We're Having An Ice Age...a Tropical Ice Age!

Are all the Global Warming fanatics screaming up the wrong tree? Should we be more concerned--or at least a little concerned about Global Cooling?

From Phil Chapman of the Australian:

All four agencies that track Earth's temperature (the Hadley Climate Research Unit in Britain, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, the Christy group at the University of Alabama, and Remote Sensing Systems Inc in California) report that it cooled by about 0.7C in 2007. This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record and it puts us back where we were in 1930. If the temperature does not soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over.

The proposed culprit? The Sun:

This is where SOHO comes in. The sunspot number follows a cycle of somewhat variable length, averaging 11 years. The most recent minimum was in March last year. The new cycle, No.24, was supposed to start soon after that, with a gradual build-up in sunspot numbers.

It didn't happen. The first sunspot appeared in January this year and lasted only two days. A tiny spot appeared last Monday but vanished within 24 hours. Another little spot appeared this Monday. Pray that there will be many more, and soon.

The reason this matters is that there is a close correlation between variations in the sunspot cycle and Earth's climate. The previous time a cycle was delayed like this was in the Dalton Minimum, an especially cold period that lasted several decades from 1790.

Of course unlike some, Chapman is willing to admit he may be wrong:

That the rapid temperature decline in 2007 coincided with the failure of cycle No.24 to begin on schedule is not proof of a causal connection but it is cause for concern.

If he then goes on to paint a rather alarming picture he can be forgiven. Global Warming advocates have been doing that for years. It's hard to put a happy face on the notion of a prolonged cold period. Plants do better in warm weather with lots of carbon dioxide. They don't do so well in cold weather. If you think the food shortages now are causing problems, just wait until the US and Canada--the breadbasket of the world--gets hit with cold weather for several years.

The Global Warming advocates claim we should dedicate resources to planning a response to increasing temperatures. I think it's only fair that, given the mounting evidence, we ask that resources be applied to planning for the opposite. To quote Chapman quoting Oliver Cromwell, "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken."