Anti-Mild

Great video Fred! It's true that Joe B is a bigger cold ramper than even TEITs but he is a meteorologist and he does know his stuff. It'll be interesting to see what effect the PDO phase switch has in this neck of the woods (if any).

I seem to remember reading something that said that SST anomalies in the North Atlantic move in a NE'ly direction over time. As such I would expect there to be a warm anomaly in the mid-Atlantic at a medium latitude by winter with the bulk of the cold anomaly around the British Isles.

Earlier in the summer I had a load of cabbage whites, red admirals, orange tips, and painted ladys. Very much quieter now although I did see a yellow and black one yesterday that may have been a speckled wood. I did see an absolutely monster dragonfly yesterday - no significant colouring but it's body must have been 10cm long!!

As an 'ice layman' I cannot help but make a correlation between the extent of N. Hemisphere sea ice and GW, although with a slight lag. Despite the levels being quite healthy in 2009 (in comparison to the last 2 years), it is still cause for concern. However, two things to look out for that may indicate to me that we are moving in the right direction with regard to a recovery of Arctic ice: 1 - seeing an ice extent above the long term average at any stage through the coming winter, and 2 - seeing the Baltic Sea closer to it's average as I feel that the Baltic Sea more closely reflects a more local picture and in recent years has been woefully short of the mean. http://www.fimr.fi/en/itamerinyt/en_GB/jaatilanne/ (this site hasn't been updated since May however they are still waiting for the first ice of the season and it will be updated then)

Another day bites the dust: http://www.spaceweather.com/ 8 spotless days in a row - another 6 weeks and we'll be up to 50 again!! We are sitting at 201 spotless days for the year (79%) and only need to have 66 more spotless days in the remainder of the year to beat last year, that's only 59%. Barring a sudden upturn in activity I reckon that 2009 has a chance to get into second place which is currently held by 1901 with 287 spotless days. To get to 288 requires us to maintain the 79% we currently sit at.

Maybe I'm being a touch dim but isn't it about to disappear around the other side of the sun?

No wind, cloudless sky, lovely! We had an overnight low of 7.1c and when I got up at 7am there was a dictinctly autumnal chill in the air :lol: .

And the 200 day mark has been reached. It seems that the sunspot last week was a temporary blip in an apparently prolonged silent spell.

But there is a severe winter just around the corner!! Consider the observed phase switch of PDO and NAO, the possible weak El Nino, the persistent southerly tracking jet, and the colder than average seas in our neck of the woods, and it's all in place. Back on topic.....what is causing warming? Hmmmmm...I'll get my coat :unsure: :lol: !!

That is a terrible article! Not only has the journalist taken the most alarmist aspect of potential GW I have yet to see, but has presented it in an incredibly biased way; note the use of 'will' instead of 'may'. Absolute claptrap and I give it the "most flagrant waste of (virtual) ink award" for 2009!! As I have said on other threads, I fell it is only a matter of time before a more balanced view of what lies in store for the climate becomes more widely recognised, although some organisations/publications will cling on to their propaganda for just a little bit longer than the rest!

So by that rationale the sun's activity should have peaked in 1998 and then went into a steady decline from then until now? Firstly, for simplicity, we'll ignore any time lag. Next, if you look at a graph showing sunspot numbers, you will see that there was a double peak in June 2000 and then again in October 2001. Surely the period around these peaks should have been warmest. However, if we then bring back the time lag factor we ought to have seen a record breaking year since 2001. And at no stage since the 1970's could a La Nina be described as strong. An argument could be made for a moderate one in 2000 and last year, but not enough to 'mask' GW. It is my opinion that GW will be essentially disproved in the next 2 decades, much as the 1970's idea of impending global cooling was by the warming in the 80's and 90's. It's all swings and roundabouts - not only on the longer time scale of interglacial and glacial periods, but on the more modest time frame of decades.

Perhaps it should be was very respected, unfortunately he died a few years back (2004 I think).It is a very good paper and it's one of the first links I can remember downloading on this forum. Mr Landscheit has always had his followers, particularly this Russian Scientist: http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20080103/94768732.html As has been said many times, it is far too early to tell whether we are heading towards a Maunder minimum, but as David Frost says, "the clues are there".

Interesting GIF there Mondy, amazing to see how their prediction has changed from forecasting a maximum of 150 all the way down to 90. Similarly the timeframe for the max has moved from 2010 to 2013/14.What it illustrates is that we are entering uncharted territory and NASA are as much in the dark as anybody else as to what is going to happen!

Do you have a link for that forum Steve?It seems to me that NASA are clinging to the idea that the maximum will be on the lower side of normal and seem to be unwilling to adjust their predictions to take account of current (not potential) conditions.

Is it me or is the latest prediction from NASA exactly the same as their last one? There seems to be a refusal to accept what is happening and adjust the prediction accordingly. Many thanks to all that have voted in the poll, general condensus seems to be that we are heading towards a Dalton-stylee minimum with some degree of global cooling. It seems rather strange to have been somewhat vindicated, particularly as I've been banging on about how GW is a myth for years to anyone who would listen!!! Anyway, back on topic....the current sunspot is fading and there remains doubt as to whether the farside spot is even a spot after all. More blank suns coming methinks!

For those that are interested, I have just started a poll on the possible depth of solar minimum. It's here: http://www.netweather.tv/forum/topic/56643-how-severe-will-the-suns-minimum-be/page__pid__1585682__st__0entry1585682 Vote if you want but you can't post in the thread. For the discussion element, please see shuggee's new thread over in t'other forum! Many thanks.

I've copied this from the Solar Activity thread as it probably applies more to this new one. A rudimentary search on Google brings up hundreds of articles offering theories as to why the concept of global warming is dead in the water. Granted, the vast majority of these are not peer-reviewed but it wasn't that long ago that the only literature available that supported the views of GW sceptics could be found on 'extremist' websites such as Ice Age Now (don't get me wrong, it's a good site but it is very single-minded). Now, a more balanced view is starting to get into the mainstream, and in my opinion this will, in time, turn the whole field of climate change on it's head. As an aside, I was pondering the quiescent state of the sun and what it could mean in the medium/long term. If we are staring down the barrel of a Dalton minimum, how long before the effects are felt in the global climate? How much of a lag can we expect to see? What if we are looking at a Maunder-type minimum? IMO, if the sun slips into a deep and prolonged minimum, we may be looking at a new LIA, and the potential forecasted consequences may be as bad as the outlandish predictions that AGW caused in the 1990's and early millenium. Even as a confirmed cold ramper, I must admit to being more than a little concerned.

This is very true. A rudimentary search on Google brings up hundreds of articles offering theories as to why the concept of global warming is dead in the water. Granted, the vast majority of these are not peer-reviewed but it wasn't that long ago that the only literature available that supported the views of GW sceptics could be found on 'extremist' websites such as Ice Age Now (don't get me wrong, it's a good site but it is very single-minded). Now, a more balanced view is starting to get into the mainstream, and in my opinion this will, in time, turn the whole field of climate change on it's head.As an aside, I was pondering the quiescent state of the sun and what it could mean in the medium/long term. If we are staring down the barrel of a Dalton minimum, how long before the effects are felt in the global climate? How much of a lag can we expect to see? What if we are looking at a Maunder-type minimum? IMO, if the sun slips into a deep and prolonged minimum, we may be looking at a new LIA, and the potential forecasted consequences may be as bad as the outlandish predictions that AGW caused in the 1990's and early millenium. Even as a confirmed cold ramper, I must admit to being more than a little concerned.

When I first read Livingston and Penn's abstract, my initial reaction was that surely the steady drop in umbral magnetism must surely coincide with the downward progression from solar cycle 23's maximum. However, when examining the graph that demonstrates the linear nature in the decrease of umbral magnetism and comparing it with this graph showing the sunspot activity for solar cycle 23: it seems that the decrease in magnetism started to become apparent around 2001. As such, if the decrease in magnetism was an expected observation that was a corollary of a reducing sunspot number, solar cycle 23 should have had a steady downward trend from this point. However the graph shows that cycle 23 experienced a second peak in late 2001. This may indicate that, at that point, the magnetism had not dropped sufficiently low to affect sunspot numbers. If Livingston and Penn are correct in their theory, solar cycle 24, which may have been quiet anyway (with a maximum of around 90), may end up with a very low maximum - perhaps as low as between 30 and 50. As ever, time will tell.

Interesting stuff from Mr's Livingston and Penn, particularly as their prediction was made back in 2006 and recent developments are verifying their theory, however this website:http://www.astroengine.com/?p=678 indicates concerns over their relatively small sample size.

Not necessarily. Yes El Nino is forecast to be moderate by the end of October,but IIRC it is forecasted to drop back to weak by year end. And there is no guarantee that it will strengthen over the next couple of months.

Thanks for the comments guys! I know that there is an element of hopecasting in my theory, but I do think that unless something remarkable occurs in terms of solar activity, Global Warming ought to be put on the back burner for the foreseaable and medium term future. Some have already made reference to this: http://alfin2100.blogspot.com/2009/08/no-sunspots-throw-climate-models-into.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-missing-sunspots-is-this-the-big-chill-1674630.html http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/globalwarming.html Although others, perhaps for fear of losing their apparently endless levels of funding, are dismissing what should be obvious: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8224543.stm http://www.desmogblog.com/skeptics-need-chill-about-global-cooling [eejits!!] Who knows, in 10-15 years we may have an accord in place to deal with global cooling! Swings and roundabouts say I, the world always needs a peril!

Not great for me. Very hot and sunny periods at start of June and July, other than that it's been showerey and mild for the whole summer practically. Not as bad as 2007 or 2008 but to be honest it would take a lot to beat those! The nice spells aside, an average week would have 1 sunny day, 5 showery days, 1 wet day. What I have noticed is that it has been very breezy for much of the time.

I've been doing a bit of mooching about, looking at what may be in store for us in terms of future climate as a result of the current sunspot minimum. Dr Hathaway said in late July that a Dalton style minimum with a peak of around 50 is possible ( http://www.gopexiles.com/?p=2760 ), and officially he and his NASA bunch have predicted a peak of 90 ( http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/29may_noaaprediction.htm ). My own thoughts are that we will end up around 55-65ish. With that in mind, here is a graph illustrating the smoothed sunspot activity over the last 400 years: As you can see the peaks during the Dalton minimum were around 55 and then 95. Taking a look at the temperature in Europe only over the last 1000 years: You can see that the Dalton minimum coincided with the so-called 'Dickens winters', where the temps across Europe were around 0.25c below the 1900-1999 mean. If we are moving towards another Dalton-type minimum we might expect temps across Europe to dip from the current level of approx. 0.15c above mean to around 0.25c below mean - a swing of 0.4c. If we take AGW into account, I don't think it's too liberal to theorise a swing of 0.3c. What might this mean for us in Britain? Well the mean annual CET for the period 1971-2000 is 9.75c. A downward adjustment of 0.3c results in a mean annual CET of 9.45c, not unlike the 1980's (average annual CET - 9.52C). Needless to say this is all harmless supposition and a lot depends on the depth of minimum and subsequent amplitude of maximum, but I have tried to be as impartial as I can possibly be - you can be the judge as to the success of this or not!! http://nwstatic.co.uk/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif

Interesting graph there Tamara, and I would suggest, like you, that we are probably between 1896 and 1805, although closer to 1896 just now. That will change if we reach the year end with still no activity.I'm no solar physicist, but I would suggest that the eventual sunspot maximum will be around 55-65 and should happen sometime in late 2012 (Mayan prophecy anyone? http://nwstatic.co.uk/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif ). It'll be interesting to see NASA's latest forecast as if I remember correctly the last one had us up into the 20's by this point, yet look....still nothing!! Speaking of, we're still spotless!!