Fellow Coloradans
The Wasted Woody Climate Forecast
We all know The Wasted Woody Gazette is a one-of-a-kind paper, where you get the unvarnished truth. Most newspapers give you a dinky little weather forecast for a few days. How the heck can you plan on the basis of something like that? No way!
Exclusively for Wasted Woody readers, we present the 30-year Climate Forecast. That's enough time to:
- marry,
- buy or build a house,
- raise a family,
- make some investments,
- get the kids schooled,
- plan for your retirement,
- maybe move,
- plan for disposition of your remains
Now, some of this material is over on the Science section of this website, but I know Woody readers are busy people. What will the Colorado climate be for the next 30 years? We need the Executive Summary version here:
- Cold - about 5 F colder than we're used to just about everyplace outside the Tropics. Insulate! The minimum will be around 2030. There will be mass starvation in the developing world.
- Higher taxes, to support the fight against "anthropogenic global warming" (AGW) caused by carbon dioxide - meaning YOU!, your car, heating your house, travel, and everything else we call "civilization."
- Probably wetter. Keep the house upslope, make sure the foundation is well drained.
- More (tax) subsidies for wind turbines and solar panels, to reduce AGW.
- LOTS stormier. Trees are good windbreaks, but not too close to the house.
- More taxes to support the buraucrats to administer the subsidies.
- Shorter growing seasons - investment in coal and greenhouses would be good. In some years during the Dalton Minimum (1790 - 1820), crops rotted in the fields because of cold and wet. Of course, those people didn't have tractors and railroads - based on fossil fuels.
- Higher food prices. What, you don't support corn-based ethanol subsidies? Higher auto maintenance costs too - ethanol is hard on engines.
- Cloudier. This will reduce the power output from your solar array. Windmills are better. Generators are best.
- Food rationing, especially beef. Bringing beef to market is very energy intensive, and that means CO2, and you know....
- More Winter brushfires - like in Boulder January 7 - 9, 2009. Stronger jetstream, downslope winds, drying.
- Higher travel expenses. Travel requires energy, most of which comes from carbon-based fuels.
- More brownouts/blackouts, thanks to Ritter's No Energy Economy.
- Plan to donate your remains to medical school. Cremation will be outlawed, and cemetery space will be needed for wind farms.
It may strike you - being a well-informed Woody reader - that this is contrary to the "global warming" you hear from ABC/CBS/NBC, The Denver Post, and just about all the politicians - Ritter, Obama, Ken Salazar, the UN, Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid....all the well-known experts.
You see, the climate (the weather on a large time and space scale) is controlled by the Sun. The Sun goes through cycles of activity, marked by explosions ("sunspots") on its surface. Galileo observed them with his new telescope in the early 1600's, and people have been counting them ever since. The sequence looks like the cycle above. Over 11 years (approximately), the number of sunspots increases from near zero to a maximum (around 150 - 200 per year), then decreases again.
The Sun's magnetic field is a whole lot stronger than Earth's, which is good. The solar magnetic field protects us from a lot of high-energy stuff - called cosmic rays - whizzing around out there. As you might expect, when the solar magnetic field drops off, things change.
You'll notice some of those periods of very little sunspot activity have names assigned to them. The Maunder Minimum (1645 - 1715) coincides with the coldest, stormiest part of a nasty climate period called "The Little Ice Age"; the Dalton Minimum (1790 - 1820) corresponds to a chilly period in which Napolean Bonaparte ran into The Russian Winter.
Early in the 20th Century, we had a period of minimal sunspots around 1912 - 1913. By a strange coincidence, 1912 and 1917 are the coldest years in the US climatic history. And, though 1910 and 1917 were both dry in Colorado, the rest of the decade had above average precipitation.
In other words, we can expect the same climate conditions to recur under the same solar conditions:
- When the Sun goes down, the weather cools off. Figuratively speaking, the Sun is "going down" -
its activity is diminishing. Here's a plot of the number of days each calendar year without sunspots, plotted by Joe d'Aleo on his website, http://icecap.us . You'll notice the three years highlighted in color here - 2007, 2008 and 2009 (so far). We're creeping up on 700 spotless days, compared to 764 in the 1911-1913 stretch.
The longer we go without sunspots, the colder and stormier it is likely to get. There's a pretty technical explanation of what controls sunspots (and other solar activity) by a solar physicist, Theodor Landscheidt , if you care. Landscheidt predicts weak solar activity and decreasing temperature through 2030.
- Corresponding to those spotless years, the Colorado annual temperature from 1895 to 1930 is plotted at right. 1911 had 200 spotless days; 1912 had 253 days without spots; 1913 - the champ in modern times - had 311 spotless days. (total = 764 days) Now we have gone 266 spotless days in 2008, preceeded by 163 in 2007, and about 270 in 2009. (total = ~700) Was the previous period of few sunspots a cold one? Ouch, yes!
The plot is for 36 years; 1900 and 1901 are the warmest years (#36, #35) in the group. 1910 was a warm year (#33), and all the years before were close to normal. After that, you can see what happened. 1912 and 1913 are coldest (#1, #2); 1920 is #3 coldest. 1930 got back to "normal" (#17). 1914 was an average year; the rest were below average, with the average rank of the decade at #26 - the coldest decade in the 20th Century. Note there were two decades of cold, not just during the years of less sunspots. Incidentally, 1910 and 1917 are also the two driest years in American climate history - yes, drier than the Dust Bowl years.
How about Colorado precipitation? On your right. 1910 (a warm year) was also dry, as was 1917. The rest of the 10's and 20's were fairly wet, followed by the dry 30's. Climatological data online at
the National Climatological Data Center.
What will happen after the deficient solar cycle coming up (#24)? I don't know. God willing, we'll go back into a warmer, slightly dryer regime. Unfortunately, if you look at something called the Milankovitch Cycle over on
the solar and ocean variability page , the next Glacial Age may be just around the corner. The long view of climate (the recent 5 million years or so) tells us most of the time is bitterly cold; we're fortunate to live in....no, let me put that better.....human civilization is possible only in the brief (11,500 years) Interglacial periods such as ours. Unfortunately, ours started 11,700 years ago. We're on the brink. Another Ice Age is - eventually - inevitable. Fortunately, it takes centuries - because of the greenhouse effect of water vapor - for the Earth to descend into a Glacial Age.
I think I mentioned that 1911- 1913 was cold. Here's a picture a friend sent me, of the frozen Niagara Falls in 1911. Incidentally, remember something else that happened in 1912 - the sinking of the Titanic (14 April). Did the icebergs float farther South than usual that year? Here's to Margaret Brown, who saved many that night!
I'm tired of exaggerations by politicians, and especially by the media. But you don't have to take my word for it; there are plenty of books, videos, and websites where you can investigate for yourself. Feel free to check the
scientific references ...that give a realistic perspective on man-made global warming
But wait! How dare I contradict the "consensus" Al Gore brags about? Mr. Gore says "the science is all settled." Really? Heck no! Many other scientists are coming forward - far more than the opportunists who write reports for Gore and friends - to express
their dissent from "politically correct science."
It's up to us to tell the politicians to pay attention to reality, and the increasing number of independent scientists telling them that AGW, due to carbon dioxide, is wrong. The ones in Al Gore's "consensus" are the ones with their feet in the public trough, funded very handsomely ($6Billion/year) by politically correct politicians - politicians who plan to tax us out of house and home.
Unfortunately, many of the politicians - Governor Ritter, Interior Secretary Salazar, Senator McCain among them - are already pushing legislation to "save us from the global warming crisis." Governor Ritter, in 2007, pushed through legislation requiring IREA to generate 10% of its energy from "renewable" sources (and, for some reason, hydroelectric power - the cheapest, most renewable source - doesn't count.)
In other words, well-meaning, ignorant, ambitious politicians are planning to "help" us.
Do we really need this kind of "help"? If not, contact your politician here.
Man, you wimpy Americans are nothing like us Norsemen. I'm kind of ashamed of you - since, in a sense, I 
was the First American. We Norse found this continent a thousand years ago. Now you're letting Socialist politicians - like the ones I left behind in Europe - take it away from you. Lucky Leif
Home
Rev. Feb 09
its activity is diminishing. Here's a plot of the number of days each calendar year without sunspots, plotted by Joe d'Aleo on his website, http://icecap.us . You'll notice the three years highlighted in color here - 2007, 2008 and 2009 (so far). We're creeping up on 700 spotless days, compared to 764 in the 1911-1913 stretch.
The longer we go without sunspots, the colder and stormier it is likely to get. There's a pretty technical explanation of what controls sunspots (and other solar activity) by a solar physicist, Theodor Landscheidt , if you care. Landscheidt predicts weak solar activity and decreasing temperature through 2030.
The plot is for 36 years; 1900 and 1901 are the warmest years (#36, #35) in the group. 1910 was a warm year (#33), and all the years before were close to normal. After that, you can see what happened. 1912 and 1913 are coldest (#1, #2); 1920 is #3 coldest. 1930 got back to "normal" (#17). 1914 was an average year; the rest were below average, with the average rank of the decade at #26 - the coldest decade in the 20th Century. Note there were two decades of cold, not just during the years of less sunspots. Incidentally, 1910 and 1917 are also the two driest years in American climate history - yes, drier than the Dust Bowl years.
How about Colorado precipitation? On your right. 1910 (a warm year) was also dry, as was 1917. The rest of the 10's and 20's were fairly wet, followed by the dry 30's. Climatological data online at the National Climatological Data Center.
What will happen after the deficient solar cycle coming up (#24)? I don't know. God willing, we'll go back into a warmer, slightly dryer regime. Unfortunately, if you look at something called the Milankovitch Cycle over on
the solar and ocean variability page , the next Glacial Age may be just around the corner. The long view of climate (the recent 5 million years or so) tells us most of the time is bitterly cold; we're fortunate to live in....no, let me put that better.....human civilization is possible only in the brief (11,500 years) Interglacial periods such as ours. Unfortunately, ours started 11,700 years ago. We're on the brink. Another Ice Age is - eventually - inevitable. Fortunately, it takes centuries - because of the greenhouse effect of water vapor - for the Earth to descend into a Glacial Age.
I think I mentioned that 1911- 1913 was cold. Here's a picture a friend sent me, of the frozen Niagara Falls in 1911. Incidentally, remember something else that happened in 1912 - the sinking of the Titanic (14 April). Did the icebergs float farther South than usual that year? Here's to Margaret Brown, who saved many that night!
I'm tired of exaggerations by politicians, and especially by the media. But you don't have to take my word for it; there are plenty of books, videos, and websites where you can investigate for yourself. Feel free to check the scientific references ...that give a realistic perspective on man-made global warming
But wait! How dare I contradict the "consensus" Al Gore brags about? Mr. Gore says "the science is all settled." Really? Heck no! Many other scientists are coming forward - far more than the opportunists who write reports for Gore and friends - to express their dissent from "politically correct science."
It's up to us to tell the politicians to pay attention to reality, and the increasing number of independent scientists telling them that AGW, due to carbon dioxide, is wrong. The ones in Al Gore's "consensus" are the ones with their feet in the public trough, funded very handsomely ($6Billion/year) by politically correct politicians - politicians who plan to tax us out of house and home.
Unfortunately, many of the politicians - Governor Ritter, Interior Secretary Salazar, Senator McCain among them - are already pushing legislation to "save us from the global warming crisis." Governor Ritter, in 2007, pushed through legislation requiring IREA to generate 10% of its energy from "renewable" sources (and, for some reason, hydroelectric power - the cheapest, most renewable source - doesn't count.)
In other words, well-meaning, ignorant, ambitious politicians are planning to "help" us.
Do we really need this kind of "help"? If not, contact your politician here.
Man, you wimpy Americans are nothing like us Norsemen. I'm kind of ashamed of you - since, in a sense, I
was the First American. We Norse found this continent a thousand years ago. Now you're letting Socialist politicians - like the ones I left behind in Europe - take it away from you. Lucky Leif
Home
Rev. Feb 09