Dear Victor. I have found your question and the followed comments in the topic of Solar Activity. As a matter of fact solar physicists have published some results in a reference to a closeness of some super centurial solar activity minima to cool periods in Europe. But nobody knows what was happened that time in other parts of the globe. Another feature is that climatologists and meteorologists do not pay enough attention on solar activity. They do not consider this factor as a principal one in the climate change scenarios. In my opinion, the researchers in different branches of science do not hear each other. Everybody says that myself are the best ;) That is the main problem to reach the truth. In a reference to " artificial global warming scenario" I think that it is just political game.

Thank you, Elliott, for your answer. Yes perhaps some countries experience hot temperature, but what i mean is tendency of global cooling all over the world as an effect of low solar cycle. According to Dr. David Hathaway from Marshall Solar Physics/Nasa, the solar cycle is the lowest in 200 years. See for example http://www.activistpost.com/2013/11/the-link-between-sunspots-global.html.

Of course you can send me your paper if you wish, send to my email: [email protected]. Thank you

There are some theories that global warming may cause a new ice age.

"Ocean currents are partially responsible for distributing heat around the Earth. The Gulf Stream, for example, is a current that directs warm water to northern Europe from the Gulf of Mexico. By doing so, the Gulf Stream makes temperatures in Great Britain and the rest of northwestern Europe warmer than they otherwise would be. As global temperatures rise, Arctic ice melts and massive amounts of fresh water pour into the North Atlantic and slow the Gulf Stream down. By slowing or stopping this ocean current, global warming actually would cool Europe down dramatically. If other ocean currents were disrupted, the entire planet could experience the same cooling effect and cause an ice age." (from Discovery Channel)

A study of circulation in the North Atlantic has discovered that there already has been a 30 percent reduction in currents flowing north from the Gulf Stream [source: Pearce]

Thom Hartmann put it this way:

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0130-11.htm

and yes, NASA already back in 2004 also warnt on that:

http://science1.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2004/05mar_arctic/

Thank you, Samuel. That is new to me that global warming can cause temperature cooling in many regions in the world. Best wishes

The sensitivity of Earth's climate durig Quaternary to very small differences of the thermal budget imposed by Milanchovich cycles , demands for an intrinsic instability due to a general physical effect. If you make a a compilation of sea Level and Temperature data ( see attached figure) and compare them with a sea water equation of state, you can realize the cause of instability may be found in the maximum in density reached by the Ocean Bottom Water in this period.

As a matter of fact the ocean bottom water has never been so cold as in Quaternary and the consequences are very simple: both if you cool or warm the Ocean Bottom Water you may induce huge swells of a mass of water that is anyway very cold. We are on the edge of an instability that will inevitably drive the climate in a situation controlled by the persence of huge swells of cold waters at the surface. I cannot make previsions but I strongly suspect tha a new ice age is inevitable.

You may find further considerations in this note: P. Armienti, AGU 2011: A thermodynamic model for Earth's hydrosphere http://labs.adsabs.harvard.edu/adsabs/abs/2011AGUFM.C53C0689A/

Thank you, Pietro, for your answer. I agree with you that we are going into a new ice age, although my data comes from solar cycle observation. Do you know how bad is it going to be? See also an article saying that some scientists also predict global cooling, at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/10294082/Global-warming-No-actually-were-cooling-claim-scientists.html

Dear colleagues, this is really fascinating discussion. Please see fig. 5 (p. 187) under the link below (paper by L. Starkel).

"Naturalna tendencja" means "natural tendency" and "faktyczna tendecja" means "actual tendency". The author referred to a paper by Mitchelta from 1972!

http://kosmos.icm.edu.pl/PDF/2008/183.pdf

Thank you, Lukasz, for the url. The article seems interesting, although i dont understand polish. I can only guess that Figure 5 is important. Best wishes

I am agree with Samuel Arba's view the global warming triggers extreme cooling effect. A lot of evaporation and change in sensitive earth's climatic condition will ultimately prevail ice age conditions.

Thank you, Kamal, for your comment. Best wishes

Just think about the scale of analysis. If samples from all over the world are pooled trends can be measured at a global scale without identification of underlying physical mechanisms. Given that Earth is moving fast in space, not only factors on Earth but also 'space' factors might be important to explain climate cycles. If I remember well, historical factors related to continental drift or volcanic activity influencing levels of dust in the atmosphere were also taken into account.

Happy New Year!

If the solar system is moving in space (e.g. expansion of the universe), what is the impact of spatiotemporal dynamics in 'space temperature' encountered by moving solar systems?

By the way: I would place one or more meteorological stations on the moon to have baseline data about environments without human activity, without earth atmosphere.....

Do annual measures of moon versus earth temperatures fluctuate in parallel or not?

Just to stimulate discussion....

Thank you, Marcel and Kenneth, for your answers. Best wishes

I am sure that human influence in climate is overestimated and that climate is much more determined by natural factors. It really seems that about 15 last years we are really entering a much colder period. I hope that it will not be beginning of a new ice age, as that would be terrible and much more dangerous than any possible heating!

The thing that really worries me is the current situation at SOUTH pole! There is now mid of summer. And the sea ice cover is extremely widespread and extremely thick - remember all those Russian, Chinese and Australian icebreaker ships, which were jammed in the ice - NOW, IN SUMMER!

Also a very strange thing are those unusual winter events in North America, but also don't forget recent snows and strong winter in Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia... It seems that this winter only Europe is spared from the severe winter until now.

Really interesting things are happening in climate this winter and we will see the future trends...

One of the so-called scientific predictions is that climate becomes less predictable! Climate research in natural settings is currently only methodologically based on description of patterns without experimental approaches. There is in addition only one global data point per year to estimate the global trends across years! If we would apply these comparative approaches to other scientific questions, would we be able to publish the results?

And I would like to add that because of interconnectivity different data points on Earth should not be considered as independent information. We therefore require measures from the moon or another planet (e.g. mars) to compare temperature trends across space objects within the solar system. I presume there is permanent tracking of of 'space temperature' conducted by human-made satellites or space lab turning around planet Earth.

Thanks, Stanislav, for your answers. Yes i hope too that the climate is getting better all over the world, and the little ice age will not happen, and the sunspot will be normal again. Best wishes

Thank you, Marcel. Best wishes

Perhaps spiritual predictions differ from scientific predictions.

Happy New Year to all!

Marcel, i don,t know about scientific predictions for global climate this year. If you know something about it, please let me know the url. Thank you

I don't know, but perhaps you could use historical data to test reliability of scientific predictions at a smaller spatial scale. For instance, compare predictions from older publications with future observations. What fraction of the published scientific predictions were supported by the data gathered after the publications came out? In the 90tees ornithologists plotted egg laying dates of birds again year, to show that in many study populations lay-dates advanced (e.g. M. E. Visser et al. 2003 or Both et al. 2004, Proc. Roy. Soc. B), but perhaps these trends are changing.... In our local study populations, I noticed colder weather during the last couple of years, also delaying egg laying dates compared to earlier years. The European heat spell in the summer of 2003 was not predicted by the specialists, but then again these are local phenomena, not global ones.

A key question concerning global warming or cooling: What is the predicted annual global temperature in 2014, based on the measures of annual global temperature fluctuations from the past. I think we scientifically don't have enough data to make a reliable prediction, also because there are many potential underlying mechanisms involved (human impact versus space impact, for instance).

I have nothing more to add

I agree with Cathal. Many local fluctuations are caused by physical movements in the atmosphere. The question then is: are these movements predictable?

I agree. Scale and scientific profession is important. To me, climate change and related scientific predictions concerning future climate should only be handled by specialists in meteorology (e. g. geophysics), but then again physical 'space' factors (e.g. solar activity, distance between earth and sun, movement of the solar system in space...) may be important, and habitat change interacting with solar input might also be important.

Do climate specialists (geophysics) considered data on habitat change (deforestation) or astronomy in their models? I don't know....

The topic has been discussed in the electronic version of the Washington Post

Wonkblog by Brad Plumer

Can global warming be real if it's cold in the U.S.? Um...yes! (January)

Together withy more than 600 comments on this article

Total enthalpy of the hydrosphere is four orders of magnitude larger than that of the atmosphere: at most a rise of atmospheric temperature may induce a faster transport of water from the see to the poles and some more intense storm, not a glaciation, even if you add much more CO2 than we are currently doing.

What really matters for climate evolution is the thermal budget of the oceans that is controlled by the energy received by the sun (that is several orders of magnitude higher than the Earth’s heat flux).

This balance id controlled by the albedo of our planet which is in turn influenced by the amount of ice that may form in winters at the poles , a factor which, in turn, depends from the possibility than ocean circulation may be able to redistribute enthalpy from the lower to the higher latitudes.

As a matter of fact this redistribution has become progressively more difficult during Ceonozoic due the insulation of Antartica in a polar position and to the consequent development of the circum-antarctic current that become able to control the temperature of the Ocean Bottom Water ( OBW). OBW at least reached its minimum temperature in Quaternary and the associated maximum in density made the Earth very sensitive to Milancovitch cycles…

We are still in that condition: this means that both if OBW warms or cools huge masses of cold water will reach the surface of the oceans. Recent increase in the frequency of El Nino swell are but an aspect of this instability. The mean distance of the Earth-Sun system has to be taken under control to make previsions on the forthcoming glaciation, unless we start to think to some Geology Engineering that allows to control at a global scale enthalpy redistribution.

Interesting subject, can this have a relation to the sunspots captured by the NASA in January the 7th? See attached link

http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/giant-january-sunspots/

Question: If during some geological periods earth oceans warmed up, what did they cool down during other geological periods? Can this be attributed to earth factors (e.g. volcanic dust blocking solar input) or space factors (e.g. the average distance between earth and sun, which can probably not be measured accurately?)

Thank you, Cathal, Pietro and Zeiri, for your comments. The recent observation on solar spot seems interesting (http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/giant-january-sunspots). I hope there will be more sunspot to make it back to normal again. best wishes

Interesting. The black parts of sunspots are apparently cooler than the surroundings of the spots. Phenomena related to the 11-year lasting sun-cycles should also be captured with measures of 'space temperatures', I presume.....

Dear Marcel and Reyaz, thank you for your comments. Yes i think we all hope that such a doomsday scenario will not happen. Best wishes

Just be wise. Everybody knows what is not so good and not so bad for the environment without reading ecology books.Cheers

Climate is very complex, and climate change has become very much politicized. There's no doubt there are cycles of all magnitudes, very large to very small. People see a change over 30-50 years and think it's not 'normal' - yet cycles ARE normal. I saw the pictures of Chicago in the news last week, with all of the accompanying panic about the cold. Yet I lived just outside Chicago in the 1960s when it was just as cold.

There are many factors to control of these cycles. Long term is the Earth's rotation around the galaxy, which has been proposed to affect the long term cycles of when ice age periods occur on the planet (due to the planet passing through dusty areas which decreases heat from the sun?). Short term is the 11 year sunspot cycle. Many others inbetween. How they all interact determines the climate.

If you have not already seen this, I think you will find the Vostok Ice Core records interesting. A chart and an introductory explanation are good ones at

http://www.am.ub.edu/~jmiralda/fsgw/lect5.html

When you look at this, we are at the peak of the high temperature part of the interglacial cycle. Warming is followed by cooling and initiation of another glacial period. How this timing works is still a question.

There's no question that climate change is occurring - but which way will it go and on what time scale? And how much, if any, has industrial CO2 affected it? Data shows that CO2 follows temperature rise, and did not cause it in previous cycles. Not everyone has jumped on the anthropogenic global warming bandwagon. Still, we should be responsible about pollution.

Dear Lisa, thank you for your balanced opinion. Yes i agree that we should care about pollution and also holes in the sky. Best wishes

Victor -

Yes, whether or not our pollution has affected the normal cycle of climate change, this planet is our only home, and there is no reason to trash it. By caring for the Earth, its water, skies, ground, we'll all be healthier. I saw a Linkedin posting yesterday that highlighted a NASA news article about the use of supercritical water in treating organic waste. Interesting. With a concerted effort and new technologies, I hope we can clean up some of our mess.

A note - Being responsible does not mean that we cannot use resources - but again, good practices and new technology should be used to lessen impact.

Dear all, allow me to share a summary of our discussion. Hopefully this file can stimulate further thinking and discussion on this issue. best wishes

Here is the summary file.

This is excellent editing!

Cheers

Thanks, Marcel. best wishes for you

Dear Victor. I have found your question and the followed comments in the topic of Solar Activity. As a matter of fact solar physicists have published some results in a reference to a closeness of some super centurial solar activity minima to cool periods in Europe. But nobody knows what was happened that time in other parts of the globe. Another feature is that climatologists and meteorologists do not pay enough attention on solar activity. They do not consider this factor as a principal one in the climate change scenarios. In my opinion, the researchers in different branches of science do not hear each other. Everybody says that myself are the best ;) That is the main problem to reach the truth. In a reference to " artificial global warming scenario" I think that it is just political game.

I think everybody would like to know what is happening.

'Imperfect' science practice are often attributed to constraints, which may be time constraints related to how the vast growing literature is handled. It also is not always easy to truly understand the content of publications from other science disciplines, etc...

Logically, the international panel dealing with climate change (>4000 people?) should involve scientists from all disciplines. I would be surprised if this would not be the case....

Global warming, and/or global cooling would be long term trends in the

average temperatures, and the extreme temperatures in numerous locations.

Localized, short term changes, are just normal fluctuations in weather

that is always variable.

The low point was in the early 1700's , and the high point should be

roughly 270 years later.

The last time the ice formed on the Rio Grande River at Albuquerque

New Mexico, USA was about 1720, so a normal peak should have

occured around 1720 + 270 = 1990.

But we are no longer in a simple normal cycle, as man has

altered the cycle by adding several greenhouse gasses, which

store heat, melt glaciers, alter the location and intensity of snowfall,

and rainfall, etc.

The complete cycle is between 540 and 541 years and is based on the

combined forces of gravity of the 4 largest planets acting on the Sun,

which alters the intensity of the Solar radiation ( excluding man's

very helpful climate alterations ).

The 270 half cycle can be estimated at the following drought

cycles based on the 1199 to 1226 drought at Chaco Canyon.

1200, 1470, 1740, 2010, 2280.

as a starting time, and

1225, 1495, 1765, 2035, 2305,

as ending times.

We are in the 2010 to 2035 , some like it HOT, and DRY time period.

At different locations, and at different times, droughts, and crop failures,

and wars occur.

The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 was a result of crop failures.

Chinese Dynasty's changed as a result of crop failures.

We are about to experience a major change in conditions

in California due to drought and crop failures, and several

million people being without water. No snow in the

Sierra Nevada Mtns, means no water in the lower 2/3's of

California.

I have noticed that Albuquerque is now much warmer in

the summer than when I grew up there in the 60's.

Thank you, Vladimir, Marcel, Michael, for your answers. Best wishes.

A lot of new arguments of planetary influence to the solar activity andf/or climate changes are in the first and the second=last issue of the journal Pattern Recognition in Physics:

http://www.pattern-recogn-phys.net/volumes_and_issues.html

In the General conclusions regarding the planetary–solar–terrestrial interaction they say:"Several papers have addressed the question about the evolution of climate during the 21st century. Obviously, we are on our way into a new grand solar minimum. This sheds serious doubts on the issue of a continued, even accelerated, warming as claimed by the IPCC project."

@Pavel. Thank you for your answer, yes it is very interesting. Best wishes

@all. Dear all, in relation to what Pavel Kalenda wrote, i just found an interesting article saying that it could be that the Earth will experience Little Ice Age within 15 years. See the article at http://notrickszone.com/2014/01/30/distinguished-swedish-climate-scientist-warns-of-solar-grand-minimum-little-ice-age-in-as-little-as-15-years/. Hopefully you will find time to read it. Best wishes

In the Pattern - Recognition in Physics, Special Issue, I noticed

there was a very symmetrical period of SUN motions shown in the period

between 1192 and 1241, This roughly corresponds to the period of time

I remember of the 27 year drought between 1199 and 1226 as recorded

in the width of the tree rings. Though not centered 1192 to 1199 is

7 and 1226 to 1241 is 15 years, it seems that drought might occur

when the forces applied by the BIG planets upon the Sun is too symmetrical,

and thus the applied forces do not get the Sun energised enough to

make the Sun spots that signal some instability, and increased solar

output that energises the Earth's weather, and gets it to move

the water laden clouds around the Earth in a more irregular pattern.

The 27 year drought led to the Abandonment of CHACO and the people

who lived there moved to the Rio Grande River Valley where agriculture

remained possible via irrigation ditches to farmlands along the sides

of the river valley.

It seems those Gas Giant planets may not only be useful, but also

necessary for weather variability on Earth.

And we though it might be simple........HA!

It would be interesting to superimpose the Sun's spiral cycles

over the Tree Ring thickness data stored at the University of

Northern Arizona, Flagstaff, at the Dendro-Chronology Laboratory.

As for me it was minus 3 F to minus 12 F today in Denver today,

I am eagerly awaiting some global re-warming.....soon please.

I like all the answer re the influence of solar activity, the Sun is clearly critically important. But the original premise of this question is wrong. The United States covers just 2% of the global surface. What happens here one winter tells us nothing about global temperature changes... and even here, high pressure on the west coast this very winter caused record high temperatures in Alaska and Arctic Canada. The rate of temperature rise has decreased due to natural cycles in the atmosphere and oceans, and I am sure that low sunspot intensity may well add to that mix... but these are transient phenomena. Unless the sun enters a prolonged period of inactivity...

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/map-blended-mntp/201401.gif

You write as if this is not all well known? We are near the end of an interglacial, although the last time we were in exactly the same orbital configuration the interglacial was longer than average (400,000 years ago). We have been cooling overall for the last 8,000 years and decreasing obliquity will lead to less summer heating at high latitudes in the years ahead (tends to lead to ice accumulation). But so what? That trend is unexpectedly reversed. The United States is a big place and yes. some states have had cold winters, but parts of Alaska are experiencing record warmth in the winter (see also Canada and Siberia). We need to understand if there could be a link between cold winters and warming... and there is a clear link. As the temperature contrast between warming Arctic air and subtropical air decreases, the jet stream weakens. As the jet stream weakens over the winter, it allows cold winter Arctic air to spill southwards in a semi stable pattern that can get locked in for weeks on end. With High Pressure on the West Coast an High Pressure on the East coast, cold air gets funneled down in to the central eastern states and we experience very cold winters... but the Arctic is warming at an unprecedented rate. If this pattern becomes the norm, it will become a clear example of a tipping point due to warming of the atmosphere, and nothing to do with cooling and the next ice age.

@Kenneth and David, thank you for your answers. Best wishes

Dear All,

please read an abstract below from a paper by Ruddiman et al. (2005) published in Quaternary Science Reviews (24, p.1-10). I hope it will add a bit of information to this very interesting discussion.

Have a gooda day,

"According to a new hypothesis, greenhouse-gas concentrations in the atmosphere should have fallen throughout the last several thousand years and caused a significant cooling of Earth’s climate, but early anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide and

methane kept temperatures relatively warm. A further prediction is that ice should have begun accumulating in northeast Canada several thousand years ago. We carry out a preliminary test of this hypothesis by reducing atmospheric CO2 and CH4 concentrations to their estimated ‘natural’ levels in an experiment with the GENESIS climate model. In the absence of anthropogenic contributions, global climate is almost 2C cooler than today and roughly one third of the way toward full-glacial temperatures. The hypothesis of an overdue glaciation is confirmed, but at a small scale: parts of Baffin Island retain snow cover year-round, and snow cover persists on high terrain in Labrador for 11 months of the year."

I wonder if cancelling flights in very low temperatures might be due to

the possibility of structural failure of the aircraft components at combined

extremely low temperatures.

i just completed a trip to hawaii and back. The Newer plane indicated the

temperature outside the aircraft at an altitude of 39,000 feet was

minus 57 degrees F, when flying over the Pacific Ocean where to

ocean Temperature is around + 85 F.

I would think there is a lower temperature limit that commercial

aircraft can function at without risk of brittle Failure of its metal

components.

I noticed that the aircraft throttled back about 1 hour before landing,

so the aircraft could gradually glide down toward the Earth's surface

over a protracted time period, and distance. In short the warming up

of the aircraft's outer surfaces would be gradual during its

gradual ( and energy conserving ) descent.

Can you imagine the high altitude temperature drop if it was

minus 51 C at the ground and you went to high altitude. The

aircraft would never be able to warm up as it descended, and the

components might be as brittle as glass when the tires hit the

runway.

It was probably very prudent to ground the aircraft, and wait for a warm

up. Minus 40C = Minus 40 F, so minus 51 C = minus 61 F. This is

a very dangerous temperature for ground personnel to work in as

any exposed skin surfaces can freeze over quickly, and a sudden

deep breath can freeze the Vocal chords.

Temperature in Antarctica can get to Minus 70 F.

In the 1500's thru the early 1700's ( 1715 to 1720 ), The Rio

grande River Froze over solid in the Winter at Albuquerque, NM,

but since about 1720, it has not frozen over solid, and there has

always been some water flowing all winter.

I do not think we need to worry any about long term global

cooling. It happens occasionally especially in the winters

following large Volcanic Ash releases like Iceland gave us

a couple of years back. It will warm up again soon.

The Ducks and Geese no longer fly south for the winter

from Denver, as there is always open water on the lakes,

and rivers.

@Michael, thank you for your answer. With regard to brittle failure, perhaps we should worry not on metallic components but on seal used in the airplanes. I recall that Feynman used seal experiment in cold water to show its brittleness, in order to prove that the seal was a cause for Challenger explosion in 1986. Best wishes

we are in the beggining of a cooling phase,

it's all written in here

with my approach you can predict solar cycles for the next several thousands of years for as long as you have astronomical data since I have documented the planetary gravitational tidal origin of solar cycles and solar wind and their effect on climate

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dimis_Poulos

yes, that's what I think, it makes it cooler for now on

Dear Kenneth, you are right. In 2000 there was the "change point", but there is a huge amount of accumulated energy both in oceans and continental rocks. Therefore, the global temperature will stay on the high level for a long time. According to my calculation, the "half-life" of the heat is approxiately 250 years.

Interesting debate, which however misses some issues. But first to the beginning. Also in Germany we can have temperatures in winter of minus 20 degrees Celsius. That is winter and we call this winter weather. Weather and climate are different things, and the weather is never the same. It changes and also the sun energy received on January 1 at a particular place would be the same (which is not the case as the sender (sun) sends not always the same it still would result in different weather as the energy received is only one from many, many factors that makes the weather.

I think that the cooling effect due to reduced sun activity (if it exists) moderates anthropogenic warming impacts, the same other natural impacts on the climate would such as volcanic eruptions etc.

We should realise that something as complex as climate has many contributing factors that lead to change. To assume that everything is caused by humans or everything by natural causes is far too simplistic. For that reason it is rather difficult to make any precise predictions of the future. So both (processes that contribute to warming and such contributing to cooling) not only can happen, but they do, and they always did. What now is sold as new ideas and change to previous scientific knowledge is actually nothing really new other than that one aspect from an extremely complex process is taken out and displayed as the whole truth.