Earth has been around for 4 billion years and since that time the climate has always been changing without human influence. In the past 150, years the average temperature of the planet appears to be rising and many believe that the warmer climate is due in part to mankind. Looking at past records going back thousands of years some scientists have discovered that warmer temperatures actually lead to a larger quantity of carbon dioxide, not carbon dioxide leading to warming. Using past data from historical records, ice cores, fossils, and tree ring data there is enough proof to say that the major cause of climate change may not be greenhouse gases but the sun and the oceans.
The sun has a huge affect on the earth climate system and is the main driver when it comes to how our atmosphere works. The life giving sun supplies the energy needed to power our atmosphere and oceans and any little variation in the giant ball of hydrogen and helium 93 million miles from us can cause horrible consequences. Man may have already experienced these consequences just a few centuries ago when 1/3 of an entire continent perished, an entire civilization disappeared under ice, and a young country was fighting for their independence. This was an era known as the Little Ice Age and it is a time in the not to distant past when parts of the world never even experienced summer like weather. The cause, agreed by most of the science community was the reduction in the solar magnetic field, solar irradiance, solar sunspots, and the solar wind. During the past in our life-time the sun has been very active leading to a much warmer climate but now with record low solar magnetic field, solar irradiance, solar sunspots, and the solar wind happening this Fall it’s seems likely to me that our sun will affect global temperatures within the next few years with a dramatic drop.
Let’s go back in time before the United States was inhabited by the Europeans, a time called the Medieval Optimum which occurred between 950-1300 AD. The Medieval Optimum refers to a time in history when our suns solar activity shifted into high gear and the amount of solar radiation reaching planet earth increased. The important part of this is that it also corresponds to an era in our past called the Medieval Warm Period which occurred between the years of 950-1300 AD. During this time period the Vikings were thriving in Greenland farming, raising livestock, and fishing cod off of the coastal waters. In Europe prosperity and technology had begun to advance from what it was in the dark ages and populations began to grow. In the northern part of what is the United Kingdom today, vineyards were actually able to pop up both as a food source and a source for wine. This time in history is much warmer than today’s climate because a vineyard cannot produced crop in northern England with the climate there and there is no way anyone is going to being farming in Greenland unless they figured out how to cultivate on ice.
After the Medieval Optimum our suns activity began to decrease into three separate solar minimum know as the Spörer Minimum, Maunder Minimum, and the Dalton Minimum. This is when all the problems began. The strong Viking Empire known for their toughness noticed that their crops began to fail and their livestock began to die off with a shift in colder temperatures. They began to start fishing for Cod a lot more and this eventually became their primary diet but the winters we so harsh that the North Atlantic Ocean they fished began to freeze during the winter months. The problem wasn’t that they couldn’t reach the water anymore but the Cod began to flee south toward warmer waters and fish was no longer on the Vikings menu. Without their livestock, farming, and fish the Viking Empire disappeared in the matter of years just because of a couple degree drop in average temperature.
Looking toward the European continent England’s climate had shifted so dramatically that the vineyards that once thrived even in the northern tier, now could not even produce crop in the southern portion of the country. Without the vineyards wine was a rare commodity in the region but there was still plenty of yeast so the Europeans needed to come up with a new drink, and this is how modern day beer came into existence. As funny as it sounds beer can be used as proof that our climate changed during this time period and the only explanation we have is the sun considering humans wouldn’t start burning fossils fuels for a few hundred more years.
The proof of this colder than normal time normal can be found all over Europe, including in its literature. In the early 1800’s there was one year that winter just never gave up in the northern hemisphere, and science calls it the year without a summer. During this time in the summer months Mary and Percy Shelly with their friend Lord Byron went up into the mountains in France for vacation. Usually they would do swimming in the lake and spend most of their time outdoors but this year was different, they couldn’t leave the house because of the deep snow and the lake they would be swimming in was frozen solid. The three were very good writers and they decided to have a competition to see who could write the scariest story, needless to say Mary Shelly won when she wrote Frankenstein.
There are so many accounts in Europe and around the world to provide that the event did indeed happen. We all know about Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol, but the setting for it seems odd. It’s based in London during Christmas time but it’s very cold and the ground is snow covered. By looking at the climatology of London snow in December is very rare since most of Europe has a very temperate climate, or it does now anyway. Dickens portrayed what London was like during his time for the holidays and it’s just a little more evidence supporting this dip in temperatures. Not only did it snow in London during this time but the Thames River would freeze over annually and there would be a yearly winter fair out on the ice. Its little accounts like the ones we have heard so far that tell us this time in history known as the Little Ice Age did indeed exist. The reason proof is needed for this is because many scientist don’t believe it ever happened or the temperature change was small and only over the European continent. And that simply is not true.
The United States of America during most of the Little Ice Age was either populated by Indians or very few people were around to provide accounts of this ever happening. The revolutionary war took place toward the end of the Little Ice Age and during that time period we hear of New York harbor freezing over in the winter months, summer snows in the eastern United States in Boston, and winters that were harsh on both the Continental Army and the Red Coats. The Little Ice Age did indeed happen over a much wider area than Europe, and not just a few tenths of a degree drop as many skeptics believe.
With evidence now pointing that at least Europe, United States, and Greenland had a Little Ice Age perhaps there is more too it than just solar output. Since most the solar radiation that comes from the sun hits the planets Equator that is why it is much warmer than the poles. But that energy needs to be delivered north and south to keep the tropics from boiling and allow the poles to be somewhat mild. This is the job of storm systems, hurricanes, winds, and the thermohaline circulation. The thermohaline circulation is a system of ocean currents that bring warmer waters toward the poles and cooler waters toward the tropics. These currents are able to keep circulating because of energy from the sun and if the energy were to decrease or increase it seems likely that the currents would as well. Looking at how far north London is, it is actually 100 miles north of Winnipeg Canada which average temperature is close to being arctic while London has a much milder sub tropic climate similar to North Carolina. The reason for this is the Gulf Stream which delivers warmer oceans waters up the eastern United States and across the Atlantic toward the European continent. This is what keeps the eastern seaboard warm and what gives Europe its temperate climate that it has today.
Now thinking about how all this cold weather coincided with solar variability across the world how do we explain how the North Atlantic and areas around it seem to have the most dramatic temperature change. Meteorology is the study the atmosphere and how it works, but most fail to realize that without the sun there would be no weather. The atmosphere needs energy to be put into it in order for it to move, to change, and to produce what we call weather events. The ocean currents are the same way, if less of the suns energy is reaching it than the currents may begin to slow down. This idea would only cause cooling as you get closer to the polar regions, but may actually cause slight warmer in the tropics since the energy is not be delivered toward the poles and being trapped at the equator. The change would most likely be noticed in a populated area like Europe and would most likely be most dramatic because the Gulf Stream is the only thing that keeps most of Europe from having a polar climate. Looking at past data and current data today we may see what solar minimum can do to our climate since the sun has been reaching record low indices as it nears its next minimum lull in activity.
In order to move a parcel of air, create wind, make clouds, create instability, make atmosphere, and make weather systems energy is required. When a football is thrown the energy put into it comes from the one throwing the ball and without that energy the ball remains stationary. Well the same goes for the earths atmosphere, the suns energy is what provides the energy to create weather and control climate but the suns output of energy is not a constant. The sun emits all types of radiation, flux, solar wind, and geomagnetic activity just to name the key players, but what the sun emits changes with time and this is called solar variability.
One major concern with solar scientists is what could happen if the solar wind were to weaken. The solar wind is what creates the affect of a comet having a tail essentially becoming a massive wind vane and anemometer in space. This solar wind helps keep out an odd form of radiation which originates when a medium to large mass star ends its life as a super nova. When the star explodes and tears itself apart it ejects out from the core tiny charged particles called cosmic rays that move through space near the speed of light. When the solar wind is strong it helps to keep a large portion of these cosmic rays from reaching us but the opposite happens when the solar wind becomes weaker.
Cosmic rays are constantly bombarding our planets atmosphere but thankfully they burn up before they get to the surface or mankind could be dealing with major problems. The main issue with this form of radiation is that when it enters the atmosphere and burns up it creates something called a nucleation site which is where cloud droplets form. Now if the solar wind is decreased it allows more of these cosmic rays to enter the inner solar system and strike our atmosphere basically creating more clouds all across the globe. That may not sound like such a bad thing, but with more water vapor in the earth’s atmosphere more of the sun life giving radiation bounces off the cloud tops and back into space never reaching the surface. As less radiation its the dark energy absorbent ground of the planet the surface begins to cool down drastically and allowing more ice and snow build up which refracts even more of the suns energy back out into space. It’s just like the domino affect, one event throws off a crucial balance for the stability of the entire system.
As mentioned early the radiation from the sun in crucial in controlling climate and when less of it reaching the planets surface than global cooling begins to take place. It’s very difficult to understand the process, but just think of it as a ripple affect, meaning one things leads to another. David Archibald wrote a paper on this exact topic in March of 2008 and he puts it into easier terms:
“At its simplest, the relationship between the solar magnetic field strength and the Earth’s climate is this: lower magnetic field strength means few sunspots, fewer sunspots means less solar wind, less solar wind means more galactic cosmic rays, more galactic cosmic rays means more low level cloud formation, more low level clouds means more sunlight reflected back into space, which in turn means less heating of the Earth’s surface and atmosphere” (Archibald).
The main cause of reduction in the solar wind would be fewer sunspots on the surface of the sun caused from a lower magnetic field. Since the sun would be ejecting out less solar material than normal than the amount of solar radiation decreases on top of what is already being blocked out by more lower level cloud formation which leads to even more cooling. As less solar radiation is emitted from the sun and more is being refracted out into space by cloud tops the ocean currents that rely on energy to move warmer waters north may begin to slow down as well. This would make the change in climate more noticeable in the higher latitudes such as Europe and North America. It’s a chain reaction that takes place of one event leading to another and it’s not a rare event, this has happened before in the not so distance past.
The planets ocean currents that help balance out the climatic system play an extremely important roll and are closely related to what the sun is doing. The ocean currents are all over the planets oceans in a giant system called the Thermalhaline Circulation. Included in these conveyor systems of warmth is the Gulf Stream which delivers warmth to the eastern United States and especially the European continent. As the warm water is brought up off the coast of North Carolina it shoots out across the Atlantic until it reaches Europe, when it does so the water begins to cool and sink then heads southward toward the tropics where it will warm and make the same trip again and again.
The currents rely on a crucial balance of salinity in the ocean and the suns energy reaching the tropics. Now if the salinity of the ocean has been decreasing over the years due to the melting of the Arctic then this would slow down the currents and deliver less warmth to higher latitudes. Also if less heat energy was being put into the tropical waters by the only source of major energy, our sun, then the currents would slow down and just like before would bring less warmth to higher latitudes. North America and Europe are the two places that would notice the largest drop in temperatures because the large population centers and that the only reason a temperate climate exists in these places is because of the Gulf Stream. Without the Gulf Stream Europe would be a much different place than it is today.
Mentioned early were the three solar minimums, the Spörer Minimum, Maunder Minimum, and the Dalton Minimum. These lull periods of the sun activity coincidentally coincided with a very cold period in human past known as the Little Ice Age, which from literature of the time and first hand accounts it was an event that had obviously taken place. Also just before the Little Ice Age was an era known as the Medieval Warm Period which was much warmer than today’s climatic conditions but unfortunately solar sunspot records didn’t start until after the warm period had ended so it is unknown whether the sun had anything to do with the massive warmth.
The amount of solar output is not the only way the sun can affect the climatic system of planet earth. Actually solar output from the sun is insignificant when compared to what else the sun can do to the planet. Just like the earth, the sun rotates on a central axis and just like the earth that axis is not always consistent. Earth goes through a cycle every 26,000 years called precession. To make things simple this precession cycle is nothing more than a slight wobble of the axis and the earth’s axis is the reason for the seasonal change in temperatures. If the axis grows larger than the colder it will be become and as the axis becomes smaller the milder it becomes. Well, the sun does the same but this process take thousands of years and most likely the main drive for the ice ages earth experiences every 12,000 years or so.
The most dramatic ice ages, in which the entire planet becomes “snowball earth” is by far the most interesting way the sun affect climate. Over hundreds of thousands of years the earths orbit changes between being almost completely circular to extremely elliptical. Right now the planet in is in a slight ellipse around the sun but very close to being a circle. As the orbit around the sun becomes more elliptical the planet gets farther from the sun in summer and winter but closer in spring and fall. The problem is that because of gravity when a planet gets farther from the sun it begins to slow down which means winter lasts much longer and the warmer months go by faster as the earth speeds past the sun when it is closer. Keep in mind that at this point the seasonal names no longer apply to climatic conditions; the orbital change just has such a significant affect. Since the planet is now further way from the sun for the majority of the year less radiation hits the surface and major ice age that covers the entire planet takes place.
Thankfully humans only live for about 70 years so nobody alive today needs to worry about precession or “snowball earth”, but it just shows that changes in the suns energy reaching the planet is extremely crucial to a stable climate system. What humans today to have to worry about is events such as the Little Ice Age happening again because an event like that is abrupt and can take civilization by complete surprise and not allow any time for adaptation to new climate.
Today there are fears about global warming causing wide spread disease and famine throughout the globe, but this may not be a factor of global warming. Instead this may be a factor when it comes to global cooling. After the glory of the Medieval Warm Period when civilizations flourished and prosperity bloomed across Europe the colder period known as the Little Ice Age occurred. During this colder period in the past a disease that originated in Asia was brought to Europe by ships, that were carrying black rats, and those rats were carrying fleas. Back in this time people did not live as clean as they do today and fleas were apart of everyday life in Europe. The problem was the fleas carried the plague, which some know to be the Black Death which ravaged the European continent and killed one third of its overall population. Perhaps the colder climate of the Little Ice Age allowed for better transportation of the plague, but nobody knows for sure. One thing that is known is that is occurred during a colder climate which could have some meaning to the event or just be a coincidence.
Another potential problem with the so called “global warming” is wide spread famine across the planet. When the Spanish came to South America they discovered an odd crop that grew beneath the surface of the ground and brought this strange crop back to Europe. Eventually the Irish adopted this crop because it was very easy to plant and grow and the Irish climate was excellent for its growth, this crop is known today as the potato. Once again ship transportation brought a type of fungus to the shores of Ireland and the leaves of the potato began to turn black and all across the countryside the crop began to fail. After years of the same problem eventually a million people starved to death and millions of others left the country entirely, this was known as the Irish potato famine.
It seems as if colder climate is much more likely to cause famine and disease than a warmer climate, and we can even see this happen in the winter when more people get and more often than in the summer months. People learn from their mistakes and just like and any other animal on this planet we must adapt or die, its survival of the fittest according to natural selection and what a true statement that seems to be when history is taken into consideration. Its just more evidence that colder weather caused by solar variability is much more threatening to the survival of mankind than anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. The history of human past has a lesson for man to learn if only they are willing to except it for what it is.
The interesting part about the solar variability affecting the earth’s climate is that it may be happening right now. We are currently somewhere in between the end of solar cycle 23 and the beginning of solar cycle 24. The typical solar sunspot cycle lasts on average for about 11 years. Sunspots occur on the surface of the sun and have magnetically reversed polarity on either side of the sun’s equator. During the average 11 year cycle a solar minimum happens when very little activity is seen and gradually a few years later a solar maximum is seen where the sun break out in what looks like very bad acne. The sun becomes dotted with the sunspots and prominences loop off the surface expelling solar material out into space increasing radiation and solar winds. The overall surface of the sun become hotter and the fear of electromagnetic storms cause panic over downed satellites, communication networks, and equipment failure such as planes in flight which need to fly at low altitudes during these storms. A more scenic and less threatening side affect of sunspots is the northern and southern lights seen over the Polar Regions.
These sunspot cycles are how we know when we are in the middle of a solar minimum or maximum. During most of the 1900’s a solar maximum took place in which the temperature of the climate rose dramatically all the way to the present day. Since the most active solar cycle back in the 1990’s the current solar cycle 23 has yet to end and going on its 13th year. It’s not an active cycle at all; the problem is that solar cycle 24 cannot start until the first sunspots appear after the solar minimum. Solar minimum should have occurred nearly two years ago and the sun should be well on its way to that break out of acne but it remains totally and completely quite. During the solar minimums of the Little Ice Age the average lengths of a solar cycle was 13.6 years and very few sunspots were seen on the suns surface when it did reach solar maximum. This now present a very interesting problem.
If the current solar cycle is going on 13 years long and the solar cycles during the Little Ice Age were 13.6 year long mankind could be facing a global cooling taking place right now in front of them. With Baghdad Iraq getting it’s first snow ever last winter, London getting it’s first October snow in 80 years, China having its worst winter in recent memory, most Alaskan glaciers beginning to advance, New England getting its record snowfall of all time, and Antarctica breaking the record maximum ice extent on record last winter it seems like a real possibility that it is already happening. And actually global temperatures have been steadily dropping since 1998. Going back to David Archibald, he also believes a similar scenario is happening.
“Let’s assume that the relationship demonstrated in nearly 200 years of Armagh data, and 300 years of De Bilt data, is valid today. I have plotted on top of the original figure solar cycle 22, which was 9.6 years long. Solar cycle 23 hasn’t finished yet. The first sunspot of Solar Cycle 24 was seen on 4th January, 2008, but the month of solar minimum may not be until mid 2009. I have plotted on this figure what a 13 year long Solar Cycle 23 would look like. It follows that the temperature at Armagh will be 1.6 degrees lower. This effect is upon us right now. In a few short years, we will have a reversal of the warming of the 20th century” (Archibald).
Archibald continued to present that the longer the solar cycles, and the weaker they are, the average global temperature will begin to drop abruptly a few degrees in the matter of a couple of years. This type of temperature change could mean localized areas across Europe and the United States would drop ten degrees in average temperature with lesser changes across the tropics, but still significant. While a decrease in solar sunspot cycles could cause a repeat of the Little Ice Age, it is not a powerful enough mechanism to trigger a full blown ice age by itself. Just like the year without a summer in 1816 when Tambora erupted throwing up ash into the stratosphere where it mixed with water vapor making sulfur dioxide. This sulfur dioxide blocked out the sun even more during an already cold time period and created the year with out summer. And when they say it was a year without a summer, this means -26 degrees froze the salt water of New York Harbor and summer snowstorms ravaged New England and Europe killing crops and freezing people to death in June.
David Archibald is not the only scientist out there who believes that the planet’s climate may actually be cooling due to solar variability. One of the United Sates most respected publications, The Old Farmers Almanac has been around for hundreds of years founded by Benjamin Franklin and Robert B. Thomas are claiming something similar. The Almanac bases its forecasts from observations of the suns surface and behaviors that is portrays. “Some scientists believe that an extreme, potentially a mini-ice age, is imminent. Other’s think that it may already be underway” (Old Farmers Almanac).
The Old Farmers Almanac has been trying to perfect the solar variability to put their yearly forecast for 216 years. In the latest 2009 issue of the Almanac an article was printed up in color and on glossy paper, which generally means it’s important. Other than carbon dioxide the Almanac is willing to consider other factors that correlate very well with the topics in this paper. “There is another explanation for, or at least, influence on the warming. This involves natural factors, most notably the sun and earth’s oceans. We at the almanac are among those who believe that sunspot cycles and their effects on oceans correlate with climate changes. Studying these and other factors suggests that a cold, not warm, climate may be in our future” (Almanac).
Looking back into the history books we can get a clear picture of what happens during climate change. The climate not only affects history, but culture, literature, who is victorious in war, whether we drink beer or wine, the arts, technologies, diseases, and of course the human outlook on life. Everyone alive on earth today has only experienced a time of happiness, prosperity, technological advances, and outstanding break throughs. So did the people of the Medieval Warm Period, but sooner or later it will all come to an end as solar variability is just that. It’s a variable, meaning that it’s a changing factor and is not a constant as many would believe it to be. And man didn’t know this until 1978, “Spaceborne TMI measurements began in 1978 and quickly dispelled the misconception that the solar irradiance was constant” (Mishchenko).
The sun created life and one day will destroy life, but what happens in between changes from year to year, decade to decade, and century to century. The sun has treated man fairly for well over 150 years but that could all change in the near future, “Our generation has known a warm, giving Sun, but the next generation will suffer a Sun that is less giving, and the Earth will be less fruitful” (Archibald) It seems like a scare tactic but perhaps we can learn from what happened just a few hundred years ago and maybe technology has advanced to the point where mankind will be able to adapt much easier than our earlier ancestors.
