Are we heading for another ice age, I hope so.

Now I don’t want to get involved in the global warming debate, but having an obvious interest in trying to predict snowfall some understanding of how the earths’ temperature fluctuates would be useful. Which means you come across both sides of the argument quite frequently. The current sticking point seems to be is how much influence the sun plays in the warming of the earth. One side says very little compared to manmade influence the other says it has total influence and man is but negligible in the equation. 

Now as said I don’t want to get involved but one thing that both sides agree on is that the energy being received from the sun has been waining as it passes through the low point of its 11 year cycle. However there is a lot of argument that this downward trend in solar activity is going to be more distinctive and last far longer.

The question is, what does that mean to us who look forward to cold times?

UV view of the sun

Dr Scaife from the UK met office says that the UV output from the sun (which varied greatly with overall solar activity) does have an effect on over all winter temperatures, but not in a direct way. The UV is absorbed by and thus affects the temperature of the Stratosphere. When there is less UV the Stratosphere is cooler, the effects of which percolate down through the atmosphere, changing wind speeds, including the jet stream that circles the northern hemisphere. This change or kink in the Jet stream blocks warm westerly winds reaching Europe whilst allowing in cold winds from Arctic Siberia. The key point in his argument is that although this causes Europe and North America to be colder, other areas are warmer as it is only a change in the circulation of the air not a dramatic change in over all climate.

Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment satelitte

One of the problems is that data on the UV output from the sun is hard to measure from the earths’ surface and accurate readings have only been taken since the launch of the source satellite in 2003. Observations and analysis of the first few years of output from source seemed to raise more questions than answers concerning a trade off between UV radiation absorbed and energy at visible wavelengths that reach the earth. Mike Lockwood from Reading University thinks these readings could be particular to this phase of solar activity, marking the end of a phase of high output and a transition into a less active phase.    

“It’s now emerging that the ‘space age’ has been a ‘grand maxima’ (the sun oscillated between grand maxima and minima), so my view is that the sun is due to fall out of this and into a ‘grand minima’. So I would not be surprised if in 50 years’ time we find ourselves in conditions like the ‘Maunder Minimum’ associated with the ‘little ice age’.”

Professor Lockwood also says that although short term changes in solar output may not affect the global big picture, they can have a powerful impact on local weather patterns, particularly over Europe and Eurasia, as was suggested by Dr Scaife.

Sunspot compared to the earth

Since 1990 research by the National Solar Observatory in Arizona has been monitoring the decline in sunspot activity. Sunspots are the Harbingers of the magnetic activity on the sun that lead to the ejection of particles towards the earth, via flare events and coronal mass ejections. Their research finds that the magnetic field strength of sunspots has been declining, and if it drops too low, a level that could be reached by 2016 if the current trend continues, then there will not be enough for sunspots to form at all. A situation that has been seen before, between 1645 and 1715, a time otherwise known as the Maunder Minimum.

Well no matter what you believe mans effect on the earths’ temperature is. It is looking likely that we have some cold winters ahead. 

Big heavy snow winter predicted for Morzine (according to the oldies, and they would know)

Predicting the weather always seems a fickle art, even for a country such as ours, that often seems obsessed by what we are about to receive. The further forward you are trying to predict it seems sometimes more a guessing game than a science and even then they can only go into trends rather than the details of particular weather topics, like amount of snowfall.

Those of us, whose livelihoods are greatly influenced by the amount of snow that will fall, can be found listening to any theory we can find to give us a clue as what the coming season will bring. But for generations past, before the advent of modern prediction techniques and satellite imagery, many rules existed which we now know to be based on sound principles although only born out of observation and the passing of knowledge down the generations.

Take for instance the clichéd weather prediction “Red sky at night Sheppard’s delight. Red sky in the morning Sheppard’s warning.” We now know a red sky is seen when looking at a high pressure system with dry air stirring dust particles, which cause the sky to look red. If you are seeing this at sunset, as prevailing jet streams and weather systems tend to move from west to east and the sun sets in the west, the dry air is moving towards you. Conversely in the morning if you see the red sky and dry air to the east, it has past you by and the next weather pattern to come your way will be a moisture carrying low pressure. This same theory can be easily applied to seeing rainbows, as they a formed by looking though moist air, to predict the onset or passing of rain.

Now currently the talk about town is very optimistic (although not all residents view it as a good thing) for a very heavy and early snow year.  I have heard this based upon many theories from the bushiness of squirrels tails, thickness of onion skins, number of leaves on the Gentianes flower to over breeding of mice and bees. But the main thing that sells these theories to me this year is the consistency with which all the old people in town enthuse that it is going to be a heavy snow winter despite which method they use.

For myself I have witnessed, the redness of the trees and onset of autumn 3-4 weeks earlier than normal, the farmers taking their animals to lower pastures earlier than normal and a whole heap of positive thinking as I’ve ordered myself a split board this year and it won’t be much use without loads of fresh powder.

Fingers crossed.