A rather interesting article…
h/t SteveSadlov http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/03/bastardi-on-the-non-existent-climate-tornado-linkage/#comment-673132
From:
http://www.dgcs.unam.mx/boletin/bdboletin/2011_085.html
The article is in Spanish. I’ll give the original Spanish of the bits I quote, and then my translation of them. My translation may well be “off” a bit, as it’s been a while since I spoke Spanish on a regular basis (beyond ordering food…)
Boletín UNAM-DGCS-085
Ciudad Universitaria.
06:00 hrs. 11 de febrero de 2011EL CRUDO INVIERNO ACTUAL, PRODUCTO DEL MOVIMIENTO PLANETARIO Y LA BAJA ACTIVIDAD SOLAR
Bulletin UNAM-DGCS-085
City University
6 pm, 11 February, 2011
The Harsh Winter This Year, Product of the Movement of the Planets and the Low Solar Activity
• Víctor Manuel Velasco, del Instituto de Geofísica de la UNAM, indicó que las condiciones actuales de la Tierra son muy similares a las que había hace 400 años; entonces, se registraron las temporadas más frías de la era moderna
Pocas veces en Estados Unidos se había visto una precipitación de nieve tal, que en Chicago comenzaron a llamarla Snowpocalipsis, “sin embargo, esto está muy lejos de ser algo apocalíptico, es más bien uno de los procesos naturales que atraviesa regularmente la Tierra”, expuso Víctor Manuel Velasco, del Instituto de Geofísica de la UNAM.
Actualmente, Chicago es una de las urbes más afectadas por este fenómeno, del que alertó Velasco en mayo de 2010; entonces viajó allá para ofrecer la conferencia Enfriamiento global.
• Victor Manuel Velasco, of the Institute of Geophysics of the UNAM, said that current conditions on Earth are very similar to what they were 400 years ago, when we recorded the coldest season of the modern era
Rarely in the United States has there been a snowfall such as the one that in Chicago they have started calling Snowpocalypse, “however, this is far from being something apocalyptic, it is rather a natural process that the Earth regularly passes through” Victor Manuel Velasco presented at the Institute of Geophysics of the UNAM.
Currently, Chicago is one of the cities most affected by this phenomenon, of which Velasco warned in May 2010, he then traveled there to offer a conference on Global Cooling.
Desde 2002, el académico se ha dedicado a estudiar la actividad solar y el impacto que tiene en el planeta, “y las observaciones obtenidas nos llevaron a pronosticar, en 2008, que el clima comenzaría a enfriarse alrededor de 2010, y la naturaleza comienza a demostrar si el vaticinio era cierto o no”.
Este periodo, que el investigador denominó como “una mini-era del hielo” responde a la baja actividad solar, pero también al movimiento planetario. Hoy tenemos condiciones muy similares a las que se dieron hace aproximadamente 400 años. En esa época, se registraron los inviernos más crudos que conoce la era moderna, explicó.
Since 2002, the scholar has been devoted to the study of solar activity and the impact it has on the planet, “and the observations obtained led us to predict in 2008 that the weather would begin to cool around 2010, and now nature begins show whether the prediction was true or not. ”
This period, which the researchers call “a mini-ice age” corresponds with the present low solar activity, but also to planetary motion. Today we have conditions very similar to those that occurred about 400 years ago. At that time, we recorded the coldest winters known in the modern era, he said.
“Hablamos del lapso entre 1645 y 1715, que se conoce como el Mínimo de Maunder, etapa en que las manchas solares desaparecieron prácticamente de la superficie del astro, y en la que nuestro planeta ocupaba una posición muy similar a la que tiene hoy respecto al centro de masa de nuestro Sistema”.
Algo que, a la hora de estudiar el cambio climático, pocas veces consideran los científicos, es el lugar preciso que la Tierra ocupa en el Sistema Solar en un momento determinado, pero hacerlo nos abre horizontes de estudio insospechados, añadió.
“We talk about the period between 1645 and 1715, known as the Maunder Minimum, when sunspots virtually disappeared from the surface of the star (our sun), and in which our planet was in a position very similar to the one it has today with respect to the center of mass of our solar system. ”
Something that, when studying climate change, scientists rarely consider important, is the place the Earth occupies in the solar system at a given time; but it opens unexpected horizons of study, he added.
El científico señaló que esta “mini-era de hielo” durará de 60 a 80 años, “lo que nos obliga a replantear nuestra economía, tecnología y ciencia. Por ejemplo, en el norte comienza a haber un déficit de energía, y habrá una necesidad mayor de alimentos; debemos pensar en ello hoy para comenzar a prever para el mañana”.
¿Pero cómo conciliar las evidencias de que el planeta se enfría con aquellas que aseguran que se calienta? “Actualmente vivimos una revolución científica en la que, por un lado, están las supercomputadoras y, por el otro, la inteligencia humana. Sólo el ser humano crea conocimiento y ciencia, y quienes apostaron por los ordenadores hicieron un diagnóstico equivocado. Será la naturaleza la que demuestre qué teoría es la correcta, “y sin embargo —concluyó el académico—, la Tierra se enfría”.
The scientist said that this “mini-ice age” will last 60 to 80 years, “forcing us to rethink our economy, technology and science. For example, if the north begins to have an energy deficit, and there develops an increased need for food; we must think about it today to begin to prepare for (provide for) tomorrow. ”
But how to reconcile the evidence that the planet cools with those who say it’s warming? “Today we live in a scientific revolution in which, on the one hand, there are supercomputers, and on the other hand, human intelligence. Only human beings create knowledge and science, and those who bet on the computers made a wrong diagnosis. It will be Nature that will show which theory is correct, “and yet” the professor concluded, “the Earth cools.”
In Conclusion
Víctor Manuel Velasco, very well said. Very well indeed…
Musings from the Chiefio 
The title has a Galilean sound: “The thermometer still moves!”
But many of our climate scientists are still looking through virtual binoculars, from the wrong end.
Perhaps finding the truth — and disrupting certain value streams — is not within their scope.
I’m seeing Cycle 24 stuttering to life; it already seems that we won’t have quite a Maunder Minimum scenario. But we don’t know much about the years preceding it, as we were just getting into “spot spotting” right about that time. The awakening decades later must have looked like doomsday to solar scientists of that time.
===|==============/ Level Head
@Level_Head:
I suspect cycle 24 is going to do a “pop and drop”… It will “start rapidly” (now that it is ‘way late’ by a few years) and then end just as suddenly… then followed by even weaker.
Like the 5/6 comparison in the middle of:
Would it be possible to increase the contrast of your type? It is faint and hard to see on all my monitors.
Thank you, Adrian Vance
The best situation would be that AGW to some extent at least counteracts natural cooling. My opinion is that AGW is exaggerated, however.
It might take several years of cooling for people to “wake up.”
I think that is Steve Sadlov not Steve Sad-love!
[ Right you are! (Sometimes the “auto complete” in my typing function makes words where there are none… Oh Well…) Typo fixed. -E.M.Smith ]
More rain in the Bay Area …
Regarding:
““Adrian Vance
Would it be possible to increase the contrast of your type? It is faint and hard to see on all my monitors.””
No problem for me using those ancient CRT type monitors. Years ago a friend complained of the declining readability on his monitor. Turns out he had a dust plate over the glass – and dust accumulated on both sides (front and back) of that plastic plate. He often cleaned the front but never the back. Three years in he unknowingly had so much dust blocking his view he was about to ask for a new monitor. We took the protective cover of and his view was as good as new.
Not that this will help you any – but my view of this site is fine.
SC24’s current activity is still much lower compared to previous cycles. http://www.landscheidt.info/?q=node/50 discribes the current activity with the remark “Not much happening”.
Icecap in the mean time carries this story which covers the same subject and comes to similar conclusions:
http://www.lunarplanner.com/SolarCycles-climate.html
As for the next solar cycle 25 it will be dead similar to the Maunder Minimum conditions. I think I have published this link before.
Click to access 2010-Variable-solar-dynamo3.pdf
@Adrian Vance:
The type looks standard / dark to me. It is a function of the “theme” I use, so not under direct control. (I’ve not changed themes before so I don’t know if that causes and issues with stuff ‘going away’ or not… like the settings of the sidebars).
If this is a ‘recent’ thing, well, I’ve NEVER changed the font. Ever…
BTW, your browser has an option to “always use the font I pick” so it is under your control to make it larger / darker (at least for the browsers I’ve used). You might try that.
Finally, I found that the old Mac Portable I had made a very light font (on a site from someone else) while other computers did not. Basically, the action may vary with screen technology. For that Mac, the LCD was just a lot lighter on some fonts…
@R. Shearer:
I’m pretty sure that’s what is happening, but don’t have the data to prove it. I suspect where headed down very slowly very long term (thousands of years) and have now hit the “air pocket” of a grand minimum (so will plunge for about 20 years) and that any Global Warming effect was able to just about offset the long term slow start of the drop into an Ice Age Glacial, but can’t even dent the plunge.
Unfortunately, there are feedbacks to the downside, so once “over the hump” we’re likely going to accellerate.
@R. de Haan:
Thanks for the links. It certainly looks like “Nappy Time” for old Sol…
As I type it is a wonderful winter scene out my window.
Wet, raining, drippy cold. Stark dark cloudy sky brooding and mooding at me. Treetops staggering in the gusts of wind…. And it is June…
In this part of California, June is a time of A/C all day long. Hot sweating days with longing for the cool of an evening breeze. Clear pale sky with a relentless Yellow Furnace Orb reminding you the state is a Desert 1/2 The Year….
This is just so wrong.
The sun has taken a nap and we are waiting for a summer that may be decades away…
This temp graph tells it all….
H/T Hoe Bastardi via WUWT
@E.M,
We have the sun back but not the temps, especially at night.
Last night we hit 4 degrees Celsius and next week the night frost will be back.
And so it goes.
Good flying weather though with good thermals and increddble good VFR conditions.
I’m conditioned by the Watts site. Any mention of sun, solar system… and I look around for Leif. Don’t all postings that mention the sun have to be cleared by Dr Svalgaard?
I know that isn’t true, but some of my organs start punching out chemicals on a topic that might get a Svalgaardian response.
Back to the sea gull video for me.
@R. de Haan:
Yup. “Off a cliff” kind of says it all…
@Kent Gatewood:
Well, I “went a round or two” with Dr. Svalgaard and basically staked claim to the turf of “I don’t know, but I’m willing to entertain it as a theory“. He got to where he’d leave me alone as long as I clearly labled things as either questions or as “speculation”. Eventually he realized that when he jumped on something I’d said, he needed to double check as I’d pretty much put “speculation” markers in everything solar… and I’d jump back with “Is speculation not allowed? Does not scientific enquiry BEGIN with a speculation?”….
Then I started this site and kind of nudged those more speculative discussions over here for some “discussion in peace” ;-)
So, yes, we are “Sun Did It Friendly” over here as we speculate about those theories ;-)
Re: “but my view of this site is fine.”
Sir: I have a new “emachines” flat screen monitor from Circuit City and your’s is the least legible blog in my list.
Please see my blog at http://adrianvance.blogspot.com for clear, easy-to-read type of a kind I am sure you could use here, but I suppose you will not. OK….
Adrian Vance
North American temperatures have actually been dropping for a while. Since 1998 the temperatures of the continental US (CONUS) have been dropping at a trend of over -0.7F/decade. That is a pretty significant drop. ( 7 degrees/century is one heck of a rate!).
Go here:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/na.html
In “Period” scroll the list down to the last item “Most recent 12-month period”
Select 1998 as “First Year To Display”
You will see that the trend is -0.75F/decade
May’s data should be in the system by the end of next week.
You will notice that this past 12-month period was a little warmer than 2009-2010 was. That is because of a quirk in start/end times and we have a bit of an el nino time showing up “this year’s” data still. That will work out toward the end of the year.
Globally we are running about 0.23C (note change in units from F to C) cooler this year than last year at the surface and the change has been consistent over the entire year.
So we dropped about a quarter of a degree C in a single year. Most of the global surface level drop was in late December (over a period of only a week) and has stayed there (according to UAH).
Life on Earth –
To do little but that which is required day to day and, in anticipation of anything, to allow for and plan for and prepare for the unexpected, and if something out of the ordinary actually happens, to do whatever is necessary as fast and as well as possible for yourself, your own, and as many others as you can.
How to plan for climate change: expect that it will one day be too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, too sunny, too cloudy, too foggy, and too everything else too.
PS: Whenever many of the old “smart” folks in your cave are saying that “so-and-so” is going to happen, don’t be surprised if they are wrong. People who live in caves can usually only see well in one direction. Hunters, who only eat and sleep in caves, usually know more about the environment.
E.M.,
Sorry for still being off topic. But again about Adrian Vance’s font comment:
Using ‘blogspot’, his main page font size comes through as ‘13’ bold, on yellow. Very nice. The comments sections come through as standard (non-bold) on white – same as E.M.’s.
Many of the better slide-rules were similar – black on yellow.
This was reported at the time as the best for easy reading.
I’ve set my MS-Word software to provide me with a working copy of white on dark blue. I find it easy on the eyes – less bright glaring white.
Interestingly, E.M.’s site when highlighted (by selecting) appears as white on blue. Nice.
Now back to regular programming.
@John F. Hultquist:
Oh, I thought the comment about dim fonts was directed at me and this site… was it about Adrian’s site?
Well, never mind what I said before, then…
You got it right the first time. I was only trying to be helpful as this site is hard to read compared to the others I see regularly. That’s all.
If anyone chooses to be offended; that is their choice isn’t it.
@Adrian Vance:
OK, so I didn’t screw up my understanding…
FWIW, I don’t think anyone is offended. Perhaps a but unsure what’s what, but I’ve seen no offence…
At any rate, I’ve thought of changing the “theme”, but I’m just completely in the dark about what that does to all the past articles and the page setup. For example, at one time I had a blogroll list. Then one day it was just gone. What changed? I don’t know, but I think it wasn’t me. SO the whole “look and feel” thing can be a bit, er, volatile…
I guess that made me a bit “timid” about just “trying a new theme” as I’m just unsure how many things (like, oh, the “flag counter”) might evaporate or end up reset to zero or…
At any rate, maybe it’s time I went ahead and tried it… What’s the worst that could happen ;-)
FWIW, I’m a bit fond of “Freshy”… That was the theme at WUWT before they changed to the present one. But I didn’t want to do a “look alike” when I set this one up… However, now that “time has passed”… Maybe “Freshy” would be “Fresh” ;-)
IIRC, it was more “black on medium-white”…
What say? Was the “old” WUWT a decent “look” for you?
@Adrian Vance:
I thought it was a bold request.
===|==============/ Level Head
@Level_Head:
You are a font of endless inksights…
I am near Los Angeles (you were asking about targeting coordinates for me earlier) — and Fahrenheit readings in the 90s would be common this time of year, with 100s not all that unusual.
Instead, it was in the 60s today.
I have worn a sweater all but five days this year. It is delightful for me, personally (my usual style involves a turtleneck shirt) but it will have the effect on crop growth a bit like what the catastrophists imagined warmer temperatures and extra CO2 would do.
That reminds me of a topic that is at the intersection of your interest in gardens and in the global warming catastrophism: Alleged loss of “protein quality” in crops predicted to come from increasing CO2.
Logically, this would mean that we have already suffered a significant “quality” loss over the past hundred and fifty years, as during that time CO2 has increased significantly. We seem to have survived it.
Nature magazine, in an August 2007 issue, alleged that “beer would be poisonous” because of this increase. And that popcorn would no longer pop.
I see that WUWT has a post on the topic.
===|==============/ Level Head
@Level_Head:
I’d not heard of that one before… Don’t suppose the nutters who proposed it thought that maybe, just maybe, as the plants already live in places as diverse as Phoenix Arizona and Ottowa Canada that they were able to “deal with it”… or that since we’ve made beer (as nearly as can be determined) since the very start of Civilization (in fact, it may have been the trigger to agriculture and the START of civilization, per the Hamurabi texts…) and people have made beer in every possible climate from the depths of the Sahara to Alaska… that just maybe “things would be OK”…
OK, I read the “press release science” in the WUWT article. Looks like they wanted to scrounge some grant money to fund further plant growth research so “created a topic”. As plants just LOVE more CO2 in greenhouses, I’m pretty certain that you will find some other gimic at work in whatever study they did.
My “first blush” would be something along these lines:
The plants were grown with a FIXED nutrient load available (hydorponcis or a known fertilizer mix in an innert medium. That is, NOT just in ‘free dirt’ where they could find whatever they wanted with growing some more roots…)
The plants “initially grew faster” on more CO2 (as plants do…) but then, due to the fixed and limited OTHER nutrients, outgrew the availablity of some other critical nutrient. (My guess would be a minor trace element such as manganese, copper, etc. Magnesium would be a bit obvious as it’s needed for chlorophyl, so I doubt they chose that one…) At any rate, once they “rate limit” on that nutrient, overall growth stops.
Now, if cleverly done, one could choose an element critical to the nitrogen cycle and such that the protein synthesis pathway was the one “limited”. At first the plant will try to keep on growing great guns as it overshoots the protein pathway (that is rate limited) then will hit the limit and growth will slow. (As they claim to have found) At that point, you will have “less protein” as a percentage (as the OTHER products were made in excess – waiting for more protein to catch up) yet likely more total productivity.
Yes, this is an “advert”, but it gives an idea:
http://www.indiamart.com/totalagricare/inorganic-multi-micronutrients.html
For Manganese in particular, this article is interesting:
http://www.plantcell.org/content/22/3/904.full
So one easy way to get their results would be to let the Mn Fe ratio get out of whack in the soil (perhaps as the plant growth consume more of one or the other to make all those carbohydrates from that excess CO2 …) and not have a nice natural soil full of sand, clay, and rocky bits where the roots can go find what they need… (I’ve got a couple of plants in “potting soil” right now with that “issue” as I didn’t do my usual thing of adding 50% “just dirt” to it due to not wanting “shovel time” with a kink in the back…)
So, my scenario, would be that I’m seeing all the OTHER departments sucking down $Million Grants and I’m getting squat. I want to study Plant Protein Formation. But more CO2 makes plants grow faster…. Not going to get a grant kicking them in the “crop failure” balls… what to do, what to do….
OH, I’ve got it, we’ll use “controlled standard nutrients” balanced just right for normal growth, but where extra plant growth will deplete a critical trace metal early (say, for example, Manganses… nobody ever talks about Manganese…) and then the plant will get sickly as all that extra growth gets stunted on the lack of enzymes to make protein. Yeah, I can then “discover” that extra CO2 makes the plant “sick” and that we need to “treat” it with added trace metals. Probably be able to milk the funding for at least 10 years and even get tenure…
Yes, it’s “that easy” to manipulate plant growth into a failure mode. The “hard part” is to do what farmers do and get them to always grow optimally…
Any time you get faster plant growth from adding SOME nutrients, you simply MUST watch for what other nutrients you are going to deplete “sooner” as they become the rate limiting nutrient. That is very “old school” and well known. It would be trivial to “invert the logic” and “make it a feature” to show that ANY nutrient that caused added growth (when the OTHER nutrients are “held constant”) was a “problem”…
@E.M.Smith; Very well said, sir. pg
This Australian news article was used to support the notion that “crops will become toxic” — but it simply says that they could using careful wording. It’s annoying, because it says they’ve been studying this for 16 years — but then don’t actually talk about what they found.
This paper (a PDF) was also offered. It starts out with the standard litany of the many bad effects of global warming, but then eventually focuses on the interaction of insects and crops.
Interestingly, there’s a pattern of “it might be worse (but it might be better)” never phrased that way, but the papers referenced reach opposite conclusions. The general implication, though, is that increased CO2 might make pest insects less of a problem. They go to considerable lengths to make this sound bad, even to the point of complaining about losing the scientific opportunity to document the changes.
They tuck in that CO2 increases seem to help some plants, and harm others (which really means not help them quite as much). And it might harm some insects, but help others. That latter implication suggests that reducing CO2 might help some insects but harm others — and no one seems concerned about that.
===|==============/ Level Head
Interview: Is Climate Change caused by solar inertial motion?
http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/06/interview-is-climate-change-caused-by.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LuboMotlsReferenceFrame+%28Lubos+Motl%27s+reference+frame%29
@ R. de Haan
Wow! Great interview at the link you posted.
My condensed version would be:
chaotic solar motion –> fewer stable solar convective cells –> fewer sunspots –> lower solar wind –> more cosmic rays hitting atmosphere –> higher terrestrial cloud cover –> higher albedo –> lower temperature
Does that sound about right? Any ideas on how solar magnetic field might tie in to all this?
We’ve gotten some relatively recent work, using beryllium isotope proxies, that give us sunspot activities going back on the order of ten thousand years. If the solar barycentric cycles have any predictive power, the correlation should be visible in that longer period.
Of note are two periods of exceptionally high solar activity — one about 8,500 years ago, and the other in the last half of the 20th century (but omitted from Wikipedia’s graph, which cuts off at 1950). An odd feature of the graph is that it’s attempting to graph an 11-year average cycle using a 10-year average. This will create artifacts, especially since you can get zero, one, or two cycle peaks in those ten years.
Also of interest is the solar cycle sequence right at the end of the 1700s. It was a double-cycle; it had almost no dip, and we’ve struggled to decide whether it should be counted as one or two. But what was the temperature like on Earth in the last few years of the 18th century? I expect that it would be warmer than usual, but do not know.
===|==============/ Level Head
Ah — link missing from above:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009ApJ…700L.154U
===|==============/ Level Head
Both links in my post point back to this page. Very odd. This was the intended link for the 11,000-year sunspot proxy reconstruction:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sunspots_11000_years.svg
===|==============/ Level Head
[Both links had “null” URLs so they default back to here. I’ve fixed them. -E.M.Smith ]
What I find interesting with that 11,000 year diagram is that it shows with sunspots much of what we see with temperatures. While there have been peaks and dips, the overall trend in the past 2000 years or so is down. Each peak tops out just a little lower than the one before it.
That seems to be the same with what we see with temperatures. The Roman Warm Period was a little warmer than the Medieval Warm Period and the MWP was a little warmer than the modern warm period.