“New Little Ice Age Instead of Global Warming?” — Dr Theodor Landscheidt

[Originally published Sept 7, 2020 on electroverse.net]

Among the long list or scientific papers suggesting that a solar-driven spell of global cooling is on the cards, Dr Theodor Landscheidt’s ‘New Little ICE Age Instead of Global Warming?‘ probably has the claim of priority.

Published in 2003, just a year before his death, Landscheidt’s research is standing the test of time, and is still largely on course to be proved correct.

The paper’s abstract begins:

‘Analysis of the sun’s varying activity in the last two millennia indicates that contrary to the IPCC’s speculation about man-made global warming as high as 5.8C within the next hundred years, a long period of cool climate with its coldest phase around 2030 is to be expected.’

Crucially, in the growing list of research concluding that a solar-driven multidecadal spell of global cooling is on the cards (research from multiple studies of quite different characteristics), the year 2030 ALWAYS features prominently. Unlike the IPCC, which tosses its thermageddon doomsday date back and forth like a hot potato, researchers who track the multimillennial plays of the cosmos (namely those of the Sun) routinely land on the year 2030 as being the date of ‘climate deterioration’: this in itself should serve as compelling evidence.

Dr Landscheidt continues:

‘It is shown that minima in the 80 to 90-year Gleissberg cycle of solar activity, coinciding with periods of cool climate on Earth, are consistently linked to an 83-year cycle in the change of the rotary force driving the sun’s oscillatory motion … As the future course of this cycle and its amplitudes can be computed, it can be seen that the Gleissberg minimum around 2030 and another one around 2200 will be of the Maunder minimum type accompanied by severe cooling on Earth. This forecast should prove skillful as other long-range forecasts of climate phenomena, based on cycles in the sun’s orbital motion, have turned out correct as for instance the prediction of the last three El Niño years before the respective event.’

Dr Landscheidt concludes his introduction with the IPCC’s position on global warming, and he points to a growing list of publications showing a solar-climate connection:

‘The IPCC’s judgement that the solar factor is negligible is based on satellite observations available since 1978 which show that the Sun’s total irradiance, though not being constant, changes only by about 0.1 percent during the course of the 11-year sunspot cycle. This argument, however, does not take into account that the Sun’s eruptional activity (energetic flares, coronal mass ejections, eruptive prominences), heavily affecting the solar wind, as well as softer solar wind contributions by coronal holes have a much stronger effect than total irradiance. The total magnetic flux leaving the Sun, dragged out by the solar wind, has risen by a factor of 2.3 since 1901 (Lockwood et al., 1999), while global temperature on earth increased by about 0.6°C. The energy in the solar flux is transferred to the near-Earth environment by magnetic reconnection and directly into the atmosphere by charged particles. Energetic flares increase the Sun’s ultraviolet radiation by at least 16 percent. Ozone in the stratosphere absorbs this excess energy which causes local warming and circulation disturbances. General circulation models developed by Haigh (1996), Shindell et al. (1999), and Balachandran et al. (1999) confirm that circulation changes, initially induced in the stratosphere, can penetrate into the troposphere and influence temperature, air pressure, Hadley circulation, and storm tracks by changing the distribution of large amounts of energy already present in the atmosphere.’

Moving on, Section 3 of the paper includes this golden nugget:

‘If the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) were the dominant cause of the observed rise in global temperature, the trend of this rise would be similar to the continuously rising CO2-trend shown [below] after Peixoto and Oort (1992).

‘The course of the Northern Hemisphere land air temperature, however, represented by the thick line in Fig. 4, does not follow the CO2 trend.

‘The increase in surface temperature from 1890 to 1940 was steeper and smoother than in the current warming phase since the early 1980s though the rate of anthropogenic emissions at that time was only 10% of the present rate. From 1940 through the late 1960s temperatures were falling in spite of the fast rise of anthropogenic CO2-emissions.

‘A closer look shows that nearly all Gleissberg minima back to 300 A.D., as for instance around 1670 (Maunder minimum), 1810 (Dalton minimum), and 1895, coincided with a cool climate in the Northern Hemisphere, whereas Gleissberg maxima went along with warm climate as for instance around 1130 (Medieval climate optimum). The degree of temperature change was proportional to the respective amplitudes in the Gleissberg cycle. During the Maunder minimum solar activity was minimal and during the Medieval Climate Optimum very high, probably even higher than in the six decades of intense solar activity before 1996.’

In subsequent sections, Dr Landscheidt’s paper delves into ‘the length of the 11 year solar cycle and temperature’, it looks at ‘the relationship between solar eruptions and global temperature’, as well as the ‘forecast of deep Gleissberg minima and cold climate around 2030 and 2200’.

My summary serves as a brief introduction to Dr Theodor Landscheidt’s work, and of course should not be seen as a substitute for reading the paper itself, which concludes with a damning verdict on the IPPC’s scientific method:

‘The IPCC’s “story lines”, far from forecasts as practiced in other fields of science, are nearly exclusively supported by runs of General Circulation Models (GCM). These models are based on the same type of nonlinear differential equations which induced Lorenz in 1961 to acknowledge that long-range weather predictions are impossible because of the atmosphere’s extreme sensitivity to initial conditions. It is not conceivable that the “Butterfly Effect” should disappear when the prediction range of a few days is extended to decades and centuries.

‘The IPCC-hypothesis of global warming requires that long-wave radiation to space is reduced because of the accumulating anthropogenic greenhouse gases. Actually, satellites have observed a trend of increasing tropical long-wave radiation to space over the past two decades (Wielicki et al., 2002). GCMs predict greater increase in temperature with increasing distance from the equator, but observations show no net change in the polar regions in the past four decades (Comiso, 2000; Przybylak, 2000; Venegas and Mysak, 2000). According to the most recent data, Antarctica has cooled significantly (Doran et al., 2002) instead of warming.’

In this prominent paper’s final section (11), it is concluded:

‘We need not wait until 2030 to see whether the forecast of the next deep Gleissberg minimum is correct. A declining trend in solar activity and global temperature should become manifest long before the deepest point in the development. The current 11-year sunspot cycle 23 with its considerably weaker activity seems to be a first indication of the new trend, especially as it was predicted on the basis of solar motion cycles two decades ago. As to temperature, only El Niño periods should interrupt the downward trend, but even El Niños should become less frequent and strong.’

Landscheidt’s contentions are indeed chiming with reality — the truest test of any theory.

Unfortunately though, accurately gauging today’s temperatures have been made difficult, perhaps intentionally so. Many modern datasets cannot be trusted for they ignore, deliberately or otherwise, crucial factors such as the Urban Heat Island effect (UHI) in order to exaggerate, or indeed completely fabricate, a warming trend.

Looking at the global temperature datasets out there, the most trustworthy is probably the UAH Satellite-Based Temperature of the Global Lower Atmosphere. Currently, as of July 2022 *UPDATE*, the UAH has Earth at 0.36C above the multidecadal average, which is DOWN some 0.35C from the start of 2016 — we are beginning to cool, according to the satellites.

I would contend, though, that regional fluctuations –rather than the global average– will be more important to ascertain as we move forward into a Grand Solar Minimum. To confuse matters further, some parts of the planet actually warm during GSMs, during bouts of otherwise “global” cooling–the Arctic being one.

Still, and overall, Earth’s average temperature is expected to drop–perhaps by as much as 2C: devastating for crop production.

The COLD TIMES are returning, the mid-latitudes are REFREEZING in line with historically low solar activity, cloud-nucleating Cosmic Rays, and a meridional jet stream flow (among many other forcings, including the impending release of the Beaufort Gyre).

Prepare accordingly — learn the facts, relocate if need be, and grow your own.

Social Media channels are restricting Electroverse’s reach: Twitter are purging followers, while Facebook are labeling posts as “false” and have slapped-on crippling page restrictions. And most recently, the CCDH stripped the website of its ability to advertise with Google.

So, be sure to subscribe to receive new post notifications by email. And also consider becoming a Patron or donating via Paypal (buttons located in the sidebar >>> or scroll down if on mobile). The site receives ZERO funding, and never has.

Any way you can, help me spread the message so others can survive and thrive in the coming times.

[A few of the] Scientists who warn of a coming Grand Solar Minimum and Little Ice Age