| | I can't resist commenting on the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute's essay, in which the author contends that "global warming" may cause the onset of a Little Ice Age. I am no climateologist, but I am willing to bet money that this notion is logically absurd. It sounds like still another apology for the hypothesis of anthropological global warming, in which even plunging temperatures and accumulating snow and ice are marshalled as evidence of CO2 caused "global warming."
I'll have to read the first, "Sudden Climate Transitions", later. I have done some limited reading about climateology, and the theme of sudden and brief transitions from warm to cold is true. That is, there is a lot of evidence changes occur abruptly rather than gradually.
Robert Felix self-published an interesting book, packed with findings from climateologists, oceanographers, astronomers, and climate history; the book is entitled "Not by Fire, but by Ice". Henrik Svensmark, a Danish scientist, and Neil Calder, a British science writer, co-authored a breathtaking book entitled "The Chilling Stars: A New Theory of Climate Change".
Svensmark proved that long, multi-year, sweeping cyclical changes in the sun's magnetic activity--cycles that are known to exist--produce great changes in the earth's climate. When the sun's magnetic acitivity swings upward, "solar winds" blast ionized particles to the far reaches of the solar system. These solar winds greatly reduce the penetration of gamma rays--fast-moving ions--through the earth's magnetic shield into our lower atmosphere. Reduced ions create the conditions for reduced formation of cloud cover, because--as Svensmark proved in laboratory experiments that mimicked our atmosphere--ions serve as the nucleui around which water vapor form into clouds. Reduced cloud cover leads to warmer conditions. Alternatively, when the sun's magnetic activity sweeps downward--or, "plunges" quickly to a "minimum"--the influx of ions into the earth's lower atmosphere rises a lot, creating more clouds, bigger precipitation events, and cooling. Svensmark catelogued the climatic results of past solar magnetic cycles, going back millions of years, and determiend that these cycles correlate almost ideally with cooling and warming on earth. The correlation is much stronger than any correlation from changes in CO2, notwithstanding evidence that suggests CO2 swings occur as the result, rather than the cause, of warming and cooling.
Svensmark proved his theory in the face of blatant hostility from establishment "climateologists", who sustain their "prestige" by swimming with political/cultural tides, and who receive salaries, grants, and fellowships from the State. Still, he persisted, raising some funding from private sources until he was able to land a tax-dollar grant large enough to perform his experiments in a cloud chamber.
Outraged establishment-science cheerleaders, referred to by the press as "scientists", have published several attempted refutations of Svensmark's discovery. But the refutations consist of 9 parts bluster and indignation, and one part science, sometimes obviously written in haste without clear understanding of Svensmark's facts.
I recommend his book, which suggests that the next major climatic change will be toward cooler temperatures. Perhaps soon.
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