THE NEXT ICE AGE - NOW!

23 Jun 10 - "Absence of sunspots make scientists wonder if they're seeing a calm before a storm of energy," blared the headline yesterday in the Washington Post.

Didn't their headline writer bother to read the article? This is the storm.

The headline should have read "Absence of sunspots could lead to Little Ice Age."  

As opposed to the headline, the article itself is quite honest. Written by Stuart Clark, it tells of Michael Lockwood, a professor of space environment physics at the University of Reading in England, who has studied records back to 1650, and found that severe European winters are much more likely during periods of low solar activity.  

     Severe winters, that's the real story here, not "the calm before the storm."

The article then discusses the Maunder minimum, the period from 1645 to 1715 during which sunspots virtually disappeared and solar activity plummeted.

The Maunder minimum ushered in a period known as the Little Ice Age, the article continues. Colder-than-average winters became more prevalent, and the average temperature in Europe appeared to drop by between 1 and 2 degrees Celsius.

     A possible little ice age, that's the real story here, not "the calm before
     the storm."

See entire article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/21/AR2010062104114.html?g=0
Thanks to Brad Walton, Bruce Halstead, Katherine Hunt and Brad Neave for this link

See also: Quiet sun puts Europe on ice
4 May 2010 - "BRACE yourself for more winters like the last one, northern Europe," says Stuart Clark. "Freezing conditions could become more likely: winter temperatures may even plummet to depths last seen at the end of the 17th century, a time known as the Little Ice Age."
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627564.800-quiet-sun-puts-europe-on-ice.html