Have We entered an Era of Global Cooling?

By Tom Harris March 16, 2024

 From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository

With all the sound and fury about global warming, an important, and many scientists now assert, more likely scenario is usually ignored—the possibility of far more dangerous global cooling. It is more dangerous because many more people die due to the cold than the heat. A 2015 study in the British Medical journal The Lancet found that:

“Cold weather kills 20 times as many people as hot weather, according to an international study analyzing over 74 million deaths in 384 locations across 13 countries.”

Indeed, history shows that cold periods are far more hazardous than warm times. That is why geologists call past warm epochs “optimums” and cold times “dark ages.” The plot of temperature versus time for Central Greenland below (used with the permission of the originator, petrophysicist Andy May) is a good illustration of the natural climate change we have seen over the past four thousand years and the related societal impacts. Note how cold periods coincided with hardships for humanity while, in most cases, warm periods were beneficial.

Yet cities such as Ottawa, Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, and Montreal, municipalities each of which experience cold weather, at times very cold, all essentially ignore the dangerous impacts of cooling in their climate change plans. Ottawa’s Climate Change Master Plan is especially misguided. Despite the City’s assertion that “Ottawa must be an energy-conscious city where people can live, work and play in all future climate conditions,” cooling adaptation is entirely ignored. As I told the City of Ottawa Environment and Climate Change Committee in my April 18, 2023 testimony:

“As the seventh coldest capital city in the world, it is irresponsible for Ottawa to only prepare for warming when cooling is far more dangerous and, some scientists say, more likely. It would be like going camping in an area known to be infested with black bears and mosquitos and only planning for the mosquitos. Yes, the bugs can drive you crazy, but the bears can kill you. Similarly, heat in Ottawa is not fatal except for the elderly and other vulnerable citizens, people we need to protect. But everyone can die when it is minus 30 with no heat.”

In my articles of past three weeks, I have written about the new theory of cosmoclimatology—how phenomena in space, especially changes in the output of the Sun, affect the climate on Earth. While it is scientifically interesting to learn about what drove climate change in the past, what really matters from a public policy perspective is what this research can tell us about climate change in the future. This then helps us make sensible decisions about where we should focus our efforts to ensure future generations are well-prepared for whatever nature throws at us next.

As I explained in previously, Earthly temperature trends apparently follow in accordance with solar cycles. This should seriously concern councillors from all of these cities since leading solar researchers are convinced that we are headed for a Grand Solar Minimum by about the year 2070 when the Sun may be at its weakest in the past 300 years. This could result in significant global cooling, which these municipalities must prepare for.

The first time I heard about the coming Grand Solar Minimum was at The Heartland Institute's Fourth International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC-4) that took place in May 2010 in Chicago. In that important conference, Dr. Habibullo Abdussamatov, a Russian expert in solar terrestrial physics, head of the Space Research Laboratory of the Pulkovo Observatory in St. Petersburg and, later, the 2013 gold medal winner from the European Scientific-Industrial Chamber, gave a presentation titled, “THE SUN DICTATES THE CLIMATE.” Abdussamatov explained that:

“Natural bicentennial variations in the average annual values of the TSI [Total Solar Irradiance, the amount of solar energy reaching the top of Earth’s atmosphere] caused by cyclic variations in the radius of the Sun together with secondary feedback effects led to 18 Little Ice Ages, established within the last 7,500 years. Every time the TSI experienced its peak (up to 0.2%) a global warming began with a time lag of 15+/-6 years defined by thermal inertia of the Ocean (despite the absence of anthropogenic influence [i.e., climate changed caused by humans]) and each deep bicentennial descent in the TSI caused a Little Ice Age.”

Amazingly, Abdussamatov said that the Sun’s radius varies by up to 250 km during the familiar 11-year sunspot cycle (we are just starting cycle 25 now) and up to 700 km during the bicentennial, or 200-year cycle. And this greatly influences solar output. Specifically, when the Sun was very weak, every 200 years or so, the Earth went into a Little Ice Age. He explained that such research enables scientists to study how TSI has changed in past centuries and even millennia and determine how it correlates with past climate on Earth and so what the future holds as these cycles continue.

Frighteningly, we are nearing a Grand Solar Minimum right now, a time period when many of the cycles of the Sun hit rock bottom. Abdussamatov predicted a deep minimum in TSI about 2042 and “a deep global temperature minimum about 2055 – 2060. The last time the Sun was this weak, the Earth was in a particularly cold phase of the most recent Little Ice Age that lasted from about 1350 – 1850, a period of great misery for people around the world.

Abdussamatov gave a similar talk at The Ninth International Conference on Climate Change, which took place in 2014 in Las Vegas. The conference attracted some 650 scientists, economists, policy experts and Abdussamatov’s presentation was more assertive this time and was titled “2014- The Beginning of the New Little Ice Age.” In that talk, he updated his estimates to the start of the Grand Minimum of TSI being anticipated by about solar cycle 27 around the year 2043 which would be followed by “a phase of deep cooling [similar to] the 19th Little Ice Age … approximately in 2060 ± 11 [years], with possible duration of 45 – 65 years.” He also presented the following graph:

Abdussamatov concluded his 2014 presentation:

“The Sun is the main factor controlling the climatic system and it is more powerful than abilities of human beings.”

In 2020, Abdussamatov published a block-buster paper, “Energy Imbalance Between the Earth and Space Controls the Climate” in the journal “Earth Sciences.” Once again, he did not pull his punches and repeated his forecast of a Grand Solar Minimum by about 2043. The Russian scientist slightly updated his prediction of when we could expect the next Little Ice Age to really bite hard,

“Solar cooling has started. As a result, the Earth has, and will continue to have, a long negative energy balance, which will ensure a slight decrease in temperature. However, this slight decrease in temperature is extremely important as a trigger mechanism for the subsequent chain effects of secondary causal effects of feedback that will greatly enhance the cooling. This will certainly lead to the onset of a phase of deep cooling of the climate approximately in the year 2070 ± 11 [years].”

And

“The total rate decline in TSI from cycle to cycle is currently accelerating and will reach maximum its acceleration in the next solar cycle. The observed consistent downward trend decline of TSI in four consecutive cycles suggests that such a decrease bring backs to a similar decrease during the Maunder minimum in 1645-1715.”

Some people may be tempted to dismiss Dr. Abdussamatov’s forecasts, as well as the work of Svensmark, Veizer and Shaviv that I discussed in the past two articles as unique in the scientific community. However in “Modern Grand Solar Minimum will lead to terrestrial cooling” in the August 4, 2020 edition of the journal Temperature, Northumbria University professor Valentina  Zharkova who holds a Ph.D. from the Solar Division of the Main Astronomical Observatory, Kyiv, Ukraine wrote:

“During this modern grand minimum, one would expect to see a reduction of the average terrestrial temperature by up to 1.0°C, especially, during the periods of solar minima between the cycles 25–26 and 26–27, e.g. in the decade 2031–2043.”

And then there is the 2021 paper, “How much has the Sun influenced Northern Hemisphere temperature trends? An ongoing debate” by 23 scientists from 14 countries, the abstract of which reads, in part:

“It appears that previous studies (including the most recent IPCC reports) which had prematurely concluded [that the Sun’s output contributed negligibly to Earthly climate change] had done so because they failed to adequately consider all the relevant estimates of Total Solar Irradiance and/or to satisfactorily address the uncertainties still associated with Northern Hemisphere temperature trend estimates.” 

And I could name many more scientists who also attribute most recent climate change to variations in TSI. Contrary to the claims of climate activists that “the science of climate change is settled,” the science is very much unsettled and quickly evolving in directions that will make today’s climate scare look like a dangerous and expensive mistake.

___________________________________________________________________________

Tom Harris is Executive Director of the Ottawa, Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition.

 

 

Geological Discovery Upends Politically Correct Climate Science

February 22, 2024 By Tom Harris

Over the past few decades, one of the greatest mystery stories in the history of science has played out—trying to understand why changes in the output of the Sun, not human emissions of greenhouse gases, appears to be the primary driver of climate change on Earth.

For example, it was during a period of high solar activity around 1000 AD when we experienced the Medieval Warm Period when the great cathedrals were built in Europe and the Vikings settled Greenland where they raised sheep and grew grain. And it was during a period of low solar activity that the Little Ice Age occurred between about 1300 and 1850, at the start of which the Viking Greenland colonies died out.

Of course, humanity’s emissions of carbon dioxide and other infrared-absorbing gases was trivial during both of those time periods, so it is important to understand what natural forces caused such climatic swings and determine if those factors are still the main drivers of climate change today.

As my guest Dr. Ian Clark explained in “Earth Scientists… The sun drives climate change!”— the January 29, 2024 episode of my The Other Side of the Story podcast—one of the most influential players in the detective story that helped us answer this question was Professor Jan Veizer, the Distinguished University Professor (emeritus) of Earth Sciences at the University of Ottawa and Institute for Geology, Mineralogy and Geophysics of Bochum Ruhr University in Germany. By analyzing oxygen isotopes in fossilized seashells, in particular the fossils of brachiopods (see photograph above), Dr. Veiser discovered that the Earth warmed and cooled periodically on time scales of tens of millions of years throughout the Phanerozoic, the geologic eon that covers the time period from about 600 million years ago to the present.

Here is how he found that.

The oxygen atom always has eight protons, hence an atomic number of eight—which defines it as oxygen in the periodic table (below)—and usually eight neutrons, giving it a “mass number” of 16, the sum of the number of protons and neutrons. This is called O-16. However, one “isotope” of oxygen has ten neutrons, giving it a mass number of 18. This is called O-18. 

In the ocean, most of the oxygen in the sea water, H₂O, is O-16, with only a small fraction of it being O-18. While the fraction that is O-18 varies with salinity, temperature and evaporation effects, the natural abundance of O-18 in sea water is typically only 0.2%, meaning that for every 1,000 oxygen atoms in the water, about two of them are O-18.

Because the water molecule, H₂O, made from O-16 is obviously lighter than that made from O-18, water with O-16 preferentially evaporates over the heavier water with O-18. In warm periods, much of this water falls as rain on the land and then flows back into the sea, maintaining the O-18 to O-16 ratio in the ocean. However, in glacial periods when far more of the land surface of Earth is covered with permanent ice and snow, more of the water evaporated from the oceans falls as snow and stays on the land, thereby measurably increasing the O-18 to O-16 ratio, often referred to as , in seawater.

Hard shelled sea animals build their shells with the materials from the environment in which they live of course, including the surrounding seawater. Therefore, during glacial periods, when  in the water is higher than during warm times, their shells will reflect this higher ratio. During warm times, the O-18 to O-16 ratio in their shells would naturally be lower, indicating the different environment in which they live. This ratio is preserved in fossilized seashells.

Professor Clark explained in the January 29^th interview:

[note: O-16 and O-18 are both stable isotopes, making them ideal for this method, in contrast with unstable isotopes such as O-15, O-19, and other oxygen isotopes which are radioactive and decay into other elements over time]

“The instruments we use to analyze stable isotopes are called gas source mass spectrometers. When you take a shell, that’s not a gas so we have to convert our material to a gas. So what we do is take the shelly material, and make sure it’s very pristine, unaltered and we grind it up and then we dissolve it with acid under vacuum conditions and that produces CO₂. The carbon dioxide is the gas that we use [in the gas source mass spectrometers] and it has now preserved the O-18 record from the shell. And remembering the shell had preserved the O-18 record from the ocean water that the animal built its shell from. So we’re now measuring CO₂ which has a record of the oxygen-18 in that ocean way back in geological time.” 

This method reveals when there was more or less land glaciation, a proxy for temperature, over the approximately 600 million years that there has been hard shelled sea creatures. And what Veizer found was astonishing: there was a nearly sinusoidal variation of  and so the implied temperature over this time frame, as shown below, Figure 1 from the blockbuster 2003 paper, Celestial Driver of Phanerozoic Climate. The black nearly sinusoidal line in the figure shows the variation in , a direct indicator of temperature. The other colored lines around the black line are simply curves showing different averaging and resolution computations of the same  data. Note that the vertical  axis on the left is inverted, so high , approaching 2 units below the x-axis at about 450 million years ago, indicates an “icehouse” period, highlighted by the dark blue bar at the top of the graph, a time frame far colder and of greater duration than recent ice ages.

The top three curves of Figure 1, which are different determinations of CO₂ in the past, GEOCARB III—in purple, Berner & Streif—in dark green and Rothman—in red, also illustrates that there is no meaningful, consistent correlation between temperature and CO₂ levels in the past 500 million years. Note that CO₂ levels are plotted as a logarithm, base 10, of the ratio of the level of CO₂ at some time t in the past to its level today (t = 0), meaning that the curve goes to zero in the present as the logarithm of one is zero. Also note that, when we were at the coldest period in the past half billion years about 450 million years ago, CO₂ levels were considerably higher than today, thereby refuting the assumption that CO₂ concentration has been the dominant driver of temperature over all time frames. See the caption below figure 1 for more information about this graph.

So, if it was not variations in CO₂ concentration, what could have caused such temperature changes over time frames of tens of millions of years, detective professor Jan Veiser wondered. In next week’s article, I will show how Veiser answered this mystery and demonstrate why this discovery has helped

Tom Harris is Executive Director of the Ottawa, Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition.

Solar Activity Weakest In More Than A Century

Henrik Svensmark: Cosmic Rays And Clouds Anno 2016

Brought to you by Benny Peiser's Global Warming Policy Forum
 

The current solar cycle is the 24th since 1755 when extensive recording of solar sunspot activity began and is the weakest in more than a century with the fewest sunspots since cycle 14 peaked in February 1906. --Paul Dorian, Vencore Weather, 31 October 2016

Get ready for the coldest winter since 2012. Most of China－but especially the northeast and northwest－is expected to feel a big chill this winter, thanks to a climate pattern in the Pacific Ocean called La Nina, meteorologists said on Monday. "Affected by a growing La Nina, the country's average temperature this winter is forecast to be 0.5 degree (Celsius) lower than average," said Zheng Fei, a researcher at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of Chinese Academy of Sciences. --Zheng Jinran, China Daily, 31 October 2016

Climate change has been wrongly blamed for devastating coffee plantations, a study has found. Coffee leaf rust (CLR) caused coffee production in Colombia to fall by 40 per cent between 2008 and 2011. The decline was linked to the worst epidemic for several decades. A number of other coffee-producing countries in Central America and the Caribbean were also affected and hundreds of thousands of people lost their livelihoods. Some scientists linked the spread of the fungus to climate change because it thrives in higher temperatures and the moisture caused by increased rainfall. The International Coffee Organisation, an intergovernmental body of coffee exporting and importing countries, said in 2014: “Due to changing climatic patterns, the fungus is expanding to higher altitudes where coffee is grown.” Scientists at the University of Exeter took a different view. Their paper, published in the Royal Society journal Philosophical Transactions B, concluded: “We find no evidence for an overall trend in disease risk in coffee-growing regions of Colombia from 1990 to 2015, therefore, while weather conditions were more conducive to disease outbreaks from 2008 to 2011, we reject the climate change hypothesis.” --Ben Webster, The Times, 24 October 2016 

Now and then new results appear that suggest that the idea of cosmic ray influence on clouds and terrestrial climate does not work. “Sun-clouds-climate connection takes a beating from CERN” is the latest news story which is based on a new paper from the CLOUD collaboration at CERN. This type of numerical modeling is by no means new, and neither is the result that ions in these models apparently do not affect cloud formation. We have known this for about 7 years. So why, in contrast to the above, do I think that the cosmic rays cloud idea is still viable? The reason is that we have tried to answer the same question (do ion-nucleated aerosols grow to CCN) without using models — and get very different results. --Henrik Svensmark, Global Warming Policy Forum, 30 October 2016

Ever since I first wrote in 2011 under the heading “The lights may go out in Germany even sooner than in Britain”, I have been noting that, for evidence of where our efforts to “decarbonise” our economy are taking us, we should look at Germany, which is even further down the track. An expert study there has recently caused a stir by calculating that by 2025 Germany’s “green energy transition”, such as its 26,000 windmills, will have cost £470 billion, or £22,500 for the average household. Another study by Dr John Constable of the Global Warming Policy Forum shows that in the same period, the additional annual sum we pay just for “green” electricity will almost have trebled, from less than £5 billion to nearly £14 billion, made up partly of subsidies but also in “ancillary” costs. The trouble is that, because all these projections still seem comfortably in the future (although 2030 is just over 13 years away), only the handful of those who have looked at the hard facts have any idea of where the mad dreams of our politicians are leading us. --Christopher Booker, The Sunday Telegraph, 31 October 2016

Professors usually spend about 3-6 months (sometimes longer) researching and writing a 25-page article to submit an article to an academic journal. And most experience a twinge of excitement when, months later, they open a letter informing them that their article has been accepted for publication, and will therefore be read by … an average of ten people. Yes, you read that correctly. The numbers reported by recent studies are pretty bleak: - 82 percent of articles published in the humanities are not even cited once. Of those articles that are cited, only 20 percent have actually been read. Half of academic papers are never read by anyone other than their authors, peer reviewers, and journal editors. All of this is very unfortunate. Ideally, the great academic minds of a society should be put to work for the sake of building up that society and addressing its problems. Instead, most Western academics today are using their intellectual capital to answer questions that nobody’s asking on pages that nobody’s reading. What a waste. --Daniel Lattier, Intellectual Takeover, 26 October 2016

From Benny Peiser's Global Warming Policy Foundation

Solar Activity Weakest In A Century

Weakest Solar Max In Over 200 Years

 The sun's current space-weather cycle is the most anemic in 100 years, scientists say. "None of us alive have ever seen such a weak cycle. So we will learn something," Leif Svalgaard of Stanford University told reporters here today (Dec. 11) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. --Mike Wall, Space.com 11 December 2013

We may be witnessing the sun’s last dying gasps before entering into a long slumber. The impact of that slumber on Earth’s climate remains the subject of growing scientific speculation. The latest solar data from this month reinforces the belief that our sun is headed into a long-term period of low solar activity. As time goes on a link between decreasing solar activity and the halt in global warming 17 years ago becomes harder and harder to deny. --Inform the Pundits, 14 December 2013

Data from Europe's Cryosat spacecraft suggests there were almost 9,000 cu km of ice at the end of this year's melt season. This is close to 50% more than in the corresponding period in 2012. It is a rare piece of good news for a region that has witnessed a rapid decline in both area cover and thickness in recent years. --Jonathan Amos, BBC News, 16 December 2013

The year 1981 was a big one in my business life. It was the year Paul Allen and I incorporated Microsoft in our home state of Washington. As it turns out, 1981 also had big implications for my current work in health, development, and the environment. The Bet was a stark reminder to me of how apocalyptic a big part of the environmental movement has been. It’s a shame that extreme views get more attention and more of a following than nuanced views. I wish there more people who took the middle ground and who were as prominent as Simon or Ehrlich. So here’s my question to you: What’s the best way to encourage scholars to combine the best insights from multiple disciplines? How can we elevate the status of scientists and spokespeople who refuse the lure of extremism and absolutism? --Bill Gates, The Gates Notes, 12 December 2013

I oppose the hysterical and apocalyptic tone that the debate seems to sometimes take on. This is bad for climate policy, and bad for society as a whole. Perhaps it is now time to add an element of calm and to restore a sense of reason, because a calm and balanced assessment of the entire situation seems to have been lacking in recent years. –Benny Peiser, Pan European Networks, December 2013

There are two paths ahead; each marked with a “Danger” signpost

(As everyone knows who has been a regular reader of Paradigms and Demographics and my weekly newsletter, Green Notes, Mr. James Marusek is a nuclear physicist and an engineer. He clearly demonstrates his expertise in this work. Please follow the links. The information is somewhat long, but I can’t emphasis enough how important that information is. I would like to thank him once again for allowing me to reprint his work. Click HERE in order to see the original PDF. RK)


James A. Marusek
2 April 2009

The sun has gone very quiet as it transitions to Solar Cycle 24. The Ap index is a proxy measurement for the intensity of solar magnetic activity as it alters the geomagnetic field on Earth. Anthony Watts (meteorologist) referred to it as the common yardstick for solar magnetic activity. The Ap index for February and for March is "5" a slight uptick from the three consecutive months of "4's" (November 2008 - January 2009). An Ap index of "4" is the lowest recorded number since measurements began in January 1932. This solar minimum has a long ways to go before it can be declared officially over.

As of the end of March, the cumulative number of spotless days (days without sunspots) is now at 586 days. The transitions into Solar Cycles (SC16-23), referred to as recent solar cycles minimums, averaged 362 cumulative spotless days. Those minimums ranged from 227 - 568 spotless days. Since the current transition now exceeds 568 spotless days, it is becoming clear that sun has undergone a state change. It is now evident that the Grand Maxima state that has persisted during most of the 20th century has come to an abrupt end.

The old solar cycles (SC 10-15) averaged 797 spotless days, over twice that of the recent solar cycles. Those solar minimums ranged from 406 - 1028 spotless days.

An increase in the number of cumulative spotless days during a solar minimum correlates to a reduction in the number of sunspots over the entire solar cycle. The old solar cycles overall produced 38% fewer sunspots than the recent solar cycles.
We are now at a crossroad. Two paths lie before us. Both are marked with a signpost that reads “Danger”! Down one path lies monstrous solar storms. Down the other path lies several decades of crushing cold temperatures and global famine.

If either of these threats materializes, this nation will be hit blind-sighted. Both are related to the current state of the sun. The sun has been in a “Grand Maxima” for most of the past century. This has accounted for much of the natural warming the earth has experienced. But as evident in this solar minimum, the sun is changing states. It might (1) revert to the old solar cycles or (2) the sun might go even quieter into a “Dalton Minimum” or a Grand Minima such as the “Maunder Minimum”. It is still a little early to predict which way it will swing. Each of these two possibilities holds a great threat to our nation.

(1) Reverting to the “Old” Cycles (Solar Cycles 10-15)

Since the old solar cycles produced fewer sunspots, one might draw the conclusion that we will be entering a period of reduced solar storms. But this is not true. It is quite the opposite. The old solar cycles produced very intense solar storms. The greatest solar storm in modern time known as the Carrington flare of 1-2 September 1859 occurred in Solar Cycle 10. In addition to the Carrington flare, several other massive solar storms occurred during the old solar cycles. These massive solar storms occurred on 12 October 1859, 4 February 1872, 17-18 November 1882, 30 March 1894, 31 October 1903, 25 September 1909 and 13-16 May 1921. How can this be? This is because the old solar cycles produced massive sunspots. It was like the magnetic field energy was still there and had to still be released but during a shorter time interval, so the sunspots exploded in size and power.

If a solar storm of the magnitude of the Carrington flare were to occur today, the effect on our modern technologically dependent society would be grave. Of these, the greatest threat would lie in the loss of stable electrical power. A massive solar storm could destroy many of the large custom Extra High Voltage (EHV) powert ransformer in the United States. These items are unique, costly (around $10 million each) and have manufacture lead time of a year or more for replacement. In 2007, I described the effects from a massive solar storm in Solar Storm Threat Analysis. I also laid out a civil defense plan for major solar storms called The Solar Storm Disaster Preparedness Plan. In 2008, the National Research Council took up the subject holding a public workshop to define the solar storm threat. Their finding (which mirrored mine) were published in a report titled Severe Space Weather Events Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts. In their findings, their bottom line was if a massive solar storm struck the United States today “it would result in large-scale blackouts affecting more than 130 million people and would expose more than 350 major transformers to the risk of permanent damage”. Imagine the effect of a total power blackout for months/years on 100 million people in the U.S. along with many millions across the globe. The report then goes on to say “Historically large storms have a potential to cause power grid blackouts and transformer damage of unprecedented proportions, long-term blackouts, and lengthy restoration times, and chronic shortages for multiple years are possible.”
(2) The Sun slipping quietly towards a Dalton Minimum or even a Grand Minima such as a Maunder Minimum.

Climate change is primarily driven by nature. It has been true in the days of my father and his father and all those that came before us. Because of science, not junk science, we have slowly uncovered some of the fundamental mysteries of nature. Our Milky Way galaxy is awash with cosmic rays. These are high speed charged particles that originate from exploding stars. Because they are charged, their travel is strongly influenced by magnetic fields. Our sun produces a magnetic field wrapped in the solar winds that extends to the edges of our solar system.

This field deflects many of the cosmic rays away from Earth. But when the sun goes quiet(minimal sunspots), this field collapses inward allowing high energy cosmic rays to penetrate deeper into our solar system. As a result, far greater numbers collide with Earth and penetrate down into the lower atmosphere where they ionize small particles of moisture (humidity) forming them into water droplets that become clouds. Low level clouds reflect sunlight back into space. An increase in Earth's cloud cover produce a global drop in temperature.

If the sun becomes quieter than the old solar cycles, producing more than 1028 spotless days,then we might slip into a Dalton Minimum or maybe even a Grand Minima such as the Maunder Minimum. This solar state will last for decades. Several solar scientist have predicted this will begin in Solar Cycle 25, about a decade from now. But a few have predicted this will occur now in Solar Cycle 24. A quiet sun will cause temperatures globally to take a nose-dive. We will experience temperatures that we have not seen in over 200 years, during the time of the early pioneers.

Temperatures are already falling. Satellites provide generally the most accurate atmospheric temperature measurements covering the entire globe. From the peak year 1998, the lower Troposphere temperatures globally have fallen around 1/2 degree Celsius due to the quiet sun. This is despite the fact that during that same time period, atmospheric carbon dioxide (at Mauna Loa) has risen 5% from 367 ppm to 386 ppm. The main threat from a “Dalton Minimum” or “Maunder Minimum” event is famine and starvation (affecting millions or hundreds of millions worldwide) due to shortened growing seasons and harsher weather. In the past, in addition to great famines, this cold harsh weather has also lead to major epidemics.

A taste of the cold weather due to a quiet sun.

Evidence of the Mississippi River, Ohio River, Allegheny River, Delaware River and Hudson River freezing and of very harsh winters.

Recent periods of quiet sun were the Dalton Minimum (1790-1830 A.D.), the Maunder Minimum (1645-1715 A.D.) and the Spörer Minimum (1420 to 1570 A.D.). The Maunder Minimum and Spörer Minimum were solar Grand Minima and each were individually referred to as the Little Ice Age.
A few decades after the Dalton Minimum
In the spring Eliza, a slave, carrying her young son, fled from Kentucky by crossing the Ohio River on foot. The river was “swollen and turbulent, great cakes of floating ice were swinging heavily to and fro in the turbid waters.” She leaped from one chunk of ice to the next until she reached freedom on the Ohio shore. [Source: Uncle Tomʼs Cabin. Harriet Beecher Stowe lived in Cincinnati, Ohio from 1832 to 1850. In 1851, she wrote “Uncle Tomʼs Cabin”. Her life in Ohio was intertwined in this work of fiction.]
During the Dalton Minimum
The Hudson River at the New York Harbor froze, enabling people to walk across the ice from Manhattan to Staten Island. The Hudson froze over completely during particularly brutal winter of 1779/1780, when the surface was solid for five weeks straight and the British rolled cannons over the ice. In 1821, taverns were constructed in the middle of the river to offer warmth and refreshment to pedestrians.
During the Dalton Minimum
Early settlers routinely waited till winter to cross the frozen Mississippi river in their wagon trains. In 1799, George Frederick Bollinger led a group of early pioneers from North Carolina to establish early settlements in Missouri. They hoped to cross their largest obstacle, the Mississippi River, on the ice, frozen solid in mid-winter. They arrived on the east bank of the Mississippi river opposite St. Genevieve in late December, pitched camp and explored potential river crossings. St. Genevieve is located about a hundred miles downstream from St. Louis. Daily the thickness of the ice was measured and then on December 31, a chopped hole in the ice indicated thickness well over two feet. The next day the settlers successfully drove their heavy loaded wagons across the river. [Source: “The Bollinger Migration to the Louisiana Territory”, part of "Bollinger Collection" compiled by Orena Bollinger in 1984.]

During the Dalton MinimumFrom 1803 to 1806, Captains Lewis and Clark lead a transcontinental expedition to explore the greater Northwest. During the winter of 1804/1805, the explorers set up a winter base camp near the Big Knife River near what is today the town of Bismarck, North Dakota. The winter was bitterly cold. There were 6 days with temperatures of -30oF or lower. These occurred in 1804 on December 12 (-38 degrees F), December 17 (-45 degrees F), December 18 (-32 degrees F), in 1805 on January 10 (-40 degrees F), January 11 (-38 degrees F), and January 13 (-34 degrees F). Compare this to the current low temperatures of Bismarck, North Dakota in which only one day in the past decade fell below -30 degrees F. On January 15, 2009 the temperature fell to -44 degrees F. [Sources: (1) The Journals of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, (2) Weather Underground for Bismarck, ND]
Between the Dalton Minimum and the Maunder Minimum
December 1776 was a desperate time for George Washington and the American Revolution. During the night of December 25, Washington led his small Continental army of 2,400 troops from Pennsylvania across the Delaware River made dangerous and barely navigable by huge chunks of ice. Once across they launched a surprise attack on the Britain's Hessian mercenaries at Trenton, New Jersey, capturing 1,000 prisoners and seizing muskets, powder, and artillery.
Between the Dalton Minimum and the Maunder Minimum
In Boston, Massachusetts on February 22, 1772, Anna, a young school girl, writes in her diary “Since about the middle of December, we have had till this week, a series of cold and stormy weather - every snow storm (of which we have had abundance) except the first, ended with rain, by which means the snow was so hardened that the strong gales at northwest soon turned it, and all above ground to ice.” In some streets about town this mixture of ice and snow is 5 feet thick. On March 11, she writes that the snow is now 7 feet deep in some places around her house[Source: “Diary of a Boston School Girl” written by Anna Green Winslow from 1771-1773, edited by Alice Morse Earle in 1894.]
Between the Dalton Minimum and the Maunder Minimum
Just before the opening battles of the French and Indian War in December 1753, George Washington, then 21 years old, crossed the Allegheny River. In their first attempt, Washington and a guide used a raft to cross the ice-choked river and this ended in disaster as Washington was knocked overboard in deep water and saved himself only by catching the raft as it swept by. The severe cold that night froze their clothes and the guide's fingers. The river also froze, however, allowing them to walk across on the ice the next morning. Soon they reached the safety of an English trader's settlement.

During the Maunder Minimum
During the Great Frost of (1683–1684) in England, the River Thames was completely frozen for two months, the ice was 11 inches thick at London. Sea ice was reported along the coasts of southeast England, and ice prevented the use of many harbors. The sea froze, so that ice formed for a time between Dover and Calais, joining England and France. The Thames was recorded to have frozen over at London during the years: 1649, 1655, 1663, 1666, 1667, 1684, 1695, 1709, and 1716.
During the Little Ice Age, growing seasons in England and Continental Europe generally became short and unreliable, which led to shortages and famine. These hardships were nothing compared to the more northerly countries: Glaciers advanced rapidly in Greenland, Iceland, Scandinavia and North America, making vast tracts of land uninhabitable. The Arctic pack ice extended so far south that several reports describe Eskimos landing their kayaks in Scotland. Finlandʼs population fell by one third, Icelandʼs by half, the Viking colonies in Greenland were abandoned atogether, as were many Inuit communities.

During the Spörer Minimum
By 1518, early explorers made significant progress in probing and surveying the New orld. They described North America as a “land of frozen seas, horrid, barren and scarcely habitable for cold”. “In the New World, cold predominates. The rigor of the frigid zone extends over half of those regions which should be temperate by their position. Countries where the grape and the fig should ripen, are buried under snow one half of the year; and lands situated in the same parallel with the most fertile and best cultivated provinces in Europe, are chilled with perpetual frosts, which almost destroy the power of vegetation.” [Source: The History of the Discovery and Settlement of America by William Robertson, 1826]