Time Immortal

The face of the sun remains, in the words of one researcher, “dead”. Sunspot activity has been at an 11-year low, and shows no signs of surging upward any time soon.

What this means, of course, is the basis of some debate. In the past, a 50-year absence of sunspot activity coincided with what came to be known as the Little Ice Age, a period of time between 1650 and 1700 in which global temperatures plumetted. Whether the connection is a direct one or merely a coincidence is the debate in this case.

Although it serves to note that the global temperature did fall rather precpitiously during the last year or so.

Perhaps in this case too, the Earth will cool again, for lack of energetic output from its star. Perhaps not — we shall see. Personally, I’m not worried, and in fact agree with Mark Shea’s analysis of the situation and news: “I notice more and more the language in the media is shifting to handwaving about “climate change“. Since that’s all climate ever does, ever has done, and ever will do, it will be interesting to see how long panic about it can be maintained before that thought dawns on people and they start asking “compared to what?”"

Can we make up our minds already?

Global temperatures will drop slightly this year as a result of the cooling effect of the La Nina current in the Pacific, UN meteorologists have said.

The World Meteorological Organization’s secretary-general, Michel Jarraud, told the BBC it was likely that La Nina would continue into the summer.

This would mean global temperatures have not risen since 1998, prompting some to question climate change theory.

But experts say we are still clearly in a long-term warming trend - and they forecast a new record high temperature within five years.

La Niná, eh? Surely this cooling trend has nothing at all to do with the fact that solar cycle 24 has only just started, meaning that we are still in a period of “solar minimum” — a minimum which has, historically, corresponded to periods of colder-than-average weather, including the Little Ice Age?

To be fair, this doesn’t make me question climate change per se…of course, the climate (being a non-static system) can be expected to change, and indeed it does. It does make me question the received wisdom of global warming alarmism, however. No net change in global temperature since 1998? Al Gore hadn’t even lost the election then!

So much for that hockey-stick graph:

What this graph shows is the presence of a Medieval Warm Period in Earth’s climate change history. The presence of such a warm period, and the subsequent Little Ice Age that followed some centuries later, means that the theory that recent upward trends in global temperature have an anthropogenic basis is inaccurate, and possible invalid.

Which certainly doesn’t do any favours to Al Gore et. al.

(In Soviet Russia, hat tips you: SDA)