A Massive Winter Heading for the Northern Hemisphere?
Geoff Sharp’s recent article suggests that the Landscheidt minimum is already upon us.
The winters of the past two years have been noticeably colder. The northern hemisphere in particular has experienced record cold, record snow and a rebuilding of the Arctic sea ice extent. The southern hemisphere this winter has also seen record low temperatures in South America which is resulting in many hundreds of deaths (human and livestock). There are a number of players involved which can be attributed to this cooling trend and when they come together they are capable of dropping the world’s temperatures by a significant amount.
Perhaps the most important player is the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) which is a hot and cold ocean temperature cycle in the Pacific of about 30 years. The world’s temperature trend very closely matches this cycle which has the potential to override solar activity of the day. The last major PDO cooling event was between 1946 and 1976 which experienced the highest solar cycle on record (SC19) followed by a low cycle (SC20). The deepest cold of this era was recorded when both the PDO and low solar activity teamed up, which is right where we are again today with perhaps a greater influence from the solar side with my predicted imminent grand minimum.
Aside from other ocean oscillations the ENSO pattern has a large short term effect on our climate/weather system. We are just coming out of a rather warm El Nino cycle and current observations are showing the possible impact of a very strong La Nina cooling pattern taking shape.
The La Nina phase is now official with the Australian BOM records showing all the major indicators heading into continued La Nina conditions. Of particular interest is the sub surface temperatures in the Pacific showing a large area 4 deg under normal.
Another oscillation called the Antarctic Oscillation (AAO) is showing its highest readings since records began in 1979, during the strong 1999 and 2008 La Ninas the AAO was also high.
The cooling phase of the PDO is just beginning and should reduce the strength and frequency of future El Ninos and add extra punch and frequency to upcoming La Ninas.
So the stage is set for one of the most interesting natural experiments, nearly all the cool players are in place with the exception of the Atlantic Oscillation still not in its cool phase. I predict the extra boost from my predicted solar grand minimum along with the current oceanic conditions the next northern winter will experience conditions similar to the Little Ice Age (1250-1850).
Adolfo Giurfa points to this map showing the cooling oceans.
The winter of 2010 / 2011 could remove many uncertainties and provide a fatal blow to global warming alarmism – though doom-day scenarios will never ever die.
Tags: climate change, global cooling, solar cycle
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