THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XIII, Issue # 117, May 9, 2011
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
MAUNDER MINIMUM 1740: REPLAY IN 2020?
By Dennis T. Avery
SOLAR ACTIVITY, THE EARTH'S TEMPERATURES, & GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE -- WHAT THE CURRENT DEARTH OF
SUNSPOTS INDICATES: A MINI ICE AGE LOOMING LARGE ON THE HORIZON -- WHAT THE WORLD WILL SOON BE
FACING: A SUDDEN DROP IN GLOBAL TEMPERATURES & A NATURALLY OCCURRING COOLING PERIOD, WITH
GREATLY ENLARGED GLACIERS ADVANCING STRONGLY THROUGH EURASIA & NORTH AMERICA, ADVERSE IMPACTS ON
TRANSPORTATION, AGRICULTURE & FOOD PRODUCTION & SUPPLY, & WIDESPREAD FAMINE, DISEASE & EARLY DEATH
SHARPLY REDUCING WEAKENED POPULATIONS -- IMPLICATIONS FOR POLITICS, GOVERNMENT, & PUBLIC POLICY:
THE PROPS KNOCKED OUT FROM UNDER ENVIRONMENTALISM, THE IDEOLOGY OF THE ENVIRONMENTALIST MOVEMENT &
ITS POLICY AGENDA -- SCIENTIFIC DATA REFUTING THE GLOBAL WARMING PROPAGANDA OF THE ENVIRONMENTALISTS
FULL STORY:
A reader recently pointed out a fascinating temperature comparison — between 1700 AD and today. He marked two
sections of the world’s oldest temperature record -- Central England Yearly Average Temperature 1660–2008: The first
section showed our famous recent temperature surge from 1976–1998. He also marked a similar strong temperature surge
from AD 1688–1738.
The killer in the comparison is that the temperature surge after 1688 was followed by a sudden plunge into one of the
coldest periods in the entire Little Ice Age! The cold of 1739-1740 was called The Great Frost, and it devastated Europe
from Italy to Iceland.
The linkage? The Great Frost followed a period of very few sunspots — the Maunder Minimum (1645-1715). Today, we
know that fewer sunspots predict colder temperatures, and the modern world has just undergone a similar dearth of
sunspots, from 2007 to 2011.
During the Maunder period, Europe’s glaciers were much larger than today; it was the Little Ice Age, after all. But the
glaciers didn’t advance during the sunspot dearth. The Winters of the 1730s were actually fairly warm. But, during and
after the Winter of 1739, glaciers advanced strongly through France and Germany, and north into Sweden, Norway and
Iceland, and didn’t retreat for the next 50 years!
Ireland suffered the most severely. In the depths of the Winter of 1739-1740, winds and terrible cold intensified. Rivers,
lakes, and waterfalls froze and fish died in the first few weeks of the Great Frost. Coal dealers found their coal piles and
unloading docks frozen solid. Mill-wheels froze, so the millers and bakers could produce no bread.
Ireland’s crucial potato crop — normally left in the ground until needed for food — froze underground. The tubers were
ruined for food, and useless as seed for the following year. The following Spring came drought, and the winds remained
fierce. The Winter wheat and barley sown the previous Fall died in the fields. Sheep and cattle died in the pastures. The
Fall of 1740 saw a small harvest, but the dairy cattle had been so starved that few of them bore calves. Milk production
plummeted as the cows’ milk dried up.
That Winter, blizzards ranged along the coast, and great chunks of ice sweeping down the River Liffey sank vessels in
the harbor. Dublin wheat prices rose to all-time highs.
Meanwhile dysentery, smallpox, and typhus were ravaging a weakened population. Farm workers had seldom gone to
town when they had food on their tables; now they wandered in seeking food or relief assistance — and died in great
numbers.
The climate disaster finally ended in the Summer of 1741. An estimated 400,000 people had died. Desperation gripped
the people following both the Great Frost and a warmer bad-weather famine from 1726 to 1730. The harsh variability of
the Little Ice Age was being felt full force. Thousands of Irish families began immigrating to America. The emigration of
Ulster Presbyterians, for example, peaked between 1740 and 1760. Ministers took whole congregations to the Carolinas
and Virginia, where they found like-minded people and cheap farmland.
Usually, there’s about a ten-year lag between sunspot changes and their impact on earth’s temperatures. The sunspots
began predicting lower temperatures about 2000, for instance, and the cooling trend began eight years later in 2007. Now
the sunspot minimum that just ended is predicting quite serious cold, perhaps about 2020.
Don’t throw away your electric blankets — and make sure that greenhouse emissions limits don’t steal the electricity to
heat them.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Science, Ethics, & Human Health:
Human Health & Public Policy
The Earth's Natural History, Global Climate Changes,
& the Future of Human Life & Civilization on the Planet:
Science, Ideology, & Public Policy
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Dennis T. Avery is an environmental economist for the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., as well as Director of the
Institute's Center for Global Food Issues (CGFI) and Editor of Global Food Quarterly, the newsletter of the CGFI.
Formerly, he was a senior policy analyst for the United States Department of State, where he won the National Intelligence
Medal of Achievement. He is co-author, with atmospheric physicist Fred Singer, of the book,Unstoppable Global
Warming: Every 1500 Years (Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006). Avery's book, Saving
the Planet With Pesticides and Plastic: The Environmental Triumph of High-Yield Farming (Washington, D.C.: Hudson
Institute, 1995 and 2000), continues to be popular as a readable overview of realistic agriculture for the future and for today.
Readers may write Avery at Post Office Box 202, Churchville, Virginia, 24421. Email: cgfi@hughes.net
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity