Oh, Boy. If it's not one thing its another.

Last year when I heard of diminished sun spot activity as a possible forecaster of cooling weather, I thought maybe that it was an unsubstantiated theory, possibly being promoted by the carbon fuel industries to dilute anxirty over global warming. But as time goes by, similar reports keep showing up in scientific journals. Maybe there's something to it. Here's a recent example, followed by another article addressing other causes of cyclical glaciation which the quoted scientists are presenting as possibly on our horizon. (From a personal perspective, I dont think it's fair that, as they postulate, we only get ten or twelve thosand years of warming, then a hundred thousand years of cooling. - But I'm glad Kim and Ross have established a familial outpost in the sunny southwest in case others in the family are driven to migrate in ten or twenty years as the Midwest becomes tundra.)

It’s the Sun, stupid!
By Willie Soon, solar and climate scientist

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5 Mar 09 – (Excerpts) "The amount and distribution of solar energy that we receive varies as the Earth revolves around the Sun and also in response to changes in the Sun’s activity. Scientists have now been studying solar influences on climate for 5000 years.

"Chinese imperial astronomers kept detailed sunspot records. They noticed that more sunspots meant warmer weather on Earth. In 1801, the celebrated astronomer William Herschel noticed that when there were few spots, the price of wheat soared – because, he surmised, less “light and heat” from the Sun resulted in reduced harvests.

The price of wheat soared! As I've been sayingall along, I fear that
we'll be fighting in the streets for food long before we're covered by ice.

"Between 1645 and 1715, sunspots were very rare and temperatures were low. Then sunspot frequency grew until, between 1930 and 2000, the Sun was more active than at almost any time in the last 10,000 years. The oceans can cause up to several decades of delay before air temperatures respond fully to this solar “Grand Maximum.” Now that the Sun is becoming less active again, global temperatures have fallen for seven years.

More active than at almost any time in the last 10,000 years!

"We have known for nearly 80 years that small changes in solar activity can cause large climatic changes. Where sunlight falls, for how long, and with what effect, determine how climate will respond.

"The most recent scientific evidence shows that even small changes in solar radiation have a strong effect on Earth’s temperature and climate.


The second article:

See entire article by Gregory F. Fegel
http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/106922-earth_ice_age-0

(Most data) shows a strong correlation with the three astronomical cycles known as the Milankovich cycles. … (including) the tilt of the earth, which varies over a 41,000 year period; the shape of the earth’s orbit, which changes over a period of 100,000 years; and the Precession of the Equinoxes, also known as the earth’s ‘wobble’, which gradually rotates the direction of the earth’s axis over a period of 26,000 years. According to the Milankovich theory of Ice Age causation, these three astronomical cycles, each of which effects the amount of solar radiation which reaches the earth, act together to produce the cycle of cold Ice Age maximums and warm interglacials.

In 1976 the prestigious journal “Science” published a landmark paper by John Imbrie, James Hays, and Nicholas Shackleton entitled “Variations in the Earth's orbit: Pacemaker of the Ice Ages,” which described the correlation … between the climate data obtained from ocean sediment cores and the patterns of the astronomical Milankovich cycles.

Imbrie, Hays, and Shackleton wrote that "…the results indicate that the long-term trend over the next 20,000 years is towards extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation and cooler climate."

In 1999 the British journal “Nature” published the results of data derived from glacial ice cores collected at the Russia’s Vostok station in Antarctica during the 1990s. The Vostok ice core data includes a record of global atmospheric temperatures, atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases, and airborne particulates starting from 420,000 years ago and continuing through history up to our present time.

The graph of the Vostok ice core data shows that the Ice Age maximums and the warm interglacials occur within a regular cyclic pattern, the graph-line of which is similar to the rhythm of a heartbeat on an electrocardiogram tracing.