With inadvertent but very apropos timing, The New Scientist published an article on research showing how the weather in Europe is affected by solar activity:
14 April 2010 by Stuart Clark
Magazine issue 2756.BRACE yourself for more winters like the last one, northern Europe. Freezing conditions could become more likely: winter temperatures may even plummet to depths last seen at the end of the 17th century, a time known as the Little Ice Age. That’s the message from a new study that identifies a compelling link between solar activity and winter temperatures in northern Europe.
The research finds that low solar activity promotes the formation of giant kinks in the jet stream. These kinks can block warm westerly winds from reaching Europe, while allowing in winds from Arctic Siberia. When this happens in winter, northern Europe freezes, even though other, comparable regions of the globe may be experiencing unusually mild conditions.
Weather is a result of a huge number of factors, which is why up until comparatively recently weather forecasting wasn’t accurate beyond 48 hours or so. With more powerful computers and more sophisticated models that account for more of the factors that affect weather along with more types of data (such as from Doppler radar) the forecasts have gotten better.
As noted in the article in The New Scientist, energy input from the sun significantly affects weather, which is why the eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland may affect weather for months, as reported on MSNBC.com:
Volcano could mean cooling, acid rain
‘Not like Pinatubo’ so far, but potential is there
msnbc.com staff and news service reports
updated 10:03 a.m. CT, Thurs., April 15, 2010If Iceland’s active volcano gets even more active, Icelanders and air travelers won’t be the only ones impacted. Gases from past large volcanoes have actually lowered Earth’s temperatures, triggered lung ailments, caused acid rain and thinned our protective ozone layer.
The Eyjafjallajokull volcano isn’t there yet. “This is not like Pinatubo. So far the scale is not big enough to have a global effect,” Hans Olav Hygen, a climate researcher at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, said in reference to the 1991 eruption in the Philippines.
But the potential is there. The new eruption is 10 times more powerful than another nearby last month, threw up a cloud of ash nearly seven miles high and closed down air traffic across northern Europe.
As far as I know, climate change skeptics do not dispute that gases from volcanic eruptions affect the weather. What I find amazing is that many climate change skeptics deny that the significant increase in carbon dioxide, ozone, and sulfur-based emissions due to human activity over the last 200 years has any effect. Instead, often, one sees “look, there’s a massive snowstorm in the northeast, so much for global warming,” conflating weather with climate.
Sadly, climate change research has a serious public image problem. Climate change was initially presented as “global warming” because the results from the models indicate that the average temperature of the planet will be increasing. The phrase “climate change” is more appropriate because some areas will become cooler rather than warmer. For example, the British Isles, and Europe as a whole, are warmer on average than one would expect because of effects from the Gulf Stream. Suppose as a result of climate change, the path of the Gulf Stream changes? Europe would get cooler, even though the average global temperature rose. Just because it was called “global warming” does not mean that every region on the planet would get warmer, but that complexity gets lost in the noise machine.
It’s far easier to be snarky and point to the chaotic weather to deny that the climate might change. Remember, “climate is what you expect, weather is what you get.” Ironically, climate change will result in more chaotic weather, and that may give the skeptics what they think is more ammunition to shoot down the concept that human activity could change the global climate.
Weather and climate are the result of a very complex system with many inputs and many interactions. We have direct evidence from volcanic eruptions that introducing new gases into the atmosphere does change weather on a wide scale. I have difficulty understanding how anyone can claim that human activity, which has introduced large quantities of gases into the atmosphere, would not have an effect. One might argue how large that effect might be, and possibly even what direction that effect would take, but in the end, there would be an effect. Is it really wise for humanity to continue to change the composition of our atmosphere without understanding the ultimate outcome of that change?
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Cross-posted between Random Fate and The Moderate Voice . Comments can be made at Random Fate , but please note they are not posted until after review.
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