The Maunder Minimum Is Dead - Didn't Affect Earth's Climate.

Full article title is somewhat less descriptive -
Corrected Sunspot History Suggests Climate Change since the Industrial Revolution not due to Natural Solar Trends

The Maunder Minimum, between 1645 and 1715, when sunspots were scarce and the winters harsh, strongly suggests a link between solar activity and climate change. Until now there was a general consensus that solar activity has been trending upwards over the past 300 years (since the end of the Maunder Minimum), peaking in the late 20th century — called the Modern Grand Maximum by some.

This trend has led some to conclude that the Sun has played a significant role in modern climate change. However, a discrepancy between two parallel series of sunspot number counts has been a contentious issue among scientists for some time.
...
The apparent upward trend of solar activity between the 18th century and the late 20th century has now been identified as a major calibration error in the Group Sunspot Number. Now that this error has been corrected, solar activity appears to have remained relatively stable since the 1700s

So, it seems as if solar activity isn't all that different today than from the Maunder Minimum - in fact, it now appears that the Maunder Minimum was a calibration error.

It overlapped a period of harsh winters in the Northern Hemisphere. The acceptance of the Maunder Minimum as fact seemed to correlate well with a cooler weather period. Thus, there has long been the assumption that the Maunder Minimum impacted the Earth to such an extent that it cooled the climate.

However, it appears that the Maunder Minimum just wasn't all it was cracked up to be. If sunspot numbers are relatively the same today as they were then, we must reject that the cooler climate was caused by solar activity.

This also rather suggests that the prophesied (based on solar activity) little ice age coming in the future won't happen.

Well they had to think of something to discredit the coming ice age.

Brilliant idea to blame a calculation error that's hard to prove either way.

So does this also invalidate the Oort Minimum, the Wolf Minimum, the Spörer Minimum, and the Dalton Minimum?

well how very convenient !

is this yet another bit of revision for the sake of pushing
the current climate agenda?

with the long established solar obs by multiple scientists dating back century's and the modern
analysis of ice core data etc i am inclined to call BS on this spot of revision.

a reply to: Greven

Not surprising. Intelligent people know that the only thing affecting climate is man made global climate change from burning fosslil fuels! In fact it is now considered by the wisest scientests and government experts to be settled science. Everything else, will of course, prove to be inconsequential.

I love it when some absolute idiot can claim that the big heater in the sky does not control the weather.

How typical and how stupid do they think we are?

We may as well just go back to blaming sprites and fairies.

I wonder who paid for this piece of junk science.

P

originally posted by: eriktheawful
So does this also invalidate the Oort Minimum, the Wolf Minimum, the Spörer Minimum, and the Dalton Minimum?

Possibly. Most of those weren't observed, but instead based on tree rings. Low C-14 production in the atmosphere is correlated with low solar activity, which is reflected in tree rings.

However, Chinese astronomers did some observations during the Spörer Minimum and suggest an earlier beginning and end point for that period of minimal sunspots. Remember, the current theory had been that sunspots correlate well with solar activity - in part based on the Dalton/Maunder Minimums and C-14 rates from tree rings.

Direct measurements of solar radiance is rather new. Interestingly, if one looks at aurora measurements for the Maunder Minimum... it's pretty much like today.

originally posted by: pheonix358
I love it when some absolute idiot can claim that the big heater in the sky does not control the weather.

How typical and how stupid do they think we are?

We may as well just go back to blaming sprites and fairies.

I wonder who paid for this piece of junk science.

P

Following your argument, the closest planet to the sun ought to be the hottest, then... right?

Mercury is cooler than Venus, however.

originally posted by: TonyS
a reply to: Greven

Not surprising. Intelligent people know that the only thing affecting climate is man made global climate change from burning fosslil fuels! In fact it is now considered by the wisest scientests and government experts to be settled science. Everything else, will of course, prove to be inconsequential.

No one says that. Scientist or otherwise. Well that is except for conservatives trying to paint a strawman about Climate Change because they don't understand the science behind it and refuse to educate themselves on it before speaking about it.

a reply to: Greven

Careful, if we invalidate those tree rings ... then we have to also call into question Ye Olde Hockey Stick ...

Also, there are more ways to measure solar output than just sunspot counts.

So, what do I think about it? First, I have no idea whether the calibration is correct. They do make a good argument that the SN reconstruction is problematic. Namely, some corrections are probably necessary and there is no reason a priori to think that what they did is invalid. However, their claim about solar activity in general not varying much since the sun came out from the Mounder minimum is wrong. There are other more objective ways to reconstruct solar activity than subjective sunspot counting, and they do show us that solar activity increased over the 20th century. So at most, one can claim that solar activity has various facets, and that the maximum sunspot number is not a good indicator of all of them. This is not unreasonable since the number of sunspots would more directly reflect the amount of closed magnetic field lines, but not the open ones blowing in the solar wind.

The two important objective proxies for solar activity are cosmogenic isotopes (14C and 10Be), and the geomagnetic AA index. The AA index (measured since the middle of the 19th century) clearly shows that the latter part of the 20th century was more active than the latter half of the 19th century. The longer 10Be data set reveals that the latter half of the 20th century was more active than any preceding time since the Maunder minimum.

They explain that nuclear activity rules out 14C.

They go on to explain that cosmic rays are the real impactor, not sunspots. Sunspots are at most linked as an indicator of total cosmic ray output. So there is a correlative relationship, not a causative one.

And that went fast

The sun has no affect on the earth.

Or humans...

We don't even need it.

I've never gotten sun burn before.

It's not cooler outside in the shade.

It's not cooler outside when the sun isn't shining.

a reply to: pheonix358

Probably your tax dollars like 99% of climate studies are unfortunately.

a reply to: pheonix358

I love it when some absolute idiot can claim that the big heater in the sky does not control the weather.

Nobody ever said anything even remotely resembling that, and 'they' are not saying that now.

The sun is the primary source of all energy on the earth - disingenuous remarks like yours notwithstanding.

a reply to: rnaa

guess there is no "consensus" on this one!


astronomynow.com...

I

n the current study published in 3 peer-reviewed papers the researchers analysed a total background magnetic field from full disk magnetograms for three cycles of solar activity (21-23) by applying the so-called “principal component analysis”, which allows to reduce the data dimensionality and noise and to identify waves with the largest contribution to the observational data. This method can be compared with the decomposition of white light on the rainbow prism detecting the waves of different frequencies. As a result, the researchers developed a new method of analysis, which helped to uncover that the magnetic waves in the Sun are generated in pairs, with the main pair covering 40% of variance of the data (Zharkova et al, 2012, MNRAS). The principal component pair is responsible for the variations of a dipole field of the Sun, which is changing its polarity from pole to pole during 11-year solar activity.

Dr Helen Popova responds cautiously, while speaking about the human influence on climate.

“There is no strong evidence, that global warming is caused by human activity. The study of deuterium in the Antarctic showed that there were five global warmings and four Ice Ages for the past 400 thousand years. People first appeared on the Earth about 60 thousand years ago. However, even if human activities influence the climate, we can say, that the Sun with the new minimum gives humanity more time or a second chance to reduce their industrial emissions and to prepare, when the Sun will return to normal activity”, Dr Helen Popova summarised.

Five global warmings and four ice ages in 400 thousand years - you mean climate changes even when humans are not around to burn petrochemicals???

Who knew!

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

guess there is no "consensus" on this one!

Au contraire. There is complete "consensus" on "this one", assuming that "this one" refers to my statement that the Sun supplies the greater proportion of the energy to the Earth (a much smaller proportion comes from the Earths mantle and from internal radiation).

What is your post talking about and why do you think it has anything to do with denying that the Sun does or does not supply the majority of energy to the Earth system? What does your source propose as the alternative major source? I don't see anything in what you posted that has anything to do with anything one way or the other.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t

originally posted by: TonyS
a reply to: Greven

Not surprising. Intelligent people know that the only thing affecting climate is man made global climate change from burning fosslil fuels! In fact it is now considered by the wisest scientests and government experts to be settled science. Everything else, will of course, prove to be inconsequential.

No one says that. Scientist or otherwise. Well that is except for conservatives trying to paint a strawman about Climate Change because they don't understand the science behind it and refuse to educate themselves on it before speaking about it.

You mean the progressives don`t understand it but believe it because it affirms their lust for complete control of man and beast.

I suspect that this link is going to get very worn out on this site, so get in early...

What is REALLY warming the Earth?

This animated graph shows, in detail, the effects of the Earth's orbit, the variability of the Sun, Vulcanism, all three combined, deforestation, ozone pollution, aerosol pollution, and finally Greenhouse gasses.

No matter how unscientifically minded you are, you must be able to see that to explain the rise in temperatures, SOME THING must be changing in approximate correlation with the temperature rise. It doesn't just happen by magic.

Review the linked set of graphs - they are simple, non-technical, easy to understand. If you cannot understand these graphs (and I don't want to sound judgmental here, but) it makes no sense for you to pay any attention what-so-ever to someone who denies the accuracy and meaningfulness of those graphs. Because, quite simply, they demonstrate as mistaken (at best) anyone who says 'its the Sun' or 'its the Volcanoes' or whatever.

The oceans and the atmosphere are changing folks, in a bad way, and very quickly. And there is nothing and no one to blame except us.

a reply to: rnaa

I am talking about a prediction that we will have mini-ice age within about 15 years, which makes a complete mockery of current global warming predicition.

I agree with you - its the sun!

Tired of Control Freaks