Grand Solar Minimum Cancelled
I did warn you.
Grand Solar Minimum Delayed Or Cancelled
I bought into the Grand Solar Minimum predictions, I must admit. I took very seriously Prof Valentina Zharkova’s prediction of a Grand Solar Minimum 2020-2053 based on the physics of a solar dynamo model with two out of phase principal component magnetic fields whose predictable wave-like interactions determine the strength of the solar background magne…
It’s basically confirmed now:
Contrary to earlier speculations, the likelihood of a solar grand minimum in the 21st century is becoming increasingly remote. Similarly, predictions that the current extended solar minimum would lead to a marked decrease in temperature are incorrect.
https://judithcurry.com/2023/07/04/solar-activity-solar-cycle-25-surpasses-cycle-24/
This does mean that we can expect no large decrease in global mean surface temperature, which would have been the coup de grâce for the man-made global warming hypothesis and the nutters who promote it as ‘settled science’ (increasingly by resorting to outright censorship of alternative opinions on social media) had it happened. It probably means that temperatures will continue to drift upwards (although perhaps interrupted by a downturn in the AMO) for the foreseeable future and we will continue to be assaulted by climate alarmist propaganda and eco-fascist diktats. But all is not lost. The good news is that science is still alive and well:
As noted above, there is a stark contradiction between the relatively small climatic impact observed during the solar cycle and the evidence provided by paleoclimate proxy data. Remarkably, the climate patterns observed over the past 2000 years are consistent with a millennial cycle of solar activity known as the Eddy Cycle, named after astronomer John Eddy, who revived interest in the Maunder Minimum in the 1970s. Notably, the Little Ice Age, the coldest period in the Holocene, coincided with three solar grand minimums that occurred within a span of less than 500 years.
It is important to note that the onset of the Little Ice Age cannot be attributed to changes in greenhouse gas levels, as CO2 levels remained constant between 1100 and 1500 AD. In addition, the Little Ice Age cannot be explained by volcanic eruptions alone, as no significant volcanic events were recorded for an extended period of three hundred years, from 1458 to 1765.
The evidence linking solar activity to major climate changes strongly suggests that the Eddy Cycle has played a major role in shaping the climate of the past 2000 years. This is illustrated in Figure 4, which shows the 14C record – a proxy for solar activity – with its 1000-year bandpass frequency sinusoidal. In addition, the figure shows a climate proxy: the measurement of petrological tracers in benthic cores that reflect the amount of iceberg discharge in the North Atlantic.[5] These tracers are carried by icebergs and released as they melt. During colder periods with increased winter snowfall, coastal glaciers advance and release more icebergs, resulting in a higher amount of tracer.
The solar/climate link is not going away any time soon. It was real in the past and it is real now.
This is an interesting development. I think it's too early to declare the emperor dead just as it was too early in the late 90s to turn over all our futures to a 'hockey stick' that turned out to be noise. We have to learn to be patient when the time constants of these processes are decades or centuries.
After Solar Max will be a Modern Cosmic Ray Max, and if the magnetic excursion keeps accelerating that could become very very hairy. Temperature changes are normal..