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.
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/ 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? June 17, 2009: The sun is in the pits of a century-class solar minimum, and sunspots have been puzzlingly scarce for more than two years. Now, for the first time, solar physicists might understand why.
The current solar minimum has been so long and deep, it prompted some scientists to speculate that the sun might enter a long period with no sunspot activity at all, akin to the Maunder Minimum of the 17th century. This new result dispells those concerns. The sun's internal magnetic dynamo is still operating, and the sunspot cycle is not "broken."
Because it flows beneath the surface of the sun, the jet stream is not directly visible. Hill and Howe tracked its hidden motions via helioseismology. Shifting masses inside the sun send pressure waves rippling through the stellar interior. So-called "p modes" (p for pressure) bounce around the interior and cause the sun to ring like an enormous bell. By studying the vibrations of the sun's surface, it is possible to figure out what is happening inside. Similar techniques are used by geologists to map the interior of our planet.
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.
So if we all burn coal and start squeezing farts out of every cow we see can we reverse this trend?
We are having record snowfall for February.
Your plan sounds good to me.
well their goes my Ponzi scheme in carbon credits.............
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/ 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!
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.
So if we all burn coal and start squeezing farts out of every cow we see can we reverse this trend?
We are having record snowfall for February.
Your plan sounds good to me.
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.
Your premise is flawed because many "degreed" scientists have had their research ignored by the "peer-reviewed" concept. Why? Simply because their studies do not fit with the "consensus" - which is another significant flaw. When you mix political agendas with true scientific theory, the result is a hoax of unparalleled proportion.
There are other scientists who have shown the present solar minimum upon us. Its no secret, the sun has many high and low periods of activities - mostly cyclical.
From tree ring analysis to the 420,000 Vostok Ice Core, its all there for an objective analysis.
Mankind will be forced to live with its errant thinking and pay a high price.
The science of climatology is a complex blend of rigorous disciplines which go much father than CO2 concentrations. But the average person has little aptitude or inclination to educate themselves.
I think you just proved my first couple of comments.
Show me john L. Casey's credentials. I can't find them. Anywhere. What schools did he graduate from?
I got my Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of the Cumberlands, a fine school associated with the Southern Baptist Church.
My Master of Science Degree is from Eastern Kentucky University. While there I published my Master's thesis and and a paper on an important East Ky Forest.
In the latter paper I disagreed with the findings of one of the leading professors at the University of Kentucky. He did not "suppress" my research but supported it. That is what science is about.
I have seen scientific information suppressed by politicians but never by scientists.
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.
"Peer review" often works to stultify scientific discovery and advance and to reinforce the status quo of the exiting scientific power structure. Peer Review certainly provides some assurance (perhaps very little however) that a given scientific work is emprirically rigorous and scientifically sound, but the fact that an article or theory has not been peer reviewed is no evidence whatsoever that it lacks empirical or scientific validity. In the famous words of Albert Einstein when Hitler trotted out a bevy of nuclear physicists to try to undermine the claims of relativity, "it only takes one to prove me wrong"; and as Michael Crichton once famously remarked "[c]onsensus science is not science, it is politics".
Jordan
At least one climate skeptic does take Casey seriously: Casey is listed in
Sen. Jim Inhofe's (R-OK) report on "700 International Scientists [Who] Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims." Inhofe has called global warming the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people," and compared Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" to Hitler's Mein Kampf. Inhofe's lists of scientists are famous for being light on the climate scientists, and heavy on "economists and other social scientists, mathematicians, TV weathermen, retired scientists and amateurs, as well as scientists who have received support for their work from fossil fuel industries."
Media Matters
A link to another article of an "expert" that Sen Inhofe quotes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/u...e-researcher-Wei-Hock-Soon.html?emc=eta1
Rob, Stalin also supported Lysenko's theories of plant biology and found others to "prove" his claims, but SCIENCE eventually won out. How? Through testing, re testing and peer review.
That is how science works.
Can anyone find any proof that Casey has the degrees he claims?
It is interesting that I have never said anything about what my thoughts and opinions are regarding what the climate is doing or will do.
All I have questioned are the credentials of Mr. Casey.
Well here were I live Feb 2015 is shaping up to be the coldest since they been keeping records- and its not going to warm up any time soon! We are running a good 15 to 20 deg below normal! We need temps to get to around 45 to 50 and then drop back down to freezing, so the Sugar Maples sap starts to run, so the trees can be tapped and the sap rendered down to Maple Syrup- after all its really all about Pancakes and Waffles not Al Gore and his Ponzi scheme of carbon credits! Last year was a bust for the local guys, stayed to cold the whole time!
Oh for the days following it on NTSC TV.
Ah yes... just flip on channel 2, and you pretty much knew if it was worth getting on 6 meters.
I can't help but wonder who Isaac Newton's peer reviewers were? Unlike some, I don't have a lot of faith in that system. Note for example that most of the peer reviewers for articles on climate change were "warmists" who conspired to keep articles critical of their position out of print. And I've seen some perfectly awful "research" accepted for publication or presentation. I don't think the evidence supports the notion that peer review is very beneficial.
Does the solar cycle affect our climate? Perhaps. I don't think Casey is alone in his beliefs. I also don't think that the correlation is good enough to support the hypothesis. If you look at sunspot activity, there was a minimum around 1000 AD, which was a warm period. So I think Casey's theory is maybe a bit more credible than the warmist computer models, which have failed utterly. That's setting the bar pretty low.
Yet another hypothesis is that cosmic rays affect cloud formation, which in turn affects the albedo of the planet. (That's albedo. Libido is something quite different.) Some think that our solar system was in a region of space with more cosmic ray activity, and that produced The Little Ice Age. I don't know how you'd prove that, but it's an interesting hypothesis.
Rob, Stalin also supported Lysenko's theories of plant biology and found others to "prove" his claims, but SCIENCE eventually won out. How? Through testing, re testing and peer review.
That is how science works.
Can anyone find any proof that Casey has the degrees he claims?
Aaaaahh the ole' fallacy ad Stalinum (a variation of the better konwn fallacy ad Hitlerimun). I don't know whether peer review had anything to do with disproving Lyskenko's claims. It may well have. But that is beside the point. Often times, peer review works (quite perversely) to stultify and ossify scientific discovery by simply affirming the prejudices of those who wield the power of (peer) review. Of course science works through testing and proving (or disproving). That is obvious, but again quite beside the point. The fact that Casey's work has not been peer reviewed does not mean it has been disproved. Indeed, it tells us nothing about its scientific validity. The scientific and empirical validity of a theory is not established by whether others in the field (peers) find it agreeable. Rather, it's scientific validity is established by whether or not it is true. The fact that an article or theory is "peer reviewed" might provide some assurance as to its rigor (and ultimately its truth), but the fact that a theory has not been peer reviewed is no evidence whatsoever that it is one wit less scientifically or empirically valid than a competing theory that has passed peer reviewed. That question can only be answered by examining the supporting evidence, the rigorousness of the testing, and the logical validity and coherence of they theory itself (among other things). A theory is not invalid or lacking in empirical rigor simply because it has not been peer reviewed. (Especially in a field such as climate science which has been so heavily politicized). Put another way "absence of evidence (lack of peer review) is not evidence of absence" (evidence that a theory is not scientifically sound).
Jordan
And I ask once again, what are Casey's credentials and where did he come from?
You guys seem to prove my premise that you have an opinion and found someone who supports that opinion so you will defend him no matter what.
You give arguments why you disagree with peer review and the scientific ideal, but you have yet to show that the guy has validity other than that you agree with his opinions.
Again I have made no opinion about climate, only that I question why you think Mr. Casey is legitimate other than he supports your opinion.
And I ask once again, what are Casey's credentials and where did he come from?
You guys seem to prove my premise that you have an opinion and found someone who supports that opinion so you will defend him no matter what.
You give arguments why you disagree with peer review and the scientific ideal, but you have yet to show that the guy has validity other than that you agree with his opinions.
Again I have made no opinion about climate, only that I question why you think Mr. Casey is legitimate other than he supports your opinion.
If his credentials and where he came from are relevant to you, then look them up! The fact that others find his arguments compelling in no way burdens them to convince you.
Finally, nowhere did I defend Casey. I merely pointed out the logical fallacy in your criticsm of his theory (lack of peer review).
Jordan
The Greeks had a pretty good hierarchy of the quality of information:
Authority/opinion are the lowest quality information.
If authority/opinion conflict with sound analysis, analysis wins. Analysis is better than authority/opinion.
If the actual data conflict with sound analysis, the data win. Actual data is better than analysis. Data rules.
An appeal to credentials is an appeal to authority/opinion. It is the lowest form of information, and the most easily overcome. If Casey's data and analysis are good, that's all that counts.
I haven't read him, and have no opinion on whether or not he's right. I do think he has an interesting hypothesis.
If he has no credentials, but his data and analysis are sound, the credentials don't matter. Only the quality of the science matters.
I know nothing of Mr. Casey or what he wrote but do know that peer review does not address the correctness of the conclusions but rather does address whether the research was conducted and reported properly.
All I know is that none of us are getting out of this (life) alive.
Speak for yourself, Scott. I'm working on it. Check back with me in 50 or so.
The Greeks had a pretty good hierarchy of the quality of information:
Authority/opinion are the lowest quality information.
If authority/opinion conflict with sound analysis, analysis wins. Analysis is better than authority/opinion.
If the actual data conflict with sound analysis, the data win. Actual data is better than analysis. Data rules.
An appeal to credentials is an appeal to authority/opinion. It is the lowest form of information, and the most easily overcome. If Casey's data and analysis are good, that's all that counts.
I haven't read him, and have no opinion on whether or not he's right. I do think he has an interesting hypothesis.
If he has no credentials, but his data and analysis are sound, the credentials don't matter. Only the quality of the science matters.
Extremely well said Denton. Gonna cut and past that one.
If he has no credentials, but his data and analysis are sound, the credentials don't matter. Only the quality of the science matters.
And how would someone without any training in the field produce sound data and analysis?
If he has no credentials, but his data and analysis are sound, the credentials don't matter. Only the quality of the science matters.
And how would someone without any training in the field produce sound data and analysis?
Two faulty assumptions: (1) that Casey has no relevant training and (2) that a person cannot produce sound data and analysis without some sort of (formal)training (or an academic degree). The history of the world is full of stories of "laypersons" who confounded experts and the recieved wisdom of their day with novel theories and conclusions that others had been unable to see. In any event, Casey has plenty of credentials so the point is prolly moot.
With peer review it's sometimes hard to tell where science ends and politics start, witness global warming. Or Einstein's General Relativity for that matter. Everyone has an ox to gore and it's natural to want to defend it. Still skepticism is good, even Feynman did not claim quantum electrodynamics was complete even though theory agrees with experimental results with exquisite precision (so far). One problem with this long term stuff is you're looking backward rather than setting up an experiment and looking forward. That brings in a lot of assumptions.
And I love computer simulations, why there have been warnings from respected design engineers all along not to trust things like Spice. Even if you build your own (fun with Excel
) there's an overpowering urge to tweak constants until the results begin to look like what you expected. Then when you prototype you go, "What the hell??"
Don't know but I suspect that and imprecise assumptions is what happened with the "hocky stick" result.
Thomas Kuhn "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions"
If you are not familiar with this book, then you do not understand the nature of scientific "consensus."
If you have read the book, you understand full well what is going on with the "consensus" agendas.
Speak for yourself, Scott. I'm working on it. Check back with me in 50 or so.
You know that just because they find you in the permafrost in 5000 years looking the same, don't mean you're alive...
Denton, if you have the time, read Thomas Kuhn's
The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions.
Kuhn states that scientists spend most (if not all) of their careers in a process of puzzle-solving. Their puzzle-solving is pursued with great tenacity, because the previous successes of the established paradigm tend to generate great confidence that the approach being taken guarantees that a solution to the puzzle exists, even though it may be very hard to find. Kuhn calls this process normal science.
As a paradigm is stretched to its limits, anomalies — failures of the current paradigm to take into account observed phenomena — accumulate. Their significance is judged by the practitioners of the discipline. Some anomalies may be dismissed as errors in observation, others as merely requiring small adjustments to the current paradigm that will be clarified in due course. Some anomalies resolve themselves spontaneously, having increased the available depth of insight along the way. But no matter how great or numerous the anomalies that persist, Kuhn observes, the practicing scientists will not lose faith in the established paradigm until a credible alternative is available; to lose faith in the solvability of the problems would in effect mean ceasing to be a scientist.
In any community of scientists, Kuhn states, there are some individuals who are bolder than most. These scientists, judging that a crisis exists, embark on what Thomas Kuhn calls revolutionary science, exploring alternatives to long-held, obvious-seeming assumptions. Occasionally this generates a rival to the established framework of thought. The new candidate paradigm will appear to be accompanied by numerous anomalies, partly because it is still so new and incomplete. The majority of the scientific community will oppose any conceptual change, and, Kuhn emphasizes, so they should. To fulfill its potential, a scientific community needs to contain both individuals who are bold and individuals who are conservative. There are many examples in the history of science in which confidence in the established frame of thought was eventually vindicated. It is almost impossible to predict whether the anomalies in a candidate for a new paradigm will eventually be resolved. Those scientists who possess an exceptional ability to recognize a theory's potential will be the first whose preference is likely to shift in favour of the challenging paradigm. There typically follows a period in which there are adherents of both paradigms. In time, if the challenging paradigm is solidified and unified, it will replace the old paradigm, and a paradigm shift will have occurred.
Thanks to all for the spirited discussion on this thread.
My post was intended to help spread the word on the current solar minimum and it seems that some folks were already aware, some unaware, and some in denial.
There is no excuse for anyone that has been exposed to the possibility of severely cold weather in the coming decades to not be prepared when it happens.
For those that remain unconvinced here is more information:
https://nextgrandminimum.wordpress.com/category/history/dalton/
Solar activity is definitely a piece of the climate puzzle, other parts include volcanic activity, ocean currents, the jet stream, snow/cloud cover (albedo), feedback loops, and possibly CO2 and methane in the atmosphere. It is very complex puzzle with many different drivers that makes what is going on with climate difficult to predict. Is solar activity the only driver or primary driver of climate? Probably not, but it is definitely a part of the puzzle that shouldn't be ignored.