Media Reports The World Will Enter A ‘Mini Ice Age’ In The 2030s; Actually, It’s the Reverse That’s the Real Truth!
U.K. tabloids, conservative media, and others are (mis)reporting that the Earth will enter a “mini ice age” in the 2030s. In fact, not only is the story wrong, the reverse is actually true.
The Earth is headed toward an imminent speed-up in global warming, as many recent studies have made clear, like this June study by NOAA. Indeed, a March study, entitled “Near-term acceleration in the rate of temperature change,” makes clear that a stunning acceleration in the rate of global warming is around the corner — with Arctic warming rising 1°F per decade by the 2020s!
Also, right now, we appear to be in the midst of a long-awaited jump in global temperatures. Not only was 2014 the hottest year on record, but 2015 is in the process of blowing that record away. On top of that, models say a massive El Niño is growing, as USA Today reported last week. Since El Niños tend to set the record for the hottest years (since the regional warming adds to the underlying global warming trend), if 2015/2016 does see a super El Niño then next year may well crush the record this year sets.
Whatever near-term jump we see in the global temperatures is thus likely to be followed by an accelerating global warming trend — one that would utterly overwhelm any natural variations such as a temporary reduction in solar intensity. A recent study concluded that “any reduction in global mean near-surface temperature due to a future decline in solar activity is likely to be a small fraction of projected anthropogenic warming.”
That’s true even for one as big as the Maunder Minimum, which was linked to the so-called Little Ice Age.
The “Little Ice Age” is a term used to cover what appears to have been two or three periods of modest cooling in the northern hemisphere between 1550 and 1850.
I know you are shocked, shocked to learn that unreliable climate stories appear in U.K. tabloids, the conservative media, and those who cite them without actually talking to leading climate scientists. Often there is a half truth underlying such stories, but in this case it is more like a nano-truth.
Last week, in Llandudno, north Wales, the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) held Cyfarfod Seryddiaeth Cenedlaethol 2015 — the “National Astronomy Meeting 2015″ (in case you don’t speak Welsh). An RAS news release had this startling headline, “Irregular Heartbeat Of The Sun Driven By Double Dynamo.”
Okay, that wasn’t the startling part. This was: “Predictions from the model suggest that solar activity will fall by 60 per cent during the 2030s to conditions last seen during the ‘mini ice age’ that began in 1645.”
Ah, but the word choice was confusing. We’re not going to have temperature “conditions” last seen during the Little Ice Age. If this one study does turn out to be right, we’d see solar conditions equivalent to the Maunder Minimum in the 2030s.
This won’t cause the world to enter a mini ice age — for three reasons:
The Little Ice Age turns out to have been quite little.
What cooling there was probably was driven more by volcanoes than the Maunder Minimum.
The warming effect from global greenhouse gases will overwhelm any reduction in solar forcing, even more so by the 2030s.
So how little was the Little Ice Age?
The most comprehensive reconstruction of the temperature of the past 2000 years done so far, the “PAGES 2k project,” concluded that “there were no globally synchronous multi-decadal hot or cold intervals that define a worldwide Medieval Warm Period or Little Ice Age.”
Green dots show the 30-year average of the new PAGES 2k reconstruction. The red curve shows the global mean temperature, according HadCRUT4 data from 1850 onwards. In blue is the original hockey stick of Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1999 ) with its uncertainty range (light blue). Graph by Klaus Bitterman.
The Little Ice Age was little in duration and in geographic extent. It was an “Age” the way Pluto is a planet.
Writing on Climate Progress, climatologist Stefan Rahmstorf noted the researchers “identify some shorter intervals where extremely cold conditions coincide with major volcanic eruptions and/or solar minima (as already known from previous studies).”
That brings us to the second point: The latest research finds that what short-term cooling there was during the Little Ice Age was mostly due to volcanoes, not the solar minimum. As “Scientific American” explained in its 2012 piece on the LIA, “New simulations show that several large, closely spaced eruptions (and not decreased solar radiation) could have cooled the Northern Hemisphere enough to spark sea-ice growth and a subsequent feedback loop.” The period associated with the LIA “coincide with two of the most volcanically active half centuries in the past millennium, according to the researchers.”
The cooling effect from the drop in solar activity during even a Maunder Minimum is quite modest. Environmental scientist Dana Nuccitelli discussed the literature underscoring that point in a U.K. Guardian post from the summer of 2013, the last time the “Maunder Minimum” issue popped up.
That brings us to the third point: Whatever cooling the Little Ice Age saw as result of the Maunder Minimum, it pales in comparison to the warming we are already experiencing — let alone the accelerated warming projected by multiple studies. That’s clear even in Pages 2k reconstruction above.
Just last month “Nature Communications” published a study called, “Regional climate impacts of a possible future grand solar minimum.” This found that, “any reduction in global mean near-surface temperature due to a future decline in solar activity is likely to be a small fraction of projected anthropogenic warming.” As with the Little Ice Age, any significant effects are likely to be regional in nature — and, of course, temporary, since a grand solar minimum typically lasts only decades.
So, no, the Daily Mail is quite wrong when it trumpets, “Scientists warn the sun will ‘go to sleep’ in 2030 and could cause temperatures to plummet.”
In actuality, what is going to happen in the business-as-usual emissions scenario (RCP8.5) is closer to “rate of change” of warming.
Original story by Joe Romm on Climate Progress
Malnourished Baby Sea Lions Washing Ashore off Southern California by the Thousands
IT BEGAN IN January. At first, there were only a few. But as the weeks went on, more sea lion pups washed ashore. The dehydrated, emaciated pups showed up on Southern California’s beaches, tucked under trucks and lifeguard towers. One was found huddled in a flower pot.
In late January, scientists surveying Channel Island sea lion rookeries reported something worrying: Pups out there were in bad shape. By early February, regional marine mammal rescue centers were concerned.
The strandings hadn’t stopped. Instead, the pace was picking up.
Now, hundreds of these little animals have been admitted to rescue centers between Santa Barbara and San Diego. For a non-El Niño year, the numbers are much too high, too early. Something is going badly wrong offshore, and no one knows what it is yet.
“We’re in the process of trying to understand what is actually causing this,” said Sharon Melin, a wildlife biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service. “The stranding centers in Southern California are being inundated with animals. It hasn’t hit the northern centers yet.”
As of Mar. 13, 517 pups had been admitted to five Southern California rescue centers. That total is higher than the total for some entire years, said Sarah Wilkin, regional strandings coordinator with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “And we’re only two months and a week in.”
The stranded animals are about nine months old – most were born around June 2012. At this age, sea lion pups normally weigh between 25 and 30 kilograms (55-66 pounds). The animals coming ashore weigh about half that, Melin said. She’s visited the island colonies several times recently, first in September and again in February, and noticed that the pups hadn’t gained much weight between visits. “Normally, they would have doubled their weight by February,” Melin said.
She and others suspect the pups have weaned themselves early and left their colonies. Not yet strong enough to find food on their own, they strand themselves on the mainland in a last-ditch effort to save energy and survive. Why they’re leaving home early is an open question.
By the time the pups are rescued, many are too far gone to be saved, Wilkin said. Dehydrated, emaciated, and malnourished, those who can will spend several months in a rehabilitation facility, gaining weight and nourishment before being returned to the sea.
Rescue and rehab groups in the area are struggling to keep up with the onslaught. The pace of admissions is still accelerating, Wilkin said, noting that both Los Angeles County and Orange County admissions doubled last week.
So far, Marine Animal Rescue, based in El Segundo, has rescued 170 sea lion pups, said director Peter Wallerstein. “The pups are hypothermic, dehydrated and skinny,” he said. Marine Animal Rescue brings those pups to the Marine Mammal Care Center in nearby San Pedro for treatment.
“We have admitted over 250 [pups] since January 1,” said MMCC’s director David Bard. “We normally have numbers in the teens for those animals.”
Once admitted, pups are examined, tested for disease, and started on a treatment program. Nutritional supplementation begins with clear fluids, then moves on to “gruel” – a mix of electrolytes, protein, sugar, and ground up fish – until, eventually, the pups are fed solid, fishy food. The process can take several months. “Overall, they’ve been responding very well,” Bard said, on Mar. 13. “We actually released four of them this morning.”
Right now, the San Pedro facility is caring for more than 100 pups. Down the coast, the Pacific Marine Mammal Center has more than 90. On Mar. 12, that facility declared a state of emergency after 18 rescues over two days threatened to overwhelm existing resources. Farther south in San Diego, SeaWorld reports more than 140 marine mammal rescues this year, the majority of which are California sea lions. In all of 2012, SeaWorld rescued 131 marine mammals.
“The good aspect to this is that emaciation and dehydration are something the rehab facilities are very experienced with, and doing a good job,” Wilkin said, reporting that mortality rates in the centers are relatively low, between 20 and 30 percent.
But the bad news is, the onslaught isn’t over. Peak stranding season hasn’t happened yet. Historically, most sea lion strandings occur during April and May, when pups are weaned and have to find their way on their own. “We anticipate it will only get worse in the coming months,” Melin said.
Such large numbers of strandings so early in the year are unusual, and suggest the situation offshore must be pretty grim. “When we see a big uptick like this, we know it’s bad,” Melin said. “There’s something not right. We go out to the islands.”
Melin’s September visit to San Nicolas Island revealed that pup mortality rates were around 34 percent — about what one would expect for an El Niño year. By February, the rate had risen to somewhere near 50 percent. “By the time we get around to their first birthday, mortality might be as high as 60 percent, maybe even 70 percent,” Melin said.
It’s not just last year’s pup population that’s being affected. After giving birth in June, females spend the next months nursing, foraging, and reproducing. By this point in the year, many are probably pregnant again. But when food is scarce, females will sometimes abort a pregnancy and funnel all their resources toward the already growing juvenile. “We are seeing premature pups being born, up and down the coast. A lot of pregnancies are not coming to term,” Melin said.
This means the sea lion population will take a double punch: reduced numbers of surviving pups from 2012, and fewer pups born in 2013. “It’s two years of impact from something that we don’t yet know,” Melin said. “Thankfully, it’s a healthy population. It weathers these kinds of things fairly well.”
But the cause of the mass stranding is still a mystery. Disease or an environmental perturbation affecting the food supply are the best guesses, though scientists are still in the early stages of the investigation. Next week, a team will return to San Nicolas Island and reassess the colonies there. Wilkin is working on applying to have the strandings declared “an unusual mortality event” by the National Marine Fisheries Service. That classification would free up funding and investigators, allowing scientists to move more quickly.
“If this was a disease process, you might expect it to be a little more across the board,” Wilkin said. “It does seem to be pretty targeted to that age class.”
Another possibility is that hookworms – which can infect pups until they’re about six months old – have weakened the pup population and left it susceptible to a second disease agent that is just now sweeping through. But while some pups are showing signs of having been infected with hookworms, it’s not being seen at abnormally high levels, Melin said. “It does seem more likely to be food-related,” she said.
‘Sea lions are usually pretty good at adapting.’ Warmer ocean temperatures, can affect the food supply.
Those warmer waters dampen nutrient-rich seafloor upwellings. Without cold waters and added nutrients, prey species — phytoplankton, krill, and small fish — are scarce. Animals that eat those critters, such as larger fish, sea lions and sea birds, either move with the food toward colder water, or struggle. Scarcer food means sea lion mothers have a tougher time finding a meal for their pups. They may have to swim farther, dive deeper, and stay away longer, prompting pups to wean themselves and strike out on their own in search of fish.
“It’s not that mom isn’t coming back, she’s just taking too long,” Melin said. “It takes a lot for a sea lion to leave its pups.”
After a strong El Niño event in 1997-1998, rescue centers around the state saw elevated intake numbers, similar to what’s occurring now except more broadly distributed. In spring 2009, an unpredicted halt in normal upwellings caused the food supply between Point Conception, north of Santa Barbara, and the Monterey Bay to collapse. “We had huge mortality of pups weaned that year,” Melin said. “Close to 80 percent.”
So far, this event doesn’t fit into a pattern. The strandings are localized to southern California, and this isn’t an El Niño year. At least, not really: In summer 2012, a short-lived patch of abnormally warm surface water did settle off the Southern California coast. But that’s cooled off now — and the sea lions stuck around.
“Sea lions are usually pretty good at adapting,” Melin said, noting that biologists often monitor female sea lions and use them as a gauge of ecosystem health. “If the system starts changing or becomes out of whack, they’re the one that are going to show the signs.”
There are other hints that something more systemic is amiss in the Islands, namely the nesting numbers and success of brown pelicans in the Channel Islands National Park. Pelicans, like sea lions, are top predators. Both species tend to forage for the same fish, and their numbers tend to fluctuate in tandem. In 2004 and 2005, pelicans in the islands made roughly 6,500 nest attempts, said seabird biologist Laurie Harvey of the California Institute of Environmental Studies. Last year, out of several hundred nest attempts, only five pelican chicks fledged on Anacapa Island. “That ended up being the poorest reproduction year for pelicans on the Channel Islands since 1970,” she said.
This year, though it’s still early in nesting season, pelican numbers are fairly low, with fewer than a hundred nests on Anacapa. “We think that yes, it definitely looks like it’s linked to the sea lion strandings,” Harvey said. “Sea lions and pelicans feed primarily on coastal pelagic species like anchovies and sardines. What it’s looking like is that the local availability of prey is insufficient.”
All Things Environmental 
Recent Comments