The ice age cometh

So we recently had a discussion on scientific skepticism, which was locked.

I have some questions. I'm hoping we can avoid the nonscientific, political ramifications of the questions and confine ourselves to the science proper, which should be within forum guidelines if we're careful.

Article 1
Article 2
Article 3
Article 4

Please note that I have attempted to use resources such as National Geographic and have avoided sensationalist outlets such as Fox News or Daily Mail.

All articles convey essentially the same story ... this on from NG:

Quote:

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Three independent studies of the sun's insides, surface, and upper atmosphere all predict that the next solar cycle will be significantly delayed—if it happens at all. Normally, the next cycle would be expected to start roughly around 2020.

The combined data indicate that we may soon be headed into what's known as a grand minimum, a period of unusually low solar activity.

The predicted solar "sleep" is being compared to the last grand minimum on record, which occurred between 1645 and 1715.

Known as the Maunder Minimum, the roughly 70-year period coincided with the coldest spell of the Little Ice Age, when European canals regularly froze solid and Alpine glaciers encroached on mountain villages.

(See "Sun Oddly Quiet—Hints at Next 'Little Ice Age?'")

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So, my questions are:

1) These are general interest publications. Given the discussions we've had on the poor quality of science reporting in the media, does anyone want to unpack this and give us a better picture of what's really happening?

2) How does this fit into the overall consensus of climate science?

3) Do you have suggested resources and links so I can answer these questions myself? Not just consensus authorities, but reputable contrarians. After all, science improves by challenging assumptions, not by upholding them.

4) An SF rather than a political question. Given possible threats to our way of life from ice ages or potential warming, is it possible to implement planetary climate control? Would climate control imply weather control in general, determining when and where it rains? How could this be accomplished, using SF means? When I say "SF" , I mean hard SF, not freeze rays. Sort of like, "Why does Coruscant not melt due to the cooling issues of a planetwide city".

" Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice."

-- Robert Frost

Respectfully,

Brian P.

The Ice Age Cometh Not.

So sayeth the Bad Astronomer.

I would take care to note the following regarding the 'quiet sun'.

The sun operates on a 11 year long cycle, where it's activity goes from low to high and back to low. It is true that the 'low' has been extending for some time more than normal, however sunspots are currently visible on the sun, and this is a sign of the sun's activity.

It's more complicated than that (Sunspots are a product of a tangling magnetic field) but we're currently leaving the low part of the Solar Cycle and entering the active part. There's even a CME* heading towards us and will glance the magnetic field in a few days. Apparently we've also had some CMEs hit us and create Aurora. These are all things that show solar activity.

So we've reached the end of a massive period of solar 'inactivity' - yes it was longer than normal, but not catastrophic. Far from it. Scroll to the bottom of This Page. We're on the up up up - at least in the short term.

Also WHoop! Auroura.
[Speculation]
Hopefully the extended Solar Minimum will indicate a longer and stronger solar maximum. This will mean more Aurora.
[/Speculation]

Bear in mind we could still be in an interesting minimum of the overall solar cycle overall. Humans have only observed the Sun for a short period of time while looking for this information (relatively). We could be in a period where even solar maximums produce a few sunspots, but I don't personally know. We will have to see.


Part of this was derived from [Space Weather (.com)]. Another part was derived from [NASA].
* CME - Coronal Mass Ejection. This is a vast outburst of plasma from the Solar Corona. It travels very quickly and can show us some of the intervening effects between the sun and Earth.

Thanks. So let me see if I understand correctly.

1) Sunspot activity is at a low point, possibly but not certainly resulting in a "Maunder minimum". The sun might do something entirely different tomorrow.

2) The last time a minimum was observed, it corresponded with a miniature ice age here on Sol-III.

HOWEVER,

3) Correlation is not causation. Just because a minimum happened at the same time as the mini ice age does not mean that the minimum will cause an ice age this time as well. We don't know for certain that the minimum caused the last mini ice age. And even if it did, our atmosphere is different now than it was then; we might not experience the same effect.

The Bad Astronomer, for example, does not believe that global warming/cooling is primarily impacted by the sun, and therefore a potential Maunder Minimum should not have much effect.

Is that correct?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

I heard we're already in an Ice Age.

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Originally Posted by pendell

Thanks. So let me see if I understand correctly.

1) Sunspot activity is at a low point, possibly but not certainly resulting in a "Maunder minimum". The sun might do something entirely different tomorrow.

2) The last time a minimum was observed, it corresponded with a miniature ice age here on Sol-III.

HOWEVER,

3) Correlation is not causation. Just because a minimum happened at the same time as the mini ice age does not mean that the minimum will cause an ice age this time as well. We don't know for certain that the minimum caused the last mini ice age. And even if it did, our atmosphere is different now than it was then; we might not experience the same effect.

The Bad Astronomer, for example, does not believe that global warming/cooling is primarily impacted by the sun, and therefore a potential Maunder Minimum should not have much effect.

Is that correct?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

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Sounds good. If everyone repeated to themselves at night "Correlation is not Causation" three times before going to bed, the world would be a better place.

New Scientist agrees. The Ice Age cometh not.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pendell

4) An SF rather than a political question. Given possible threats to our way of life from ice ages or potential warming, is it possible to implement planetary climate control? Would climate control imply weather control in general, determining when and where it rains? How could this be accomplished, using SF means? When I say "SF" , I mean hard SF, not freeze rays. Sort of like, "Why does Coruscant not melt due to the cooling issues of a planetwide city".

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The most fruitful "hard SF" means of heating a cold planet would probably involve some sort of directed-energy technology. The idea for orbital power (directing the sun's rays to collecting panels on the earth's surface) has been floating out there for awhile now. AFAIK, there's no technical reason that it couldn't work. (Whether the expense would be worth the gain is another question). So heating a planet won't be a problem in the sci-fi universe.

Cooling is a bit harder. You'd need some method of either decreasing the amount of sun we get, or increasing the amount of energy that's reflected by the earth back out to the universe. Deliberately-induced lunar eclipses would be one way of getting it. Cloud eradication programs and requiring all buildings to be whitewashed (silly as it sounds, this might help slightly) would be another. And, of course, decreasing or increasing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would be another way to regulate the total amount of energy that's let in or out. In an extreme case, you could bring in super-cooled materials from somewhere else (maybe a lunar base), they heat up just by existing here, then we move them back to space for awhile so they can cool off. Kind of siphon off the heat.

All that would be on a planet-wide macro scale. Like, "Is the planet-wide temperature going to increase/decrease by 5 or more degrees?" sort of scale. This level of climate control would be something that affects everybody on the whole planet directly. Local micro weather patterns would probably be much more difficult to predict or manage, and all methods would based on local conditions on the ground. To take my hometown (Erie, PA) as an example. We're right next to one of the Great Lakes, and in a northern climate. If When we want to be sure we get less snow in the winter, the things we'd need to do would be much different than somebody in Siberia. Whatever we did to change it, it would affect our immediate surroundings disproportionately, and only have secondary effects on other people in the world. (Upstate New York would care; Siberia probably wouldn't be very much affected).

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Originally Posted by Pendell

1) These are general interest publications. Given the discussions we've had on the poor quality of science reporting in the media, does anyone want to unpack this and give us a better picture of what's really happening?

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Well given that the responses to this so far have been blog posts, I think this question has been been looked over.
Blogs are at least as bad, if not worse, then mainstream news for sensationalism or simply being contradictory to be contradictory. Their relevance is also much more tied to their "ratings" and how much they fit to their readers expectations then normal news.



I think in the cases of all of these articles, both for and against, is sensationalism in the titles, rather then the meat of the argument. The last time we had a minimum that was sustained for a long period of time we also had a minor ice age. However at this point we could have a fair amount of cooling before we get back to normal* and then a lot more cooling after that before we got to an "ice age."
And as both sides say, its a reduction in the energy from the sun, but there is still a lot of energy there.
When you consider that the whole negative part of greenhouse gases is that they capture and retain more energy from the sun. Its impossible to reasonably say that a change in the energy from the sun won't have an impact on the amount of energy capture by greenhouse gases.
And even the pro articles don't say anything about what sort of temperatures we might expect to see if the sun is much less active, they don't even imply (at least the ones I read, I haven't read them all) that its for sure going to be enough to put the world into another ice age.



*I find the claim of deviation from the normal temperature of the earth laughable at best considering that in the 4.5billion years the earth has been around its been constantly changing temperature. Which isn't to say that we aren't taking part in the change in climate. But that you can't claim we're going to destroy the world when its already been much colder and much hotter then it is now and has been in the last couple hundred years. Obviously living organisms can change the climate, bacteria and plants have been responsible for large temperature changing events in the past.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pendell

" Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice."

-- Robert Frost

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I can't offer any observations about this topic, though I am following it with interest.

What really delighted me was seeing a Robert Frost quote! Not only is he one of my favorite poets, I have had this particular poem memorized for my entire adult life. You mdae my day, Brian "Respectfully" P! :smallbiggrin:

Gleefully,
Monkey B.

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Originally Posted by Erloas

*I find the claim of deviation from the normal temperature of the earth laughable at best considering that in the 4.5billion years the earth has been around its been constantly changing temperature. Which isn't to say that we aren't taking part in the change in climate. But that you can't claim we're going to destroy the world when its already been much colder and much hotter then it is now and has been in the last couple hundred years. Obviously living organisms can change the climate, bacteria and plants have been responsible for large temperature changing events in the past.

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The problem isn't the temperature. It's the speed that it's changing at. In geological time frames, this is like stepping from a cool winter day (40-ish Farenheit, or 5 degrees Celcius) into a sauna. If the temperature had changed over the course of, say, a few thousand years, it wouldn't be as dangerous. But the huge change over just a couple centuries has pretty big effects on the environs and inhabitants of Earth.

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What really delighted me was seeing a Robert Frost quote! Not only is he one of my favorite poets, I have had this particular poem memorized for my entire adult life. You mdae my day, Brian "Respectfully" P!

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You're welcome!

Respectfully,

Brian P.

I, for one, welcome our new ice age.

Seriously, it's hot in Texas.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Erloas

Well given that the responses to this so far have been blog posts, I think this question has been been looked over.
Blogs are at least as bad, if not worse, then mainstream news for sensationalism or simply being contradictory to be contradictory. Their relevance is also much more tied to their "ratings" and how much they fit to their readers expectations then normal news.

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Errr... I linked to Phil Plait who has a Ph.D. in Astronomy (although not in solar astronomy) - and who has written a book with an entire chapter on sunspots and coronal mass ejections. I think he's a little more than just 'a guy with a blog'.

I think the key point to hold in mind when reading anything about GLOBAL warming or the ENTIRE sun is that we don't have an effing clue.

We can build models, we are getting to the point where these models may some day be useful but a LOT of these reports look at one datapoint and draw conclusions about a whole entity we don't understand near as well as we make out.

I have more examples for global warming than solar activity but I keep seeing reports of "This here temperature reading is dropping, global warming is fake" "this temperature keeps rising, global warming will kill us all next week" "If you look at this tiny eco system right here carbon is being absorbed therefore global warming won't happen."

Until every last one of these people gets together and puts all their data into the world's biggest computer I'd take anything that is said with a pinch of salt. Or possibly a shovel full.

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Until every last one of these people gets together and puts all their data into the world's biggest computer I'd take anything that is said with a pinch of salt. Or possibly a shovel full.

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Actually, I'll take that a step further -- we need to be able to reliably predict global temperature over a time period, the more lengthy the better.

I had a 14 year career building computer models, and in the industry I worked in our models were REALLY, REALLY good at reproducing past events but were REALLY, REALLY BAD at predicting what would happen in the future.

A wise man once said "All models are wrong, but some models are useful". So the world's biggest computer and all the data isn't very useful if we don't know what we're doing. If we DO know what we're doing, we may only need a fraction of that data.

In any case, the only way to validate a computer model is by experimental validation -- use it to make predictions, than see those predictions come true. Which is notoriously tough in the case of climate because there are so many freaky variables. :)

Respectfully,

Brian P.

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Originally Posted by pendell

In any case, the only way to validate a computer model is by experimental validation -- use it to make predictions, than see those predictions come true. Which is notoriously tough in the case of climate because there are so many freaky variables. :)

Respectfully,

Brian P.

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I wonder if anyone's ever made an airtight scale model of the earth. (Maybe use jello or some other not-exactly-a-liquid for the watery parts). You could add or subtract gases from the atmosphere to see if that affected surface temperature from a light source at scale distance from the sun. Wouldn't help with micro weather patterns, but you could use it to test a whole bunch of the variables. Vary the light source's power (to scale), add or subtract gases, maybe even model the effects of volcanoes if they rig something inside the "planet core." It wouldn't be an exact model since it's not in a vacuum (heat's always going to creep in), but it could provide some experimental evidence that planet-wide testing can't.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pendell

Actually, I'll take that a step further -- we need to be able to reliably predict global temperature over a time period, the more lengthy the better.

I had a 14 year career building computer models, and in the industry I worked in our models were REALLY, REALLY good at reproducing past events but were REALLY, REALLY BAD at predicting what would happen in the future.

A wise man once said "All models are wrong, but some models are useful". So the world's biggest computer and all the data isn't very useful if we don't know what we're doing. If we DO know what we're doing, we may only need a fraction of that data.

In any case, the only way to validate a computer model is by experimental validation -- use it to make predictions, than see those predictions come true. Which is notoriously tough in the case of climate because there are so many freaky variables. :)

Respectfully,

Brian P.

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This is kind of the problem, I spent a while studying neural networks and one thing we studied (and I was guilty of in one of my scripts) was the concept of over training. The concept being you fed in TOO MUCH known data and locked it down too tight to what you knew so that when an unknown variable came in the model was too rigid and borked up. We definately need to work on the problem, but it does render all such predictions invalid. Again going back to the better known (to me) example of global warming - its a dead arguement, theres plenty of "proof" on both sides and in the end it is meaningless. Saving CO2 is good for plenty of reasons without worrying about global warming.

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I do think these computer models are quite cool, I just don't think they are practical
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Originally Posted by Telonius

I wonder if anyone's ever made an airtight scale model of the earth. (Maybe use jello or some other not-exactly-a-liquid for the watery parts). You could add or subtract gases from the atmosphere to see if that affected surface temperature from a light source at scale distance from the sun. Wouldn't help with micro weather patterns, but you could use it to test a whole bunch of the variables. Vary the light source's power (to scale), add or subtract gases, maybe even model the effects of volcanoes if they rig something inside the "planet core." It wouldn't be an exact model since it's not in a vacuum (heat's always going to creep in), but it could provide some experimental evidence that planet-wide testing can't.

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Well, people haven't made a "scale earth" but there have been plenty of experiments involving glass boxes of various gases that do prove CO2 and CH3 trap heat and cause an increase in temperature. I imagine the big problem with a scale "earth" would be simulating the gravity. It would also have to be rather huge to start to have a weather system.