Solar activity Vs anthropogenic Climate Change
I read the news today, oh boy.
New research has been published indicating that solar activity has been in steady decline since the 1940s. This suggests that there is a tug-of-war currently under way between the effects of reduced solar activity on the climate (making the globe cooler) and the effects of human carbon (and other) emissions on the climate (making the globe warmer). Right now, it seems humanity is “winning” the battle.
However, it does seem possible that might change if solar activity continues to drop as is predicted by the new research. Far from offering ammunition to climate change sceptics (how long before fossil fuel companies seize upon this as a marketing opportunity?) this presents an even more terrifying prospect for human (and other) life on this planet. Because it seems to me that this research conclusively demonstrates that we have passed the important tipping points with regards to atmospheric changes; the worst effects of which may have been masked by the decline in solar output.
So even if we do find ourselves drifting into a mini-Ice Age, the historical precedent for this drop in solar activity seems to suggest it will pick up again after a relatively short period of time (there was an 80 year period in the 17th century during which solar output went through the same kind of decline). One assumes the atmospheric changes we have wrought with our industrial output will be massively magnified once the sun starts to ramp up again. From Ice Age to near-global desertification in the space of a century?
We need not only to radically cut our emissions, but we need to return large areas of arable land to uncultivated woodland in order to capture some of the carbon we’ve already released. I suspect that’s politically impossible right now… let’s hope for a more enlightened tomorrow.
Even while solar decline keeps us cooler, the impacts of increased CO2 are still terrifying. If we keep acidifying the oceans then the life therein loses the ability to form shells properly. That takes a massive section out of a foundational end of the food chain.
July 12th, 2013 | 1:14pm
by Merrick
Absolutely Merrick. I’m certainly not trying to minimise the impact of emissions on the climate. Quite the opposite. And the impact of emissions on other systems (such as ocean acidification) obviously won’t be offset by a drop in solar output.
To me, this research makes the whole thing more terrifying, not less so.
July 12th, 2013 | 1:16pm
by Jim Bliss
[…] Solar activity Vs anthropogenic Climate Change | The Quiet Road […]
July 12th, 2013 | 6:56pm
by Solar activity Vs anthropogenic Climate Change | The Quiet Road | Solar Flare 2012
“We need not only to radically cut our emissions, but we need to return large areas of arable land to uncultivated woodland in order to capture some of the carbon we’ve already released. I suspect that’s politically impossible right now… let’s hope for a more enlightened tomorrow”
http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2013/07/why-china-wants-us-grown-pork-chops
If the article that I recently happened upon is even partially true, then the enlightened tomorrow is quite unlikely. Indeed, the large areas of arable land being returned to uncultivated woodland is exactly the opposite of what the China of tomorrow will look like. As the article references from pretty solid sources, China intends to relocate 250 million citizens (nearly the population of the US) from rural agricultural areas,granted that it is cultivated land, to urban areas and doubling the capacity of the coal-gasification plants. Either of those two scenarios should cause huge concern, taken together I would say this is near “worst case” for all.
August 1st, 2013 | 3:07pm
by ron