His work predicts that we are entering a period of reduced solar output and are due for a
period of global cooling in a few years.
This is key to deciding if we should panic over CO2 or, for example, be equally concerned about the
possibility of global cooling due to decreased solar activity.
But, it followed a period
of global cooling from 1950s - 1970s, and before that an earlier period of global warming from 1920s - 1940s.
The empirical evidence continues to build within the climate science community that the world is experiencing some type
of global cooling phase as a result of natural climate change forces.
However, the recent warming appears to have followed a
period of global cooling from an earlier warm period which ended in the 1940s.
Predictions of global cooling in the short term are partly based on the idea that sea surface temperatures will fall in the northern Atlantic, due to slow, irregular swings in conditions known as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.
On top of that, explorations occurred during a
time of global cooling known as the Little Ice Age, which stretched from the 13th to early 20th centuries.
The signs are that it could be one of the weakest in centuries, potentially ushering in the most serious bout
of global cooling since the 17th century's Maunder Minimum.
Hopefully this much needed accounting and my upcoming novel will cement dispelling the
myth of global cooling into poular culture.
Solomon adds that Columbia University's George Kukla — who warned the U.S. government about the
dangers of global cooling in 1972 — postulated that «[g] lobal warming always precedes an ice age... The warming we saw in the 1980s and 1990s, in other words, was expected all along, much as the calm before the storm.»
Some scientists have even warned that weakening solar activity could spark another «Little Ice Age,» arguing conditions mirror the
centuries of global cooling the Earth went through from the late Middle Ages to the mid-19th Century.
Scientists are still trying to figure out the precise causes that triggered
bouts of global cooling, which then turned Earth into a snowball 700 million years ago.
One of Hansen's more embarrassing false forecasts was his contribution to the advancement
of global cooling theories in the 1970s.
Whether it's a killer winter in South America, increased snow cover globally, record Arctic sea ice recovery, recovering glaciers in the Alps, record high sea ice extent in Antarctica, extreme cold in southeast Europe, or 5 consecutive colder than normal European winters, just to name a few, the ominous
signs of global cooling are compounding rapidly.
His study was mentioned in an article by the Daily Caller by Michael Bastasch titled «Study Predicts Decades
Of Global Cooling Ahead.»
2) The
link of global cooling to an extended solar magnetic minimum is tenuous, and almost certainly needs something else to force it to occur (like lots of volcanoes), and
The IPCC predicted global warming of 0.6 ° C (1 ° F) by 2011 and 1.2 ° C (2 ° F) by 2038, whereas Easterbrook (2001) predicted the beginning
of global cooling by 2007 (± 3 - 5 yrs) and cooling of about 0.3 - 0.5 ° C until ~ 2035.
Hence if it's fair to call this period one
of global cooling for the NH and for the world as a whole, it's even more fair to consider it like that for the SH.