Scott R. Sullivan

February 26th, 2008 by Scott

The normal climate change / global warming crowd seems to be pretty quiet these days. I feel sorry for them. After all, they love a good marching protest. And they love to climb on top of planes (source).

However, recently, they must be too busy warming up their hot cocoa because, “baby its cold out there.” According to The National Post and the U.S. National Climatic Data Center, we’ve seen some interesting things this year.

North America, Europe, China and Siberia are seeing record snow cover (breaking records that date back to 1966). January was also 0.3 degrees F cooler than the average of the entire 20th century!

The melting Arctic Ice that was featured so prominently in so many photos on the covers of national magazines? Its back. With a vengance. Yup. According to the article the thickness of arctic ice is 10 to 20 centimeters ABOVE the same time last year.

The article then continues:

Last month, Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, shrugged off manmade climate change as “a drop in the bucket.” Showing that solar activity has entered an inactive phase, Prof. Sorokhtin advised people to “stock up on fur coats.”
He is not alone. Kenneth Tapping of our own National Research Council, who oversees a giant radio telescope focused on the sun, is convinced we are in for a long period of severely cold weather if sunspot activity does not pick up soon.

The last time the sun was this inactive, Earth suffered the Little Ice Age that lasted about five centuries and ended in 1850. Crops failed through killer frosts and drought. Famine, plague and war were widespread. Harbours froze, so did rivers, and trade ceased.The National Post, Feb 25, 2008

Better stock up on that hot cocoa. Oh, and did I mention that I’m looking at buying a Diesel car later this year? And that’s not a joke! *grin*