Low Sunspot Activity = A Mini-Ice Age?

Another quick note for tonight:

Over at American Thinker there is a short little post about decreased sunspot activity and the possible impact on our climate. In times past, low sunspot activity has resulted in what has been termed a “mini-ice age”.  Since the same people who touted global cooling in the 1970s are the same people who are now screaming global warming, more than likely the same voices will be raised when the earth’s climate changes yet again, just like it has done over the years, is doing now, and will do for the foreseeable future.

It certainly didn’t take long for those scientists who have staked their reputations on the whole global warming scheme to come up with a counter-point.

The temperature change associated with any reduction in sunspot activity would likely be minimal and may not be enough to offset the impact of greenhouse gases on global warming, according to scientists who have published recent papers on the topic.

“Recent solar 11-year cycles are associated empirically with changes in global surface temperatures of 0.1 Celsius.” Said Judith Lean, a solar Physicist with the US Naval Research Laboratory.

If the cycles were to stop or slow down, the small fluctuation in temperature would do the same, eliminating the slightly cooler effect of a solar minimum compared to the warmer solar maximum. The phenomenon was witness during the descending phase of the last solar cycle.

This “cancelled part of the greenhouse gas warming of the period 2000-2008, causing the net global surface temperature to remain approximately flat – and leading to the big debate of why the Earth hadn’t (been) warming in the past decade,” Lean, who was not involved in the three studies presented, said in an email to AFP.

“A new Maunder-type solar activity minimum cannot offset the global warming caused by human greenhouse gas emissions,” wrote authors Georg Feulner and Stefan Rahmstorf, noting that forecasts by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have found a range of 3.7 Celsius to 4.5 Celsius rise by the century’s end compared to the latter half of the 20th century. (Note from PACNE Righty: the amount of temperature change forecasted is the same amount that occurred over the 20th century)

“Moreover, any offset of global warming due to a grand minimum of solar activity would be merely a temporary effect, since the distinct solar minima the millennium typically lasted for only several decades or a century at most.” (Source: Yahoo News)

Sure sounds like these guys are in their last ditch efforts of push the progressive global warming agenda so they can continue to control how we live out lives