The little ice age cometh – not!
You may have seen the headlines:
“Three different lines of evidence suggest that the sun, which is expected to reach its maximum sunspot and magnetic activity in the current cycle in 2013, might even be entering a prolonged quiet period similar to the so-called Maunder Minimum, a 70-year period from 1645 to 1715 in which virtually no sunspots were observed.”
While the SMH was quite responsible, Fox News maxed it up:
Global Warming Be Damned, We Might Be Headed for a Mini Ice Age
The New Scientist tells us that last year:
researchers modelled what would happen to global temperatures if a grand minimum started now and continued until 2100. They found that it would lower temperatures by 0.3 °C at most.
That isn’t a new ice age: it’s a slightly less severe heatwave.
Skeptical Science has more, including this graph: