Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Solar Minimum = 30 years of colder weather!

I just finished the book Dark Winter by Casey wherein he summarizes how the sun has recently entered a "solar minimum" and the reduced energy output from the sun will result in slightly lower average temperatures around the globe with some not so pleasant side effects for life on earth. The cooler period should only last about 30 years before the minimum ends and if you do not want to read the book, you can read about it by clicking on the following link:

http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/dark-winter-cold-global-cooling/2014/11/16/id/607672/

Being a ham radio operator, I'm interested in solar activity. It influences long distance radio propagation.

Probably 50 years ago, one of the ham rags ran an article on the Maunder Minimum, a prolonged period of lower solar activity. So I went to the library and read a bit more.

Turns out that the Maunder Minimum corresponds to a very cold, dark period in Earth's history. I always wondered about a connection.

I suspect that we are heading into a few decades of very cold weather. The only good thing about that is that Al Gore will be freezing his butt off along with the rest of us.

Global warming is a good thing, not the evil that Al talks about.

This can not be! We were assured that the earth was warming and the polar ice caps were melting and the property owners in northern La. were going to have 'ocean front property'.

You have to be mistaken!

That's why it isn't global warming anymore. It's global climate change now. That covers everything.

Ernie

The largest power plant in the world - Three Gorges Dam in China - produces 98.9 terawatt hours of energy per year. The Sun releases energy at a rate of about 80 quadrillion Three Gorges Dams every second. The human notion that we somehow control the earth's climate proves our arrogance.

Good thing obama vetoed the pipeline

So if we all burn coal and start squeezing farts out of every cow we see can we reverse this trend?

Global warming, global cooling, climate change, or whatever the liberal phrase of the day that relates to it, has occurred since the first day cycle of earth.

The difference is, that liberals think we humans are responsible for it.

It's getting old. They are grasping at straws now.

Was the last "mini ice-age" during the Revolutionary War?

This will make it harder for the climate "scientists" to cook the books.

One would think that after 7-8 years of reduced solar activity that we would have seen some significant cooling by now, but we haven't.

Mystery of the Missing Sunspots, Solved?

I have been a Ham radio operator for 3 years now... like Denton mentioned radio propagation is directly related to how active the sun is.... one minute you can be talking with someone is say Australia and they will sound like they are parked in your driveway and then "Poof" it is like a switch has been turned off and they are just gone.

I can adjust to colder longer Winters.... but Solar minimums suck for Ham radio operators... I blame Fat Al....

"Long, hard, colder winters" is not what I wanted to hear right about now.

We are having record snowfall for February.

Your plan sounds good to me.

well their goes my Ponzi scheme in carbon credits.............

And insurance rates have already been adjusted accordingly. Part of a fed mandate presently being fought against.

The extreme weather during those times was caused/influenced by volcano's in the Pacific.

Denton,

I've been more or less following solar cycles for a long time, not scientifically but looking for correlations. I was always mesmerized by aurora and 6m skip. Oh for the days following it on NTSC TV.)It seems to match our local more or less 11 year drought/wet hot/cold cycles. More obvious on the prairie where there are fewer moderating influences. With this weak cycle not so much. As of a few years ago the only real theory involved heating of the upper atmosphere due to particles and UV spectrum photons, Mostly the photons IIRC (which I may not). Anyway, upper atmosphere heating influences high altitude steering currents and the butterfly effect carries it forward. People have been looking but I don't know if anyone's got a better grip on correlation/causation.

For the last several days I have been spending a lot of time sitting out on the deck in the sun and reading. Highs have been it the mid 50's. I have not seen a single snow flake this year. I am afraid we will suffer for it this summer.

One of the biggest dilemmas of the internet, is that while it gives all of us access to more information then we have ever had before, it gives us that information without knowledgable referees who can advise if the stuff we are looking at is true or false.
It doesn't matter if the subject is firearms, fashion, religion or science, if you have an opinion or point of view, you can find some net expert who will agree with you and support your opinions.
That is my problem with John L. Casey. He says that he is an engineer, a space shuttle expert, but his degrees are in the Arts fields not science or engineering. All of his stuff is self published on the net, not in Scientific journals which are peer reviewed.

Since I am a degreed biologist with only an MS degree, I have published (long ago) peer reviewed articles and I know the rigor one must got through to get one's facts and results published in a scientific journal.
Until I see Mr. Casey's arguments go through a similar process I will ignore his books as opinion.