Grand Solar Minimum - Is a mini ice age upon us?

[begreen]

Do you part to clean it up. No one is stopping anyone from picking up trash in the street, organizing cleanup campaigns and educating the ignorant.

Waiting for regulation is a silly way of getting results on an issue you are passionate about.

Yes, get proactive. Organize or get together with community groups that are working towards greater environmental responsibility. Action starts at home. Buy local and try to avoid overly packaged goods and single-use plastics.

Yes and many of us do that. But that is not going to clean up what is in the oceans already.

And get political. Advocate for a ban on single-use plastics. There are new options that can replace sectors without additional cost or retooling. Support businesses that employ alternatives. Advocate for cradle to grave responsibility for manufacturers.

 

[RFarm]

When posting this bit of (dis) information I was holding out hope that a nice prolonged cooling trend might be around the corner and the wood burning season may get extended. Making wood burning even more economical and possibly even a brilliant investment. Being non political I take no sides in the global warming/climate change debate.. You would have to blind not to see the profound change man has had on the landscapes, waters, and creatures of the world, some for the betterment of man kind, but most for the detriment. With the recent advent of cleaner energy alternatives (solar, Wind, GeoTherm) we still insist on fracking around population centers and drilling all along our seaboards. Follow the money as one poster mentioned and it all leads back to the fossils.

It appears that the sunspot activity has really slowed down and that means a weaker magnetosphere due to less solar radiation to power it. When the magnetosphere weakens, more cosmic rays get through as well as other things. Cosmic rays influence clouds and storm on earth. As well as loosing its shielding properties, periods of weaker magnetosphere seem to correlate with increased volcanism. During the Maraunder Minimum (1645-1715) , the Little Ice Age as it is now called, sunspot activity was very low, less than 50 spots during a 28 year period. To put this into perspective, during the past 8 year 2009-2016 we have had 2,574 days with spots. As of today we have gone 4 days without a spot. Also during the Maraunder there were 4 large sulphur rich volcanic eruptions that affected the global climate. It is also speculated that freshwater from melting glacial sheets during the medieval warming period may have slowed the thermocline circulation of the worlds oceans. Though too early to tell for sure, it appears the setup now is eerily similar to the setup back then. Am I promoting living in fear? No, quite the contrary. I am looking forward to it if it does materialize and if it does not well that is fine too. I just brought this up to spur the imagination a bit during the lull in the burning season.

As far as science goes you only need to know one thing - in science there are no certainties. The very nature of science is to challenge every notion, every law, every finding. Science like history is re-written all of the time. The basis of all science is the notion that the atom is the smallest constituent unit of ordinary matter. Could this be proven false one day as we encounter unknown forms of matter? Possibly. When it comes to earth science - it is like the wild west. Models and theories change daily, so to base any credence in what scientists are saying in news articles or even scientific journals is ridiculous. it is all a great unknown.

As far as wood being as dirty as fossils - that is complete nonsense. Trees are stored solar energy, fossils are stored carbon energy. That is all you need to know and to argue it is a waste of time. I like burning wood. It is good exercise rounding it up and even more fun sipping a bourbon next to the stove while the weather turn nasty outside. I dis-like pumping gas, it is a P.I.T.A. and it cost me a lot of money and you cannot legally sip a bourbon while burning it!

 

[Ashful]

When posting this bit of (dis) information I was holding out hope that a nice prolonged cooling trend might be around the corner and the wood burning season may get extended. Making wood burning even more economical and possibly even a brilliant investment. Being non political I take no sides in the global warming/climate change debate.. You would have to blind not to see the profound change man has had on the landscapes, waters, and creatures of the world, some for the betterment of man kind, but most for the detriment. With the recent advent of cleaner energy alternatives (solar, Wind, GeoTherm) we still insist on fracking around population centers and drilling all along our seaboards. Follow the money as one poster mentioned and it all leads back to the fossils.

It appears that the sunspot activity has really slowed down and that means a weaker magnetosphere due to less solar radiation to power it. When the magnetosphere weakens, more cosmic rays get through as well as other things. Cosmic rays influence clouds and storm on earth. As well as loosing its shielding properties, periods of weaker magnetosphere seem to correlate with increased volcanism. During the Maraunder Minimum (1645-1715) , the Little Ice Age as it is now called, sunspot activity was very low, less than 50 spots during a 28 year period. To put this into perspective, during the past 8 year 2009-2016 we have had 2,574 days with spots. As of today we have gone 4 days without a spot. Also during the Maraunder there were 4 large sulphur rich volcanic eruptions that affected the global climate. It is also speculated that freshwater from melting glacial sheets during the medieval warming period may have slowed the thermocline circulation of the worlds oceans. Though too early to tell for sure, it appears the setup now is eerily similar to the setup back then. Am I promoting living in fear? No, quite the contrary. I am looking forward to it if it does materialize and if it does not well that is fine too. I just brought this up to spur the imagination a bit during the lull in the burning season.

As far as science goes you only need to know one thing - in science there are no certainties. The very nature of science is to challenge every notion, every law, every finding. Science like history is re-written all of the time. The basis of all science is the notion that the atom is the smallest constituent unit of ordinary matter. Could this be proven false one day as we encounter unknown forms of matter? Possibly. When it comes to earth science - it is like the wild west. Models and theories change daily, so to base any credence in what scientists are saying in news articles or even scientific journals is ridiculous. it is all a great unknown.

As far as wood being as dirty as fossils - that is complete nonsense. Trees are stored solar energy, fossils are stored carbon energy. That is all you need to know and to argue it is a waste of time. I like burning wood. It is good exercise rounding it up and even more fun sipping a bourbon next to the stove while the weather turn nasty outside. I dis-like pumping gas, it is a P.I.T.A. and it cost me a lot of money and you cannot legally sip a bourbon while burning it!

Amen. Beautiful post.

 

[bholler]

When posting this bit of (dis) information I was holding out hope that a nice prolonged cooling trend might be around the corner and the wood burning season may get extended. Making wood burning even more economical and possibly even a brilliant investment. Being non political I take no sides in the global warming/climate change debate.. You would have to blind not to see the profound change man has had on the landscapes, waters, and creatures of the world, some for the betterment of man kind, but most for the detriment. With the recent advent of cleaner energy alternatives (solar, Wind, GeoTherm) we still insist on fracking around population centers and drilling all along our seaboards. Follow the money as one poster mentioned and it all leads back to the fossils.

It appears that the sunspot activity has really slowed down and that means a weaker magnetosphere due to less solar radiation to power it. When the magnetosphere weakens, more cosmic rays get through as well as other things. Cosmic rays influence clouds and storm on earth. As well as loosing its shielding properties, periods of weaker magnetosphere seem to correlate with increased volcanism. During the Maraunder Minimum (1645-1715) , the Little Ice Age as it is now called, sunspot activity was very low, less than 50 spots during a 28 year period. To put this into perspective, during the past 8 year 2009-2016 we have had 2,574 days with spots. As of today we have gone 4 days without a spot. Also during the Maraunder there were 4 large sulphur rich volcanic eruptions that affected the global climate. It is also speculated that freshwater from melting glacial sheets during the medieval warming period may have slowed the thermocline circulation of the worlds oceans. Though too early to tell for sure, it appears the setup now is eerily similar to the setup back then. Am I promoting living in fear? No, quite the contrary. I am looking forward to it if it does materialize and if it does not well that is fine too. I just brought this up to spur the imagination a bit during the lull in the burning season.

As far as science goes you only need to know one thing - in science there are no certainties. The very nature of science is to challenge every notion, every law, every finding. Science like history is re-written all of the time. The basis of all science is the notion that the atom is the smallest constituent unit of ordinary matter. Could this be proven false one day as we encounter unknown forms of matter? Possibly. When it comes to earth science - it is like the wild west. Models and theories change daily, so to base any credence in what scientists are saying in news articles or even scientific journals is ridiculous. it is all a great unknown.

As far as wood being as dirty as fossils - that is complete nonsense. Trees are stored solar energy, fossils are stored carbon energy. That is all you need to know and to argue it is a waste of time. I like burning wood. It is good exercise rounding it up and even more fun sipping a bourbon next to the stove while the weather turn nasty outside. I dis-like pumping gas, it is a P.I.T.A. and it cost me a lot of money and you cannot legally sip a bourbon while burning it!

Very good post overall. But i have to say there are absolutly certainties in science . There are many cases where what you say is correct but not always by any means.

And no one here said burning wood was as dirty as fossil fuels. Infact the exact opposite was said. It was just said that burning wood was not carbon neutral.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

Do you part to clean it up. No one is stopping anyone from picking up trash in the street, organizing cleanup campaigns and educating the ignorant.

Waiting for regulation is a silly way of getting results on an issue you are passionate about.

Im doing exactly that. I started recycling all my plastic for the first time. But i know its a drop in the bucket without some kind of regulation change. ALl the talk about global warming is sucking the oxygen out of all the other serious problems.

 

[tarzan]

Im doing exactly that. I started recycling all my plastic for the first time. But i know its a drop in the bucket without some kind of regulation change. ALl the talk about global warming is sucking the oxygen out of all the other serious problems.

Allot of times it seems to me that people tend to be more passionate about issues they can debate than problems they can fix.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

Allot of times it seems to me that people tend to be more passionate about issues they can debate than problems they can fix.

We certainly CAN do something about filling up all the water ways and the ocean with trash ,we could almost cure that 100% ,If we try! Global warming maybe 5% if we try.

 

[tarzan]

We certainly CAN do something about filling up all the water ways and the ocean with trash ,we could almost cure that 100% ,If we try! Global warming maybe 5% if we try.

That's my point! We can all agree that filling the waterways with trash is bad, therefore it loses its appeal. People are more passionate about things they can argue than things they can fix.

 

[WoodyIsGoody]

Belief in catastrophic human caused global warming is a secular political religion, where only the believer's god of government can save the Earth through taxation regulation and litigation.

Actually, it's science.

Religion is believing in something without any supporting evidence.

 

[begreen]

Solutions need to be global, but we can start by developing and refining them at home. The developing world looks up to the western world as an example and goal for the live they want to lead. Right now a massive volume of single use plastics comes from the third world where they are often unregulated. Plastic bags, clamshell packaging and plastic water bottles are ubiquitous. There are rarely effective recycling programs in place and most poor people do not have trash pickup so plastics fill their streams, rivers and waterways. It's a gigantic problem but at least if these items were biodegradeable they wouldn't end up breaking down to microplastics in giant plastic gyres in the oceans. We can and should develop and foster this technology.

 

[WoodyIsGoody]

And no one here said burning wood was as dirty as fossil fuels. Infact the exact opposite was said. It was just said that burning wood was not carbon neutral.

Yes, but to be fair to wood, it should be pointed out that there is no source of energy that is carbon neutral when the entire process is accounted for.

 

[begreen]

Yes, but to be fair to wood, it should be pointed out that there is no source of energy that is carbon neutral when the entire process is accounted for.

Mostly true, though with some exceptions. The water power that was used for old mills was pretty close to carbon neutral. Solar heated water can be considered carbon neutral if using an animal skin for a bladder?

Biomass used on a large scale has some serious implications for the environment.
http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2011/08/18/is-biomass-really-renewable/

 

[bholler]

Yes, but to be fair to wood, it should be pointed out that there is no source of energy that is carbon neutral when the entire process is accounted for.

Absolutly and I was not saying anything bad against heating with wood. Just pointing out a common mistake.

 

[peakbagger]

Wood is just really inefficient solar but unlike many other renewables its dispatchable, IE cut it when you want to and burn it when you need to.

Large scale ponded hydro has some issues also, the large Hydro Quebec system is in large Boreal forest region that has large amounts of trapped methane. The damming of rivers in that region forming large lakes release a very large amount of methane for a very long time. Of course warm up the climate and the permafrost starts melting and the same thing happens

 

[EatenByLimestone]

After this thread, I'm going to make a change. I'm going to burn all my plastic bottles in the stove so I can save the trees AND keep the bottles out of the oceans. Win-Win!

 

[tarzan]

According to Wikipedia almost 90% of the plastics in the ocean originated from ocean going vessels dumping there waste into the ocean.

 

[Ashful]

According to Wikipedia almost 90% of the plastics in the ocean originated from ocean going vessels dumping there waste into the ocean.

While I try not to put any faith in anything in Wikipedia that goes against common sense or intuition, I have to ask, do they postulate over what years that occurred? It seems more likely a habit of the past, than current practice.

 

[tarzan]

While I try not to put any faith in anything in Wikipedia that goes against common sense or intuition, I have to ask, do they postulate over what years that occurred? It seems more likely a habit of the past, than current practice.

Well, it's Wikipedia.... so a hodgepodge of data from different studies at different times but the average date seems too be 2012.

The article also states that 10% of all plastic on beaches are nurdles that fall from cargo ships.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

According to Wikipedia almost 90% of the plastics in the ocean originated from ocean going vessels dumping there waste into the ocean.

I think its an almost impossible task to monitor every ship in the ocean to stop that practice. And unless forced i highly doubt many would comply.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

Single clothes wash may release 700000 microplastic fibres, study finds . Were flushing a lot of pollution into the watererways!

 

[begreen]

According to Wikipedia almost 90% of the plastics in the ocean originated from ocean going vessels dumping there waste into the ocean.

Yes, there is an out of sight, out of mind attitude at sea. You would think that people that make their livelihood from the ocean would treat it with greater respect. Since the epa study there have been others. The problem is growing very rapidly. There are other major sources. Henderson Island is an indicator of how bad the problem is.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science...dise-island-is-now-a-plastic-junkyard/526743/
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/02/150212-ocean-debris-plastic-garbage-patches-science/
"Jambeck’s 2015 study concluded that 8 million tons of trash flow into the ocean every year, enough to fill five grocery store shopping bags for every foot of coastline on Earth."
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/05/henderson-island-pitcairn-trash-plastic-pollution/

 

[begreen]

I think its an almost impossible task to monitor every ship in the ocean to stop that practice. And unless forced i highly doubt many would comply.

Many is a dirty, greedy and careless animal. The only one that sh!ts in his own bed. All the more reason to eliminate single-use plastics from the marketplace. They were not in existence 60 yrs ago.

https://www.ecowatch.com/these-5-co...f-plastic-pollution-in-oceans-1882107531.html

 

[Seasoned Oak]

Many is a dirty, greedy and careless animal. The only one that sh!ts in his own bed. All the more reason to eliminate single-use plastics from the marketplace. They were not in existence 60 yrs ago.

https://www.ecowatch.com/these-5-co...f-plastic-pollution-in-oceans-1882107531.html

Which is why overpopulation is such a big problem. And exacerbates all the other problems. Problem is there is no easy solution to it. One easy fix for the US to control our own border and stop the runaway excess migration to this country both legal and illegal. Probably mostly due to visa overstays at this point. Some progress lately.

 

[begreen]

Which is why overpopulation is such a big problem. And exacerbates all the other problems. Problem is there is no easy solution to it. One easy fix for the US to control our own border and stop the runaway excess migration to this country both legal and illegal. Probably mostly due to visa overstays at this point. Some progress lately.

That is quite a long stretch, especially when it's the American lifestyle that is the most energy intensive and wasteful on the planet. This has been a good thread so far. Let's keep politics out of the discussion.
https://sites.google.com/site/iilyear4/top-10-countries-that-produce-the-most-waste

 

[Seasoned Oak]

overpopulation =politics? Just saying we may be able to solve our own population problem but not the worlds, No politics needed. Need to look at the problem like scientist would.