government decision-makers need and deserve to hear the whole story concerning this very complex issue. It was only 30 years ago that many of today's global-warming alarmists were telling us that the world was in the midst of a global-cooling catastrophe. But the science continued to evolve, and still does, even though so many choose to ignore it when it does not fit with predetermined political agendas."
I will not repeat the list of the signatories, but their credentials appear to be significant.
09-17-06, 08:44 AM methos # A few comments on this "global cooling" thing. Looking at the scientific literature global cooling wasn't seen as as much of a threat that the popular media represented it as, or as George Will likes to claim it was. # What scientists said was, absent other effects and without changing our behavior the globe would cool. # There are other effects, particularly one called the greenhouse effect. # Perhaps the most important point - we changed our behavior. The science wasn't wrong.
The hypothesis went, basically, we're putting too much particulate matter in thye air and this is lessening the amount of the Sun's heat that is reaching us. Guess what, if you look at the temperature record, # you'll see that the global temperature did dip, or at least stop rising during the period when we were putting particularly large amounts of particular matter into the air. # you'll see that the end of this cool period coincides with the introduction of new environmental policies limitting particulate emission.
Short version: the science was right, we changed our behavior, we stopped global cooling. Perhaps we should learn a lesson from that and apply it to global warming.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: methos, 09-17-06 10:12 AM
09-17-06, 09:11 AM methos I should probably actually have said we lessened global cooling. We're still putting particulate matter in the air, it still makes the globe cooler than it would otherwise be, but we're putting less of it in and more CO2, so the net effect is warming.
09-17-06, 09:21 AM Kelleygirl I implore everyone to view the movie "An Inconvenient Truth"; I think that the logic and the statistics are beyond reproach and you definitely will be convinced that if we, the human race, don't react quickly and make some changes, terrible things are inevitable. And no, this is not a conspiracy dug up by the Democrats, Scotty!
This message has been edited. Last edited by: DorianGreyed,
Posts: 3165 | Location: From the Mountains to the Sea. | Registered: 06-08-02
The more I think about it, the more I think the "global cooling" episode is a good reason to listen to scientists now. Then, scientists discovered an effect that would tend to cool the planet. They had a mechanism based on their understanding of the climate and they had observations that supported their idea. Despite this, they didn't argue for immediate action. Yes, you can find individual scientists arguing for immediate action then, just as you can find individual scientists arguing that global warming isn't real now, but the scientific bodies, which are probably a fair reflection of the scientific consensus, weren't. Instead, they were arguing for more research before taking any action. There did turn out to be some issues with the global cooling idea. Although the northern hemisphere was cooling, the southern hemisphere, it turned out, was not. The global trend, a combination of the two, was only a very slight cooling interupting a longer term trend of heating. The particles that were cooling the northern hemisphere were also causing other pollution, like acid rain. Legislation was passed to stop the acid rain, and the cooling stopped.
Fast forward. Things follow pretty much the same trend with global warming at first. There's some evidence, and a model. National and international scientific bodies advise research, not action. Then things take a different turn. The evidence continues to build up. The models continue to be improved. The models prove predictive (despite what the canadians' letter says). National and international scientific bodies recognize that the evidence has improved to the point where the uncertainty in predictions has more to do with the trouble guessing what humans will do* than with determining what the climate will do in response.
Global warming contrarians, meanwhile, want to pretend that it's twenty or thirty years ago. At best, they attack a version of the infamous "hockey stick" graph that was made a decade ago, pointing out flaws that have long since been corrected (guess what, it still shows steep warming). They call the national and international bodies alarmist, ignoring those bodies' restraint when dealing with global cooling and in the early days of global warming research.
*For example: What will the growth rates of China and India be? How will that effect their CO2 production? Will more developped nations continue to increase their CO2 emissions, or will the rate slow?
