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So with the news of this solar minimum in the early 21st century, do I have to worry about Indianapolis and the rest of the Midwest for that matter to become subarctic or even a full fledged glacial period, even if just a mini ice age? Or will climate change undo any cooling that a dead sun will have on the Midwest climate? Thoughts?
I personally think that it’s highly unlikely the Midwest and Great Plains will revert to a glaciated state, I feel that worst case scenario the plains and Midwest might become subarctic, but I feel this is still unlikely to happen, at least in our lifetimes. IMHO the most likely outcome would be for the Midwest to remain a continental climate in spite of reduced solar output.
The solar cycle has a period of ~11 years. Why are you expecting this solar minimum to have a greater effect than any of the others over the past century?
The solar cycle has a period of ~11 years. Why are you expecting this solar minimum to have a greater effect than any of the others over the past century?
Some alarmists are claiming that this will be a prolonged minimum similar to what occurred in the 1600’s or 1700’s. My question then is do people think that greenhouse emissions and other factors such as urban sprawl will negate the cooling effects of a quiet sun.
Some alarmists are claiming that this will be a prolonged minimum similar to what occurred in the 1600’s or 1700’s. My question then is do people think that greenhouse emissions and other factors such as urban sprawl will negate the cooling effects of a quiet sun.
Indianapolis has 7 months with daily mean above 10C and 3 of these are above 20C. I see no way there would be enough cooling to make this a subarctic climate, what a strange notion!
Indianapolis has 7 months with daily mean above 10C and 3 of these are above 20C. I see no way there would be enough cooling to make this a subarctic climate, what a strange notion!
Still, ANY amount of climate cooling would be detrimental to the corn belt, as parts of the corn belt even now are marginal for the production of corn wheat and soybeans. I suspect the corn belt possibly would either no longer be in the Midwest or at minimum would shift significantly south from its present location
It is believed that 14,000 years or so that glaciers cut through the pacific north west and midwest of the US from the north pole because a huge asteroid or comet slammed into the area that caused the melting of huge glaciers built up 30k years ago during the last ice age. There is no human force capable of such impact that caused major glaciers to crack and melt which lead to a huge flood and carried remaining glaciers cutting through America creating the grand canyons and many other spectacular natural rock formations.
The "Perfect Storm" concept is a qualitative expression that says some disaster only happens when several different factors all coincide at a most inopportune time....Quantitatively, it corresponds to the coincidental alignment of the nadirs of several different cyclic factors that have different periods, so usually add up to a more "normal" value. (Wave interference in high school Physics class, anyone?)
Ice Ages probably occur because several factors like the precession of the Earth's axis, precession of it's elliptical orbit, oceanic cycles and even maybe the precession of the Sun's orbit around the galaxy all add together at the right time to give very cold conditions.
Things like the very short (in geologic time spans) period of the Sun's sunspot cycles, or the unpredictable occurrence of asteroid strikes or volcanic activity have limited effect on climate changes that last 10s of 1000s of years....Even the Younger Dryas Period, which may well have been caused by an asteroid strike, was really just a 1000 yr "speed bump" in the general warming/loss of glaciers coming out of the last Ice Age and would most likely have given us a colder weather, but not a return to glaciation had it occurred more recently.
Our recent experience with reduced use of fossil fuels for the past 3 months still has [co2] levels climbing at Mauna Loa-- supporting the idea that human contributions to GHG effects are minimal to non-existent. Rising co2 levels are most likely an effect of warming, not a cause.
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