It’s not often that people in the climate community stop to read the mission statement of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC.) But for those who are curious, the IPCC states that its core mission is:
To provide the world with a clear scientific view on the current state of knowledge in climate change and its potential environmental and socio-economic impacts.
Notably, the IPCC adds that it aims to “provide rigorous and balanced scientific information to decision makers.”
Despite this lofty rhetoric, there is a good chance that the IPCC is currently failing to accomplish its primary mission. And that’s because each successive IPCC report has only explored the possibility of global warming. But what if, in the coming years, the Earth was faced with an era of significant cooling? If the IPCC has not accounted for such a possibility, would it be in default of its main objective?
Critics of anthropogenic (man-made) global warming recognize that the Earth has warmed over the past 150 years, and they attribute this rise in temperatures to a significant overall increase in solar output during that time. Such solar “variability” corresponds well with previous warm periods in the current interglacial epoch, and also accounts for the existence of cooler periods (such as the Little Ice Age, from 1350-1850 AD) when solar activity dropped to minimum levels.
These pendulum swings of climate matter because they’ve occurred regularly over the past few thousands of years. And it’s quite possible that after 150 years of recent warming, the Earth is now facing several decades of significant cooling. As Russian researchers are suggesting, solar activity is poised to fall off in dramatic fashion. And the potentially cooler climate that could ensue might mean real trouble for global agricultural output.
In the colder portions of the “Little Ice Age,” long winters and cool summers decimated grain crops and led to widespread famine and death. Overall, millions of people died of starvation during the Little Ice Age, particularly between 1690 to 1700, and again during famines in 1725 and 1816.
Russian climate scientist Valentina Zharkova believes that the coming decline in solar activity could run for roughly 30 years—similar to the cooling period experienced from the late 1940s to the late 1970s. The question is how steep would be the decline in temperatures from such a significant drop-off in solar activity, and how would it impact a world grown accustomed to buying packaged food at the grocery store?
While the mass agriculture of the United States might compensate for such potential food scarcity, small subsistence farming in the Third World could experience a perilous decline. And that could mean disease and death for millions.
Is the IPCC so absolutely sure that global temperatures will continue to rise? After all, the climate models portending catastrophic warming have consistently failed to track with actual, observed temperatures over the past 15 to 20 years. It seems like a terrible and faulty gamble for the global elite to arrogantly assume that they have all the answers despite a continued failure on their part to predict the weather.
It would behoove the United Nations to take seriously the research of Dr. Zharkova and others studying solar variability. Since millions of lives could be affected, the IPCC should at least complete the due diligence for which it has been tasked by the international community.
