Timothy Birdnow

I have been discussing for some time the coming solar minimum, and have been preaching that, yes, we have a coming cool period, one that may rival the Little Ice Age (LIA). Solar activity has dropped into the drink, with no observable sunspot activity at present. There was the beginning of a sunspot signalling the start of Solar Cycle 24, but that spot disappeared after a couple of days and now we`re getting nothing.

The Solar Conveyor Belt is a river of plasma (actually two, one in each hemisphere) which moves around in a, well, conveyor belt fashion inside the sun. The speed and intensity of the SCB gives a good indication of how energetic the next solar cycle will be. Well, the SCB has slowed to a veritable crawl, and is as weak as has ever been actually observed. It is as weak as it was during the Maunder Minimum (or as has been infered). Couple this with the very sluggish startup of cycle 24 and it becomes obvious that we are going to enter a cooling period. How cool is anybody`s guess, but we may witness more than one inactive cycles, and we could experience another Little Ice Age.

The truly disturbing thing is that whoever wins the Presidency here in the United States-McCain, Clinton, or Obama-will likely rush us into the treaties and economic schemes that have been devised by the envious at the U.N., and we will be “solving“ a problem that not only doesn`t exist but requires the opposite treatment. Energy will be more expensive, less useful, at a time when we will need it all the more. We`ll be restricting our economies and depriving many of the power they need to heat their homes. Global Cooling will undoubtedly be blamed on CO2, and we will be acting to cool the planet as the planet cools.

At any rate, Mike W. sent me this link to a blog run by meteorologist Anthony Watts which gives a good overview of the coming cool period. Watts explains what is happening inside the sun, and gives several useful graphs to make it all clear.

Below is an interesting (read Swiftian) idea from commentor Codetech:

“Oh my! Can we do anything? Could we use more solar powered cars? Or maybe fewer solar cells? Maybe we could stop burning oil and coal! That’ll spark the sun right up.

Maybe we should start a Solar Trading scheme, were there are a certain number of credits available and people or industries that use more than their fair share can simply buy someone else’s share. Yeah. That’ll change everything.

Maybe we need to start dropping nuclear waste into the sun. Would that help? Or hurt? Maybe we could start dropping AGW alarmists!“

Solar trading credits? Perhaps businesses that want to build skyscrapers, or radio towers, can trade “solar credits“ for blocking someone else`s ability to collect sunlight. Certainly Al Gore will need one for his hillbilly White House in Tennessee, and likely for his overbulbuous, swelled head, as well!

Get in on the ground floor, folks!