Global Warming Hiccup

Some scientists believe that the sun has entered a phase of reduced activity similar to that which existed during the Little Ice Age. Empirical evidence suggests that a long period of severely cold weather will occur if sunspot activity doesn't pick up soon. I don't expect the mainstream media to headline this story.

From the National Post:

Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966.

The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January "was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average."

China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them. [ ... ]

In just the first two weeks of February, Toronto received 70 cm of snow, smashing the record of 66.6 cm for the entire month set back in the pre-SUV, pre-Kyoto, pre-carbon footprint days of 1950.

And remember the Arctic Sea ice? The ice we were told so hysterically last fall had melted to its "lowest levels on record? Never mind that those records only date back as far as 1972 and that there is anthropological and geological evidence of much greater melts in the past.

The ice is back.

Gilles Langis, a senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa, says the Arctic winter has been so severe the ice has not only recovered, it is actually 10 to 20 cm thicker in many places than at this time last year.

Agreed, the data represent only a snapshot in time and it would be imprudent to raise alarms about an impending ice age because of one or a few severe winters. However, one would vault way beyond imprudent to ludicrous if climate forecasts for 100 years from today were based on the same data. Unfortunately, the global warming cultists view things differently.

Tip: slwlion