OVER THE PAST CENTURY, CLIMATIC CONDITIONS HAVE RUN FROM cool (1900s) to warm (1930s) to cool (1960s) to warm (1980s) (see Figure 1 opposite and the time line below), and many of us during the past 50 to 75 years have come to believe that mankind has been responsible for the swings. Scientists have blamed us for generating warming greenhouse gases, then polluting the air with sun-blocking particulates, then raising temperatures through urbanization, deforestation, and greenhouse gases.
There is another possible explanation for—or, at least, influence on—the warming. This involves natural factors, most notably the Sun and Earth’s oceans. We at the Almanac are among those who believe that sunspot cycles and their effects on oceans correlate with climate changes. Studying these and other factors suggests that a cold, not warm, climate may be in our future.
Our Sun is a dependable but variable star. Its most notable variables are brightness, or irradiance; eruptive activity, including solar flares and geomagnetic storms; and the degree of diffusion of low-cloud-producing cosmic rays. These variables manifest in cy-
–background photo,
BLOOMimage/Getty Images cles of 11, 22, 88, 106, 213, 429, and more years.
A CENTURY OF CYCLES: DO YOU SEE A PATTERN HERE?
•“Geologists think that the world may be frozen up again.”
– The New York Times
•“The human race will have to fight for its existence against cold.”
–Los Angeles Times
•The Titanic strikes an iceberg and sinks.
“An ice age is encroaching.”
– The New York Times
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