
Winter is Coming – Super Grand Solar Minimum - olivermarks
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/11/winter-is-coming-super-grand-solar-minimum.html
======
starbeast
"In the press release, we didn’t say anything about climate change. My guess
is when they heard about Maunder minimum, they used Wikipedia or something to
find out more about it."

\- Valentina Zharkova

[https://theconversation.com/the-mini-ice-age-hoopla-is-a-
gia...](https://theconversation.com/the-mini-ice-age-hoopla-is-a-giant-
failure-of-science-communication-45037)

edit - what I really want to know is why the people who stand so utterly in
disbelief about the wide ranging study of fluid dynamics and the effects of
the changing spectra of light absorption, transmission and radiation in the
atmosphere here on earth, especially when it involves the phases of matter
that we are generally most used to, are so quick to put their chips down on a
single study predicting the long term magneto-hydrodynamics of an entire star.

~~~
Eiriksmal
That was a fun article, starbeast, but the most interesting part was buried at
the end:

"So it seems Zharkova’s justification is based on media extrapolation of her
own press release and Wikipedia, not the extensive peer-reviewed literature on
the Maunder minimum itself.

I emailed Zharkova and she sent me two studies that support her views, but
they aren’t representative of the literature and I don’t believe she has
critically evaluated their content." \- Michael J. I. Brown, author of The
Conversation article

So the author of the article is upset that the astronomer in question never
thought about the correlation between reduced solar activity and a mini-ice
age until hearing the connection from the media. After she decides that, yes,
"We didn’t mention anything about the weather change, but I would have to
agree that possibly you can expect it [a mini ice age]." He determines that a)
Zharkova doesn't know what she believes and b) even if she did, her peer-
reviewed literature is inferior to his own and she obviously doesn't what
she's talking about.

Mr. Brown then concludes by _declaring_ there will be no mini-ice age, without
any proof, drawing from the weasly "More recent studies, including those by
Lean, find the solar irradiance varies less than was thought in 1997."

~~~
starbeast
>So the author of the article is upset that the astronomer in question never
thought about the correlation between reduced solar activity and a mini-ice
age until hearing the connection from the media. After she decides that, yes,
"We didn’t mention anything about the weather change, but I would have to
agree that possibly you can expect it [a mini ice age]." He determines that a)
Zharkova doesn't know what she believes and b) even if she did, her peer-
reviewed literature is inferior to his own and she obviously doesn't what
she's talking about.

If a mathematician and astrophysicist pushing their theory about the inner
working of the sun has only just thought about potential impacts on
climatology due to sudden media excitement, then they have probably just
skimmed it compared to actual climatologists. There is already existing
research into the effects of a grand minimum on climate change, is not as
though climatologists aren't going to think to look into that. Here's a paper
from 2010;

"On the effect of a new grand minimum of solar activity on the future climate
on Earth"

[http://www.pik-
potsdam.de/%7Estefan/Publications/Journals/fe...](http://www.pik-
potsdam.de/%7Estefan/Publications/Journals/feulner_rahmstorf_2010.pdf)

Here's the summary -

"In summary, global mean temperatures in the year 2100 would most likely be
diminished by about 0.1°C. Even taking into account all uncertainties in the
temperature re-construction, the forcings, and the model physics, the overall
uncertainty is estimated to be at most a factor of 3, so the offset should not
be larger than 0.3°C. Comparing this to the 3.7°C and 4.5°C temperature rise
relative to 1961 1990 until the end of the century under the IPCC A1B and A2
emission scenarios, respectively, a new Maunder type solar activity minimum
cannot offset the global warming caused by human greenhouse gas emissions.
Moreover, any offset of global warming due to a grand minimum of solar
activity would be merely a temporary effect, since the distinct solar minima
during the last millennium typically lasted for only several decades or a
century at most."

Also, the scientist in question says that at best, "the Sun buys us time to
stop these carbon emissions", so she is still worrying about the climate
getting hotter.

------
ChuckMcM
The lack of Solar variability in the IPCC models is a "known issue"[1] which
is, in my opinion, an under stated position as the bulk of the heat/energy in
the Earth's system comes from the Sun.

That said, the science around it is pretty interesting. Whether or not it puts
the Earth into a cooling trend it is affecting the propagation of radio waves
around the planet and as an amateur radio operator, having a 'quiet' Sun
creates a pretty unique opportunity for operating in a previously unexplored
solar regime.

[1] _More research to investigate the effects of solar behaviour on climate is
needed before the magnitude of solar effects on climate can be stated with
certainty._ \-- IPCC 2007 Working Group
([https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch1s1-4...](https://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch1s1-4-3.html))

~~~
ben_w
Out of curiosity, I just looked up solar variations. Wikipedia says the
average (over a year) solar irradiance goes from 1365.5 /m^2 to 1366.5 W/m^2,
which is larger than the estimate in your link.

By comparison, the estimated net effect of anthropogenic temperature forcing
is 1.5 W/m^2.

Yes, this is relevant and should be in models.

However, I would be shocked if they have made _no_ effort to include it. It’s
a cycle with straightforward values, thinking they’re ignoring it completely
is like thinking Apple has made an iPhone app and forgotten to test it on an
iPad for 40 years.

Indeed, most of your link appears to be the science version of “we tested it
on every combination of device we can, but we’d like some budget to go on eBay
and get an original iPad running iOS 3”.

------
k_
I'm worrying; could it hide the effects of global warming? (or whatever name
is used now)

I'm afraid this could result in even less support from the governments and/or
less effort to reduce emissions and other climate-changing actions. Which
could be disastrous at the end of the ~ 40 years...

~~~
onion2k
More optimistically, this _could_ buy us a ~40 year stay of execution that'll
be very useful in actually fixing the problems.

~~~
hyperbovine
And what, pray tell, gives you cause to believe that we would spend those 40
years productively addressing said problems? Because all available evidence
seems to point to the contrary.

~~~
onion2k
_And what, pray tell, gives you cause to believe that we would spend those 40
years productively addressing said problems?_

I live in an apartment with a view over a port that maintains the ships that
build offshore wind farms. They've been getting busier and busier over the
past decade. I literally see people working on (a small part of) the solution
every day.

------
olivermarks
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum#Little_Ice_Age](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum#Little_Ice_Age)
The last Maunder Minimum was between 1645 to 1715 but there is no agreement
(as usual) on whether it was a major contributor to the 'mini ice age' that
occurred at the same time and had a big impact on food supplies.

Interesting that Annie Maunder was not recognized at the time due to lack of
formal education qualifications. Two papers were published in Edward Maunder's
name in 1890[4] and 1894,[5] and he cited earlier papers written by Gustav
Spörer.[6] Because Annie Maunder had not received a university degree, due to
restrictions at the time, her contribution was not then publicly
recognized.[7]

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ohiovr
This will cause the oceans to absorb a lot of CO2 from the atmosphere due to
increased solubility of the lower temperature ocean water.

------
duckqlz
We had all better do our part and emit as much carbon as possible to avoid the
incoming solar winter!

------
opendomain
So - this is predicting cooler weather by 0.5 degrees Celsius that could last
up to 40 years? This is not climate change ' this is due solar activity being
out of alignment with the earth. However, this may cause people to believe
global warming may not vve caused by humans.

~~~
guscost
How is this not climate change? It's a (predicted) change in the climate.

~~~
abootstrapper
Because when people talk about “climate change” they’re mostly referring to
the change in the climate due to the increase in carbon emissions due to human
activity.

~~~
guscost
Gee, it’s almost as if the phrase means whatever is needed at the time to win
an argument.

When an opponent says that the evidence of anthropogenic cause and/or
catastrophic effects doesn’t meet the threshold of proof they want before
supporting regulatory schemes, oh look they are denying [that the] climate
change[s]. It’s basic science!

And if they say that of course the climate changes, has changed a lot more in
the distant past than we’ve ever seen firsthand, and humans probably affect it
in many ways, well they’re ignoring how the phrase “climate change” is used in
the literature, which implies a _particular_ anthropogenic cause and
catastrophic effects!

~~~
titzer
I think you're being downvoted because you pose a false dichotomy. Crazy
people say stuff all the time. Say "A" and group X denounces you, say "not A"
and group Y denounces you. They aren't always the same people.

But regardless, I think you're giving a very cartoonish version of any of
these scenarios, perhaps just due to brevity.

But I'll counter by being brief, too. Yep, the climate is changing. It's
mostly bad. Lots of shit is dying, and we could too. And it's mostly our
fault.

