Have we done the incipient mini ice age?

[tractor]

...

You know Nooothing tractor

I know enough not to get into a hot pool in a cave with a fur lined ginger who is really Shaunbhoy in a wig

[pjclarke]

Actually, if you go read the actual study, you'll be shocked to discover the press coverage is totally off beam. In the new paper the previous estimate of the probability of a new solar (Maunder) minimum of 8% has increased to 15-20%.

But the timescale for the estimate is by 2050, so 'incipient' does not seem quite the correct term ...

Regional climate impacts of a possible future grand solar minimum : Nature Communications : Nature Publishing Group

[pjclarke]

2000 - 'Snow will become a rare and exciting event'
2015 - 'Buy some skis a sled and a husky

Well, if you will get your science from The Independent and bt.com, you are going to form these wierd delusions ....

[EternalOptimist]

turn the heating down, QUICK. because it's getting colder

[tractor]

.....

Bookmarked.

I am sure BB meant some regional rather than global, although if the results of either experiment proves the report correct, of course global means will drop.

We have experienced mini-ice ages before and will again. They happened without help from mankind and they ended, also without help from mankind.

[EternalOptimist]

Scotlands coldest summer month for 40 years ?

[OwlHoot]

Britain braced for mini-ice age as temperatures are set to drop to a 300-year low - BT

Yippee! We can go skating on the Thames again

[pjclarke]

Scotlands coldest summer month for 40 years ?

Add the Scottish Herald to the list.

It does not help to soothe the national mood to recall that last year, temperatures were above the long-term average. Indeed, on June 18, 2014, Cupar in Fife record a sizzling 27C.

[pjclarke]

Actually, and speaking of the Independent, we've been here before. Back in 2007, when the current 'hiatus' in solar activity began - between solar cycles 23 and 24, that paper published an article musing about what would happen if the sun got stuck in a minimum, with the obligatory reference to the Little Ice Age.

*The tardiness of cycle 24 indicates that we might be entering a period of low solar activity that may counteract man-made greenhouse temperature increases. Some members of the Russian Academy of Sciences say we may be at the start of a period like that seen between 1790 and 1820, a minor decline in solar activity called the Dalton Minimum. They estimate that the Sun's reduced activity may cause a global temperature drop of 1.5C by 2020. This is larger than most sensible predictions of man-made global warming over this period.

However in his review of 2007, Dr James Hansen of NASA referenced the article and pointed out that

If the sun were to remain ‘stuck’ in its present minimum for several decades, as has been suggested in analogy to the solar Maunder Minimum of the seventeenth century, that negative forcing would be balanced by a 5-year increase of GHGs. Thus, in the current era of rapidly increasing GHGs, such solar variations cannot have a substantial impact on long-term global warming trends.

We'll see. Personally I think the prospects of temperatures 'taking a dive' is taking wishful thinking to a whole new level.

[pjclarke]

Cold spot vs warm planet.

Just today, NASA released its global temperature data for the month of May 2015. It was a scorching 0.71°C (1.3°F) above the long-term average. It is also the hottest first five months of any year ever recorded.

The latest global temperature data are breaking records | John Abraham | Environment | The Guardian