According to James Delingpole in the Daily Telegraph, a new ice age is on its way:
‘It’s official: a new Ice Age is on its way. In what has been described as “the science story of the century”, heavyweight US solar physicists have announced that the sun is heading for a prolonged period of low activity. This makes global cooling a much more plausible prospect in the next few decades than global warming. Indeed, it might even usher in a lengthy period of climate grimness such as we saw during the Maunder Minimum (when Ice Fairs were held on the Thames) or the Dalton Minimum (which brought us such delights as the 1816 Year Without A Summer).’
As is frequently the case with this sort of thing it’s a good idea to try and find out what the scientists actually said. The ‘National Solar Observatory’, where one of the authors works has a press release on the research (http://www.nso.edu/press/SolarActivityDrop.html). An almost identical press release can be found on the site of ‘Southwest Research Institute Planetary Science Directorate (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/14/all-three-of-these-lines-of-research-to-point-to-the-familiar-sunspot-cycle-shutting-down-for-a-while/). The difference between the two, the NSO has the following follow-up statement:
‘In response to news inquiries and stories, Dr. Frank Hill issued a follow-up statement: "We are NOT predicting a mini-ice age. We are predicting the behavior of the solar cycle. In my opinion, it is a huge leap from that to an abrupt global cooling, since the connections between solar activity and climate are still very poorly understood. My understanding is that current calculations suggest only a 0.3 degree C decrease from a Maunder-like minimum, too small for an ice age. It is unfortunate that the global warming/cooling studies have become so politically polarizing."’
Sadly Delingpole and his sources ‘Watts Up With That’ and ‘The Global Warming Policy Foundation’, as well as quite a few others don’t bother with the follow-up statement. Sure, it was added after, but still, you might think that being dedicated to informing us, they could have bothered to update their articles. Then again, perhaps not!
PS: Credit to the Guardian, they did present the story accurately (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/jun/16/sun-astronomy?INTCMP=SRCH) and so did the Telegraph’s environment correspondent (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tomchiversscience/100092506/is-a-new-little-ice-age-coming-whats-the-rule-about-questions-in-headlines-again/). Elsewhere in the Telegraph the mini-ice age story continues to run…
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