Pen Meets Paper Sept.6'10

Opinion by Helge Nome
Remember that BP well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico? It was supposed to ruin the the ecology of the gulf, and then some. Now it is off the radar and the sun is shining and the seas are, once again, blue with friendly waves rolling in on white beaches.
Come to think of it, how is it physically possible for a six inch pipe to spew out enough oil to contaminate a three dimensional ocean body over a huge geographical area? Even if it goes on for several months.
And what about “global warming”? Where is the heat? Hot dry conditions have been reported in many places in the northern hemisphere over the summer, with resultant fires, but does that indicate global warming? If you say ”This has been the hottest summer in 100 years!”, the logical implication is that a summer 100 years ago was just as hot. Was that a period of global warming as well?
The front page of the August issue of Maclean’s, touted to be “Canada’s National Magazine” by its publishers, screams “Extreme Weather Warning: Fires, floods and freak storms, Why it is only going to get worse. Page 38”. In the article a direct connection is made between fires, floods and other calamities, and greenhouse gases.
Meanwhile, back on the farm in Alberta, the summer has been a cold one, with most crops well behind schedule. My neighbors have just started turning their barley field into silage, as the prospects of successful maturation of the crop grows dimmer by the day, following the season’s first frost. Last fall, the leaves on the poplar trees in this area literally froze to death and stayed on the trees over the winter, because of an early killing frost. My oldest daughter recently attended a wedding near Los Angeles in California and stayed at a motel near the beach. Locals complained about how cold the ocean was, compared to normal. Is this global warming? Or are we just talking about the usual main stream self serving media hype, as practiced during the Gulf of Mexico well blowout?
Looking at the data coming out of a network of earth based observatories and satellites orbiting the earth and the sun, the trend is crystal clear: The energy output of our sun is very low and has been for some three years now, as the 24th solar sunspot cycle has failed to appear on schedule. The heart of that great organism in space we call our solar system is not pumping blood quite the way it usually does, causing its outer regions to begin cooling down. That’s where we are and that’s why we are feeling the chill.
The anomaly confusing the picture is the melting of glaziers in the arctic. I believe this phenomenon is related to the changing composition of atmospheric gases in the upper atmosphere above the arctic, allowing more energy from the sun in to shatter ice crystals.
In summary, solar system physics is a very complex business. That said, if you turn down the central furnace, things are likely to feel a little chilly.