Evidence of Solar Scientists Raise Fears of Imminent Ice Age

© NOAA
1970s New York Snowstorm.

New study by American solar experts discover a sharp fall in sunspot activity since 2007 that shows the hallmarks of a soon arriving ice age.

Solar scientists, not to be confused with climate scientists, study the most important heat engine driving our planet's temperatures-the sun.

Matthew Penn and William Livingston, solar astronomers with the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Tucson, Arizona, have found a marked decrease in sunspot activity lately. Studies show that such a marked drop in sunspots may lead to a prolonged cooling epoch or even a new ice age.

Since the formation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988 the talk has been about global warming. But 22 years on the evidence has grown to raise fears of a catastrophic climate switch in the opposite direction. We look at the evidence that is raising some very serious questions in the scientific community.

Zeeman Splitting Technique Raises Solar Alarm

Penn and Livingston used a measuring technique known as Zeeman splitting to study the magnetic strength of sunspots. The technique measures the distance between a pair of infrared spectral lines in a spectrograph from the light emitted by iron atoms in the atmosphere of the sun.

After examining 1500 sunspots they found that the average strength of the magnetic field of the sunspots has dropped by almost 40 percent in recent years. The reasons for the decline are unknown, but Penn and Livingston predict only half of the normal sunspots may appear on the surface of the Sun by 2021. Below that strength the formation of sunspots becomes almost impossible. More sunspots correlate with more global warming, fewer sunspots over a long period means prolonged cooling is likely.

Other Experts Confirm Fears

Backing up the claims is Australian Geophysicist, Phil Chapman, a former NASA astronaut. Chapman confirms the historic correlation of sunspots to global temperatures and points to the dearth of sunspots since 2007 as the reason why the world has since cooled by about 0.7C.

Writer, Alan Caruba (September 21, 2010) probes the story further after a June 14 article published in the <New Scientist by Stuart Clark.

Caruba reports that Clark, "raised the question of why and where the sunspots of gone." Noting that they ebb and flow in cycles lasting about eleven years, Stuart said, "But for the last two years, the sunspots have mostly been missing. Their absence, the most prolonged in nearly 100 years, has taken even seasoned sun watchers by surprise."

Return to another Little Ice Age or Worse?

The last time sunspots disappeared altogether, during the Maunder Minimum (about 1645 to 1715), our planet descended into a lengthy period of cooling known as the Little Ice Age.

Prior to that an even more cataclysmic cooling event, known as the Younger Dryas happened 12,000 years ago. That sudden event plunged temperatures in the North Atlantic region to about 5°C colder and lasted for 1000-year duration.

Global Cooling Impacts Being Felt Now

Last year in the northern hemisphere, Britain suffered one of the worst winters in 100 years. While in the U.S. the National Weather Service (NWS) reported that the bitterly cold winter broke numerous temperature and snow extent records with 2010 seeing the 4th coldest February on record. New York and much of the U.S. Northeast was pumeled by record snow falls that deposited about 60cm (2 feet) of snow in NYC alone.

Worst Snow Falls Since 1970's

Rutgers University Global Snow Lab also confirms that the 2010 Northern Hemisphere winter snow extent was the second highest on record, at 52,166,840 km2 and second only to February, 1978 which was slightly higher at 53,647,305 km2.

Indeed, it was in the 1970s, when climatologists were worried about the onset of an ice age, that we were warned of the 'The Cooling World' (Newsweek, April 28, 1975). Meanwhile Anna Petherick reporting for Nature.com ( August 27, 2010) shows that a brutal northern winter has been followed in the southern hemisphere by a viciously cold winter with an Antarctic chill killing millions of aquatic animals in the Amazon.

So will we see more scientists return to predicting global cooling due to changes in our sun?

References

• Edwards L., 'Sunspots could soon disappear for decades: study,' (September 15, 2010), Physorg.com (accessed: September 21, 2010)
• Sato, R., 'Is a "Little Ice Age" Imminent? -Maverick Scientists Say "Yes"' (August 26, 2008), dailygalaxy.com (accessed: September 21, 2010)
• Caruba A., 'Casandra Says it Will Get very Cold,' ( September 20, 2010), Canadafreepress.com (accessed: September 21, 2010)
• Penn M., and Livingston W., 'Long-term Evolution of Sunspot Magnetic Fields,' arXiv:1009.0784v1 [astro-ph.SR]
• Felix R., 'Little Ice Age Cometh Sunspots could disappear for decades,' iceagenow.com (accessed: September, 21, 2010)
• Petherick A., 'Cold empties Bolivian rivers of fish,' (August 27, 2010), Nature.com ( accessed: September 21, 2010).

The Greatest Depression Is Underwaylink

A quote from Gerald Celente during a recent interview, “The greatest depression is underway”, may sound apocalyptic to some, disagreeable to others, but probably rings true with the unemployed and the record number of 44 million Americans under the official poverty level (14% of all Americans, or 1 out of 7).
Even though you will probably never hear the phrase “greatest depression” from billionaires like George Soros, he and other of the the world’s billionaires are getting worried about the economy. Soros recently called the current economy “Blah”. Steve Schwarzman, billionaire founder of the Blackstone group is also worried, worried about the negative effects of the current administration tax hike proposals. He said that any such activity will be “like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939″.
The billionaires know the risks to the current system… things like the weapon of mass destruction 615 trillion dollar over-the-counter derivative time bomb that is growing daily, protected by lobbyists of government, and could blow up at any time and end the world as we know it. They know the fragility of the debt burdened house-of-cards system that we live within.
In America, manufacturing jobs have disappeared, transforming the economy into a “service sector economy”. America has been giving away manufacturing jobs to the lowest bidder of labor while the American manufacturing sector disappears. The benefactors have not been the American workers and middle class, but the CEO’s, the corporate elite, the Wall Street casino owners, the bankers, and of course the billionaires. Follow the money.
US unemployment is the highest since the great depression. The official US government unemployment numbers are biased and manipulated and do not include the “underemployed” (those who have accepted part time work but are still looking for full-time work), the “discouraged workers” (those who have given up) , and the former full-time workers who have settled for short-term contract work. The “real” numbers put the unemployment rate close to 22% (great depression numbers) according to the well respected John Williams organization, shadowstats.com.
What about the fact that many of the salaried workers who are left to work are required to take on the responsibilities of those who have been laid off while working more hours with more stress, and less time for themselves. I wonder how they feel about what is going on in today’s economy.  What about the self-employed whose incomes have dramatically dropped. Consumer confidence has recently dropped to new record lows while at the same time the main-stream media outlets have been telling us that the recession is over. What?!
Debt is destroying the western world.
Although people have been trying to pay down their debts and save more, governments have been spending more and more of the peoples money. The US national debt is now nearly $13.5 trillion, or $131 thousand per tax payer. How do you feel about paying the government $131,000 to pay your share of the debt? Did you give them permission to spend that money? Do you have the money? Do you want to get even more sick? Check this out… if we include the unfunded liabilities (social security, medicare, prescription drugs) we get stuck with $356,000 each. Can you handle paying that to your government? Do you have the money? The numbers are simply staggering. Click here to see how much money $1 trillion really is. The total national debt number including unfunded liabilities is increasing by about $110 thousand per second, $6.6 million per minute, $396 million per hour, $9.5 billion per day, $228 billion per month, $2.7 trillion per year. Think about it.
Assuming that the deficit spending would stop (which seems quite unlikely at the moment), a very, very long period of “unwinding” would be required before we could get out of our state of economic depression and begin to think about very prosperous times again. What will continue to happen however is an accelerated devaluation of the dollar.
Most all world governments seem to be in a race to devalue their currencies, and therefore effectively decrease the value of today’s debt in terms of today’s dollar. Did you know that the value of today’s dollar is worth 95% less than it was in 1913 (the year when the Federal Reserve was formed)? If you purchased something for $20 back in 1913, it would cost you $441 today to purchase the same thing. If you stashed away $1,000 in cash under your mattress in 1913, today it would only be worth $45. The depreciation has been happening sometimes slowly, and sometimes quickly,  but it has surely been happening,  acting like a cancer eating away at the dollar.
To drastically reduce the current government debt, it could probably only be accomplished by a combination of quicker devaluation of the dollar by printing more money into the system (inflation) coupled with increased taxes, both or any of which will destroy the sputtering economy. They are in a catch-22, a no win situation.
I have a feeling that this all is going to end very badly. Could this become the greatest depression?

 

 

France faces new wave of strikes

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More than one million workers marched on 7 September - unions hope the turnout will be even higher this time

French unions are set for another day of damaging strikes and street protests against President Nicolas Sarkozy's plans to overhaul pensions and raise the retirement age from 60 to 62.

The demonstrations are expected to cause disruption to rail, air and urban transport, schools and postal services.

Organisers are hoping to better the turnout on 7 September, when more than one million workers took part.
Mr Sarkozy says the reforms are needed to tackle France's budget deficit.
The walkouts are expected to hit transport the hardest. Only one in two trains will be running nationally and disruptions to services had already begun on Wednesday night.
About half of flights at Paris Orly are to be cancelled, as well as 40% at the capital's Charles de Gaulle airport, and 40% at other airports throughout the country, said the DGAC civil aviation authority.
The BBC's Christian Fraser in Paris says both sides will be watching closely the size of this protest. There is still the threat from some unions of open-ended action, he says, and if that gains support it will certainly apply pressure to an already embattled president.
'Unfair burden' Mr Sarkozy, already under attack from the European Union for deporting Roma and from the media over a lingering financial scandal, says he will press on with the reforms regardless.

The strikes are expected to cripple public transport

The pension reform bill has already been passed by France's lower house of parliament. It will be debated from 5 October by the upper house, the Senate, where it is expected to pass comfortably.
France's retirement age is lower than many countries in Europe. Under current rules, both men and women in France can retire at 60, providing they have paid social security contributions for 40.5 years - although they are not entitled to a full pension until they are 65.
The government says it will save 70bn euros (£58bn) by raising the retirement age to 62 by 2018, the qualification to 41.5 years, and the pension age to 67.
Unions and opposition politicians say the plan puts an unfair burden on workers, particularly women, part-timers and the former unemployed who might struggle to hit the 41.5 year requirement.
They have made counter proposals, including calls for taxes on certain bonuses and on the highest incomes to help fund the pension system