David Archibald (as reported by Ronald Bailey at Reason magazine):
One of the more remarkable performances was by Australian entrepreneur David C. Archibald during one of the afternoon panels. Archibald is described in the conference materials as “a scientist operating in the fields of cancer research, climate science, and oil exploration.” He also appears to have business interests in some oil fields in Australia. In any case, Archibald made it very clear that he is a big believer in the idea that climate change is primarily driven by the sun. Archibald’s basic theory is that when the sun’s magnetic field strength drops there are fewer sunspots which reduce the amount of particles ejected as the solar wind. Less solar wind allows more galactic cosmic rays to enter the Earth’s atmosphere. Archibald is here relying on studies by Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark which find that cosmic rays do produce cloud condensation nuclei which then might create low level clouds that reflect more sunlight back into space thus making the Earth colder.
Archibald predicts that the next solar cycle, Cycle 24, will produce a weak magnetic field which means that more cosmic rays will enter the atmosphere to create clouds and thus cool the earth. Actually, a 2007 NASA scientific panel was evenly split on the strong/weak prediction for Cycle 24. However, manyresearchers expect that Cycle 25 may be one the weakest in centuries. Archibald ended by boldly predicting that the world will see average temperatures drop by -2.2 degrees centigrade in the coming decade. That’s more than three times the amount of warming the world has experienced over the last century. He also predicted as a consequence that the growing seasons in the United States would be shortened by a total of four weeks, dramatically reducing food production.
Piers Corbyn: astrophysicist and Earth weather predictor at Weather Action (personal communication):
…I would say that solar cycle 24 has NOT yet begun in the sense that we have not yet reached the smoothed minimum normally used to define the transition.
As far as the (Jan 3rd) NASA sighting (’claim’?) of a reverse polarity spot, I don’t suppose there is any doubt that it was seen but I do agree with your implied statement that it doesn’t amount to much.
As a rough estimate we don’t expect any (more/lasting) reverse polarity spots until maybe shortly after mid-March at the earliest.
Paste this into your blog if you wish.
It will be worth referring back to these once SC24 has established itself in whatever form it turns out to be in.
