According to NOAA/NCEI, 2017 was the 21st year in a row that the US has been warmer than average.
Undaunted by reality, deniers continue to insist that an ice age is coming. They are, as they have been for years, quite wrong.
In his blog at the Guardian, Dana Nuccitelli took a look Tuesday at the cooling claims coming from Northumbria University mathematics professor Valentina Zharkova. A recent Sky News interview with Zharkova spurred a round of cooling coverage in a handful of outlets, but despite what deniers suggest every time this comes up, even if the Sun cools we’re still going to warm.
Nuccitelli's blog explores the science behind specific historic cooling periods deniers claim show the current climate’s future. A key driver of these cold periods, Nuccitelli explains, was the Sun, which at times doesn’t burn quite as hot. Zharkova believes, based on her studies, that the Sun follows a particular warm-cool cycle that suggests we’re in store for cooler temperatures.
But even if Zharkova’s much-debated solar cycle theory is accurate, the predicted cooling effect would barely put a dent in our warming. Nuccitelli writes that “the sun could only offset at most 15 years’ worth of human-caused global warming.” He explains that “a grand solar minimum would temporarily reduce global temperatures by less than 0.3°C, while humans are already causing 0.2°C warming per decade.”
Clearly, Zharkova’s got a lot of work to do to convince anyone serious of an impending global cooling period. In fact, even Matt “King Coal” Ridley writes that he’s “not persuaded” by Zharkova in his latest piece in The Times (UK, paywalled). Don’t think that disagreeing with Zharkova means Ridley’s gone alarmist: his column essentially ignores the greenhouse gasses we’re pumping into the atmosphere in discussing the other basic natural cycles that govern the climate, ultimately concluding that we’re due for another long-off but long-term ice age.
Carbon Brief’s Zeke Hausfather kindly tweeted that Ridley “seems rather confused” by the basics of the carbon cycle he describes in the column. Because Ridley’s column is paywalled (and we’re certainly not about to subscribe to read it), we won’t dive into its contents. Suffice to say that Ridley doesn’t know as much as he thinks he does, and climate scientists know way more than he thinks they do.
When it comes to an undereducated amateur overestimating his understanding of an issue, Matt’s columns are Ridley’ed with examples.