Sunday, April 26, 2009

Solar Scenarios

By Alan Caruba

The end of the world has always been a popular theme for various religions and for doomsayers in general. The Mayan calendar identifies December 21, 2012 as the end of the world. In the second century B.C., the Jewish cult, the Essenes, framed it as a battle between good and evil, and the Book of Revelations offers its own scenario.

The latest version, of course, is Al Gore’s prediction that the Earth is on fire from “global warming” and we have to buy his carbon credits to avoid it. Even President Obama is preaching this absurd, baseless nonsense in order to drum up votes in Congress for his economy-killing “cap-and-trade” scheme to tax all energy use.

A real, science-based apocalyptic scenario exists and humanity has had a taste of it over its brief 10,000 years on Earth. It has to do with solar cycles during which there is a significant reduction of magnetic storms, otherwise known as sunspots, on the engine of our solar system. These cycles are closely tracked and we are now in Solar Cycle 23.

James A. Marusek, a nuclear physicist and engineer, recently wrote about the current cycle and I will excerpt his article. He believes there are two paths ahead and each is marked with a “Danger” signpost. You need to know about them, even if there is nothing that anyone on the planet can do about it.

“It is now evident,” Marusek writes, “that the Grand Maxima state that has persisted during most of the 20th century has come to an abrupt end.” Older solar cycles averaged 797 spotless days, more than twice that of recent ones. They accounted for the cold spells often called little ice ages.

“We are now at a crossroad,” writes Marusek. “Two paths lie before us. Down one path lies monstrous solar storms. Down the other path lies several decades of crushing cold temperatures and global famine.”

Our most current experience with the latter has been the cycle that began around 1998 when the Earth’s average temperatures began to cool. It has been accompanied by glaciers that have begun to grow, increasing ice at the North and South Poles, and snowfall in desert nations that have not seen snow in their recorded history.

If the current solar cycle, devoid of sunspots and closing in on some six hundred days continues, solar scientists have a name for it, a “Dalton Minimum” or a “Maunder Minimum.” It is still too early to say if the Sun will take this route. The alternative is a period of very intense solar storms.

Either way, the result would wreak havoc on the Earth. Fewer sunspots will mean a colder Earth and that means reduced production of the crops we depend upon for food for ourselves and for the livestock that provide part of our diet. The alternative is massive solar storms that produce magnetic field energy that is released in the form of huge magnetic flares.

The effect of such flares could destroy the large extra high voltage power transformers in the United States and other nations. Replacing such transformers would take over a year and each cost in the area of ten million dollars. The National Research Council examined what could occur and concluded that “it would result in large-scale blackouts affecting more than 130 million people (in the U.S.) and expose more than 350 major transformers to the risk of permanent damage.”

Try to imagine an electrical blackout that lasts months, even years.

Too much magnetic activity destroys the electrical system. Too little brings on either a little ice age or triggers the next full scale one. The Earth is at the end of the 10,000 to 11,500 year cycle between ice ages, so the potential for the latter scenario is very real. When it arrives, it will do so very swiftly.

If you are tempted to dismiss either scenario, history has another story to tell. During a particularly brutal winter in 1779-1780, the surface of the Hudson River was solid ice for five weeks. Early settlers traveling west in covered wagons crossed a frozen over Mississippi near present day St. Louis in 1799. In England, the Great Frost of 1683-1684, the River Thames was completely frozen for two months and nearly a foot thick at London.

A nation without electricity with millions of people unable to light, heat or cool their homes or apartments, to use any appliance, to control traffic, to use any communications, to function based on modern technology is almost beyond our imagination.

Thus, while politicians and other charlatans preach “global warming”, talk of green jobs, and refuse to permit energy industries to have access to oil, natural gas, or coal, while planning to tax the emissions from what energy we do use, the Sun has other plans.

You can read James A. Marusek’s paper at:
http://paradigmsanddemographics.blogspot.com/2009/04/there-are-two-paths-ahead-each-marked.html

10 comments:

  1. A chilling read in more ways than one. Very good indeed.

    We are living in a fantasy world straight out of Lewis Carroll. It may take an enormous jolt from Mother Nature to displace the hubris that makes human beings believe they have the answers to climate change/global warming.
    Meanwhile, the poor, the old and the sick, who the caring left claim to care for and represent, will be the first victims...

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  2. The quiescent Sun is quite remarkable; I have tried unsuccessfully to identify quiescent periods within Milankovich cycles and would be interested to know if such aperiodic episodes can be recognized within the historical record.

    The Sun by the way is certainly an important engine of this Solar System and of the some-odd 100 billion stars of the Milky Way galaxy, the Sun is as undistinguished amongst O-sequence stars as Al Gore is

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  3. In happier times, we've noted sunspot activity as the culprit in radio interference, affecting ham radio operators world-wide. Now we're righteously worried about its opposite, bringing us into a deadly Winter Wonderland: Glaciation coming after unheard-of and endless snow. New alternate energy sources and carbon credits will not protect when it comes so quickly. Should we "party on" now, while we can? No, but we're so vastly ill-informed and unprepared to be the survivors. An excellent article.

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  4. Thank you, Travis.

    Welcome to the discussion. And, yes, the next ice age will come on so fast that there is almost no way to prepare or flee.

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  5. The energy poliy of the current administration is at best misguided. I am not an expert, nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn last night, but it seems to me the one technology that solves the real potential and imaginary crises is the only nit being pursued!

    It seems to me, that several small well guarded nuclear reactors would provide the energy for plug in hybrids, they could be charged at night to help even out the load, thus reduce carbon based fuels.

    By using smaller reactors, spread over the country near cities, the need for massively high voltage transmission lines would be greatly reduced, lessening the impact of flares.

    Again power and waste heat from the reactors could be used to heat homes and assist with hydroponics in the event of rapid cooling.

    Every day I check out http://www.solarcycle24.com/ to see what is going on up there. Today it appears another cycle23 spot is trying to form. And with reading other articles, I just can't help to get the gut feeling that we are headed into at least a little ice age, if not worse.

    From what I have read, the Soviets are taking this threat seriously, but the west is not, too worried about vets being called terrorist, CO2 and Mr. Obama trying to spend my children into the poor house.

    Thanks again for the time you spend writing!

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  6. I am curious why no one has speculated that the lack of sunspots is caused by global warming? Everything else is.

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  7. Quite right Powerpaul, in fact it stands to reason that if we keep pumping out CO2, we'll eventually extinguish the sun altogether.

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  8. I call bullshit.

    1) There is a scientific consensus that global warming as a result of the emission of greenhouse gases is very real.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change

    2) The earth's average temperature has not "begun to cool" since 1998. The four warmest years in the last century have been 1998, 2002, 2003 and 2004 in that order.

    http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/earth_warm.html

    3) Although *some* glacial ice has increased, there are credible explanations for that. Here's one: Warmer air holds more moisture; this increases snowfall, which in turn increases ice in sub-zero climates.

    http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2008/01/antarctic-sea-ice-increase-fodder-global-warming-skeptics

    Also, globally speaking and with a few exceptions, the world's glaciers *are* shrinking & have been shrinking for the last 18 years:

    http://climateprogress.org/2009/01/30/world’s-glaciers-shrink-for-18th-year-in-alps-andes/

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  9. I call bullshit. (And I say you have demonstrated that you prefer to be rude instead of engage in a civil discussion)

    1) There is a scientific consensus that global warming as a result of the emission of greenhouse gases is very real. (And I say that there is no such thing as a "scientific consensus." They're still debating Darwin's evolution theory. There is NO concensus regarding the so-called global warming.

    2) The earth's average temperature has not "begun to cool" since 1998. The four warmest years in the last century have been 1998, 2002, 2003 and 2004 in that order.
    (Wrong AGAIN. The warmest years were in the 1930s. And there is a cooling cycle in effect since 1998.

    3) Although *some* glacial ice has increased, there are credible explanations for that. Here's one: Warmer air holds more moisture; this increases snowfall, which in turn increases ice in sub-zero climates. (Ice at both poles has been growing thicker. Citing your bogus eco-articles doesn't change that.)

    Also, globally speaking and with a few exceptions, the world's glaciers *are* shrinking & have been shrinking for the last 18 years (You are free to believe what you want, but many glaciers are growing (Mont Blanc in Europe) and will continue to grow as the world cools.

    The essential problem here is that the eco-liars have produced tons of false claims so citing them does not add to the discussion. Global warming has been blamed for everything at this point. It is NOT happening.

    Check out this site's blog roll and visit IceAgeNow, ClimateDepot. ClimateChange Fraud, IlovemyCO2 and other sites for accurate information.

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  10. Alan, if I may add.

    toddismycopilot, I would invite you to look at motives behind the global warming myth provayers, they are very economic and power motivated.

    Look at Mr. Gore, his net worth has gone from 2 million to something like $100 million over the last 6 years. The global warming business seems to be very good for him! GE is also hyping AGW for all its worth on NBC, they also have huge gains to be made from everything from new green lightbulbs to wind turbines.

    If the science was so settled, how come they (Gore and company) work so hard to not let any decenting views heard, If their case was so strong, you would think they would invite discussion as most sciences do.

    And of course, we would ask you to be honest with yourself, ask your self a simple question, if their little models got the last few winters *WRONG*, how can they accurately predict the next 100?

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