View Single Post
  #8  
Old 21-07-2015, 04:48 PM
andyc's Avatar
andyc (Andy)
Registered User

andyc is offline
 
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Sydney
Posts: 1,008
Quite simply, no.

The radiative forcing from a Grand Solar Minimum works out at about -0.2-0.5W/sq m, compared to over +1.7W/sq m (and increasing) for the net forcing imbalance caused by our greenhouse gas emissions. Or put another way, a Grand Minimum would buy us less than 10 (probably less than 5) years worth of extra CO2 emissions in terms of radiative forcing. Note that the forcing difference is not the same as the level of lowered solar output, partly because the Earth is spherical, and partly because some shortwave energy is reflected to space.

As a picture is worth a thousand words, here's Figure 2 from Feulner and Rahmstorf (2010), which encapsulates the issue neatly - see if you can spot the difference in warming trend between a Grand Minimum and no solar activity reduction, even better - look for the "Ice Age"...
Attached Thumbnails
Click for full-size image (Feulner_fig4.jpg)
112.2 KB30 views
Reply With Quote