The Ice Age Cometh?

[semillama]

Any astronomer/climate watchers want to weigh in on this latest sunspot study, claiming we could be in for another "Little Ice Age" event? The climate change denialists are crowing about it.

http://www.space.com/11960-fading-sunspots-slower-solar-activity-solar-cycle.html

Warning: Comments on this article are full of denier trolls - see if you can spot the Glenn Beck fan for extra points!

[valerief]

1. Uh, isn't an ice age an effect of global warming?

In quick summary, if enough cold, fresh water coming from the melting polar ice caps and the melting glaciers of Greenland flows into the northern Atlantic, it will shut down the Gulf Stream, which keeps Europe and northeastern North America warm. The worst-case scenario would be a full-blown return of the last ice age - in a period as short as 2 to 3 years from its onset - and the mid-case scenario would be a period like the "little ice age" of a few centuries ago that disrupted worldwide weather patterns leading to extremely harsh winters, droughts, worldwide desertification, crop failures, and wars around the world.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0130-11.htm

I don't find this hard to comprehend.

[CJvR]

2. Well...

...technically we should be about to enter an Iceage, the interglacial periods have generally been 10000 years long so we are due.

[valerief]

3. Is it cyclical? What's the trigger? nt

[Silent3]

4. A new Maunder Minimum would be a damned lucky coincidence...

...to possibly counteract (to some degree) the greenhouse effect. Maybe this gives us more time to get off fossil fuels -- although even without climate change, the growing scarcity of fossil fuels and their other environmental downsides should still be sufficient reason to be transitioning to renewable energy as fast as we can.

[Orsino]

5. Several more years of Republicans braying about how cold it is outside...

...and that real Americans burn fossil fuels, goddammit.