Scientists have made a discovery about the sun's "heartbeat" that they say indicates that Earth's Northern Hemisphere will experience a deep freeze in 15 years.

The sun has a "solar heartbeat," or cycle of activity, that produces energy that causes sunspots and solar flares. Scientists at Northumbria University in northeast England developed a model that illustrates the history of these heartbeats and that predicts there will be irregularities in them. The model suggests that solar activity will fall by 60% during the 2030s.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/13/world/sun-irregular-heartbeat-ice/index.html

Oh lordy....buckle up!

God dammit, no. Just no.

The thing that cracks me up about the anti-global warming crowd backing this as some new revelation that climate scientists are wrong and corrupt is that it's two completely different disciplines that don't overlap at all.

On one hand you've got climatologists looking at the past and present using scientific method and data to look at what is going on and where things have been in the past. The other are Astronomers using data from the Sun and a computer model that regressively predicts with a 90% accuracy rate over a period of a couple hundred years what might happen in the future.

That's like going on a massive shopping spree today, when you're already in debt, because you're sure that a big pay raise is in your future. In reality we should be continuing to move forward with ideas to deal with current problems while continuing to explore potential shifts in overall global climate.

Or another way to think about it would be for California to get rid of all the water restrictions today, because they are forecasting a massive El Nino rain this winter. It's not a logical argument.

A few items:

1). This is coming from the astronomy department, so this is a separate line of funding from the climate guys.

2). Much of this data has been out there for a while, so I am not sure why it is news now.

3). global cooling would be much more devastating than global warming on our civilization due to the shorter growing seasons and less arable land, depending upon the severity of the snap.

Solar activity down by 60%?!? Doesn't that seem a little much? The sun's practically "off" at that point.

I think they are referring to sun spots and solar flares as opposed to energy output.

So global warming will counteract this right?

Does this mean Arizona would become Fargo? There would be a lot of crabby seasoned citizens out here if this happens...

seasoned crab

this is making me hungry for lunch

So global warming will counteract this right?

I think to be safe we need to start burning everything and institute carbon minimums.

Watch out for volcanoes! Mother Nature has it in for us!

YaleNews | New timeline links volcanic eruptions to centuries of cold temperature extremes (http://news.yale.edu/2015/07/08/new-timeline-links-volcanic-eruptions-centuries-cold-temperature-extremes?utm_source=YNemail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=yn-07-14-15)

Even taking into account that mass media often does a poor job of reporting scientific news, there are some key quotes in the linked article to keep in mind (emphasis mine):

CNN meteorologist Brandon Miller says the study looks intriguing, but it has not been peer reviewed, or subjected to the scrutiny of the larger scientific community.

"This isn't published research yet," he said. "Our ability to forecast the specifics of a solar cycle is incredibly poor. It's worse than forecasting in a hurricane season."

Doug Biesecker, who works at the Space Weather Prediction Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colorado, agrees with Miller.

He said the research shouldn't give anyone the idea that because the weather may cool, climate change is not something to be worried about.

"It's a very complicated issue," Biesecker, an expert in solar physics, told CNN. "Does the sun have a role in our variable climate? Yes. Is the dominant role? No. Even the concept of the sun being responsible for Europe's mini ice age -- it's not hard-and-fast true."

Bottom line: The research needs a closer look.

relevant follow-up:

News about an imminent ‘mini ice age’ is trending — but it’s not true - The Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/07/14/news-about-an-imminent-mini-ice-age-is-trending-but-its-not-true/)