Posted primarily for the NASA section on cooling planet. CC
Europe is the region documented to have suffered most-greatly during previous Grand Solar Minimums (Dalton/Maunder), which makes sense given its close(ish) proximity to the pole along with its populous.
The onset of this next GSM is proving no different, even at this early stage…
As reported earlier this week, the European continent just suffered a historically cold month of April –which is now persisting into May– however; one nation I didn’t get to was Germany.
With an average temperature of just 6C (42.8F), April 2021 was Germany’s coldest fourth month of the year since that of 1977 (solar minimum of cycle 20). This average reading finishes some 3C below the 1991-2020 climatological norm, and 2.3C below the previously-used 30-year avg. of 1981-2010.
The month was also somewhat drier than average, reports DWD Klima and Umwelt on Twitter:
Blowing it up (below), we see the plunge from April, 2020 to April, 2021 more clearly:
Note the stark temperature drop in the chart @DWD_klima provides above.
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SABER’s missions is to monitor infrared emissions from carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitric oxide (NO) — by measuring the infrared glow of these molecules, SABER can assess the thermal state of gas at the very top of the atmosphere: a layer researchers call ‘the thermosphere.’
“The thermosphere always cools off during Solar Minimum,” continued Mlynczak.
“It’s one of the most important ways the solar cycle affects our planet.”
To help keep track of what’s happening in the thermosphere, Mlynczak and colleagues recently introduced the ‘Thermosphere Climate Index’ (TCI)–a number expressed in Watts that tells how much heat NO molecules are dumping into space. During Solar Maximum, TCI is high (‘Hot’); during Solar Minimum, it is low (‘Cold’).
And although SABER has been in orbit for 2 decades, Mlynczak and colleagues have been able to calculate TCI going all the way back to the 1940s: “SABER taught us to do this by revealing how TCI depends on other variables such as geomagnetic activity and the Sun’s output–things that have been measured for decades,” he explains.
An historical record of the Thermosphere Climate Index. Mlynczak and colleagues recently published a paper on the TCI showing that the state of the thermosphere can be discussed using a set of five plain language terms: Cold, Cool, Neutral, Warm, and Hot.
And with the impacts of 2016-17’s record-strong El Nino now fully faded, and effects of the moderate 2019-20 event also having dissipated (both clearly visible in the below chart), the cumulative reduction in activity through cycles 23 and 24 are finally impacting our ‘global’ temperature datasets, and not just regional ones — as mentioned above, the record cooling of the thermosphere has now worked its way down to the troposphere:
Returning to the regional data for a moment, because I think its important we are aware of the impacts on the ground in order for us to properly prepare, Germany was one of the nations to report a rapid and intense terrestrial cooling during the previous Grand Solar Minimum, the more moderate Dalton Minimum (1790-1830).
The country’s Oberlach Weather Station, for example, experienced a 2C decline over just 20 years during the beginning of the 1800s — this rapid cooling devastated the country’s food production, and contributed to the starvation of millions upon millions of people across Eurasia. It also puts to bed then notion that such stark shifts in the climate take centuries to manifest — this is not true, historical documentation –not to mention proxy data– shows us that ice age conditions can descend within just a matter of years.
Germany’s stark temperature drop from April 2020 to April 2021 provides further evidence for this.
The COLD TIMES are returning, the mid-latitudes are REFREEZING in line with the great conjunction, historically low solar activity, cloud-nucleating Cosmic Rays, and a meridional jet stream flow (among other forcings).
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