Nogenlunde således spekulerede Resilient Earth for et halvt års tid siden og forklarede den Lille Istid således

The period from roughly 1300 to 1850 is known as the “Little Ice Age,” a period characterized by unusually long and cold winters. Some confine the Little Ice Age to approximately the 16^th century to the mid 19^th century, but it is generally agreed that there were three temperature minima, occurring around 1650, 1770, and 1850. Each minima separated by slight warming intervals. These periods coincides closely with times of solar inactivity, with some of the worst weather occurring squarely during the Maunder Minimum.

The Maunder Minimum is named after the English astronomer Edward W. Maunder (1851-1928). From studying historical records of sunspot counts, called the sunspot number, Maunder discovered that sunspots were virtually absent during this period, and disappeared altogether during the decade starting in 1670. Astronomers observed only about 50 sunspots during the 70 year period from 1645 to 1715. Normal sunspot activity would have produced 40,000 to 50,000 sunspots.

Already in the midst of the Little Ice Age’s colder than average climate, Europe and North America went into a deep freeze: alpine glaciers extended over valley farmland, sea ice crept south from the Arctic, and the famous canals in the Netherlands froze regularly—an event that is rare today. In London, ice festivals were held on the frozen Themes and in New York City people could walk to Manhattan and Staten Island on the ice. On the down side, crops failed and many died of the cold.

Eksistensen af Middelaldervarmen eliminerer grundlæggende argumentet om at vi oplever noget ekstraordinært og dermed faretruende (som den også stiller gevaldige spørgsmålstegn ved ideerne om de positive feed-back effekter) og Lille Istid (Maunders Minimum) sætter de smeltende gletchere, der netop voksede sig store dengang i relief. Det bliver sandsynligvis varmere i denne tid fordi vi er i en langsom bevægelse væk fra en koldere periode og derfor også på vej mod en ny. What goes up must come down.

Lille Istid er derfor sammen med den middelaldervarmen - som FNs klimapanel og konsorter har prøvet at eliminere fra den fælles hukommelse så sammenhængen mellem CO2 og temperatur kunne tage sig så klart ud, som muligt - et af klimadebattens mest centrale slagmarker. En is-hockeystok kurve over CO2-koncentrationens udvikling falder meget dårligt sammen med en sinus-lignende kurve over temperaturens udvikling og hvor der ikke er sammenfald er der nok heller ikke sammenhæng. Ikke en, der ikke kræver en meget god forklaring i hvert fald. Så fra at underkende, hvad der var basal viden og konsensus om indtil klimaet blev til en ideologisk sag har man fra FNs Klimapanels side siden prøvet at så tvivl om det var et globalt fænomen eller blot et Europæisk og dermed for denne diskussion ligegyldigt. Men efterhånden, som man får kompenseret for den uciviliserede verdens mangel på dataindsamling er der næppe tvivl om at Jorden er steget og faldet i temperatur i ganske historisk tid fordi det er klimaets metier.

Fra en nogenlunde samtidig kronik i Jyllands-Posten af fysikeren Henrik Svensmark slåe det fast

Det er vigtigt at fastslå, at den Lille Istid var en global hændelse. Den endte i slutningen af det 19. århundrede og efterfulgtes af en stigende solaktivitet. Gennem de seneste 50 år har solaktiviteten været det højeste siden middelaldervarmen for 1.000 år siden. Og nu ser det ud til at Solen skifter igen og er på vej mod det, som solforskere kalder »et grand minimum« som vi så i den Lille Istid.

Sammenfaldet mellem Solens aktivitet og klimaet gennem tiderne er forsøgt bortforklaret som tilfældigt. Men det viser sig, at næsten ligegyldigt hvilken periode man undersøger, altså ikke kun de sidste 1.000 år, så findes en overensstemmelse. Solens aktivitet har gentagne gange gennem de seneste 10.000 år svinget mellem høj og lav. Faktisk har Solen gennem de seneste 10.000 år befundet sig i en dvaletilstand ca. 17 pct. af tiden med en afkøling af Jorden til følge.

Ifølge Watts Up With That er der heller ingen tvivl om at Lille Istid sammen med Middelaldervarmen var globale hændelser og referer til en af utallige undersøgelser med samme konklusion

From CO2 Science, another peer reviewed paper with a paleoclimatology reconstruction based on cores containing plankton shells, show that both the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and the Little Ice Age (LIA) can be seen in Indonesia. In the past, critics have said these events to be “regional” implying they occurred only around Europe, due to lack of historical records in other regions of the world.

Og ifølge Springer Link er konklusionen den samme for Sydamerikas vedkommende

We present a climatic reconstruction of Holocene lacustrine episodes in the Salinas del Bebedero basin (Argentina), based on geological and diatom information.

(…) To the last two peaks of large inflow of meltwater, radiocarbon dates corrected to sidereal ages, are AD 1280/1420 and AD 1443/1656. These ages agree with two cold episodes clearly recorded in dendrological studies from the Patagonian Andes and were correlated to the Little Ice Age. Thus, older Holocene episodes of large inflow of water to the basin were correlated with the Neoglacial Advances defined by Mercer (1976) for the Andes.

Men som sagt kan der jo være en meget god forklaring på manglen af sammenfald mellem sammenfald og sammenhæng. Martin Herzberg giver dog ikke meget for den dominerende videnskabelige forklaring ifølge Summit Daily News

…a recent study of the scientific literature revealed an equally fraudulent CO2 hockey stick curve, which fabricated the myth of a “preindustrial” CO2 concentration of 280 parts per million (ppm) followed by a rapid rise to the current level of 390 ppm. The Gore-IPCC-Hansen clique then claimed the increase was caused by humans. They accepted unreliable ice core measurements in preference to the hundreds of more reliable direct measurements made by many distinguished scientists including several Nobel laureates. The real data show periods in the past 200 years where concentrations increased more rapidly than they did in recent years and that in several of those periods CO2 levels were higher than current levels. Knowledgeable scientists know that human CO2 emission does not correlate with changes in atmospheric CO2; that human emission is a trivial fraction of natural sources and sinks of CO2; that the oceans contain about 50 times more dissolved CO2 than the atmosphere; and that the recycling of CO2 from the tropical oceans where it is emitted to the Arctic oceans where it is absorbed, overwhelms human emissions. Data going back 500,000 years show temperature changes precede atmospheric CO2 changes by about 1,000 years. Thus temperature is driving CO2: not the reverse as the Gore-IPCC-Hansen clique contend. As oceans warm they emit CO2 and as they cool they absorb CO2. Millions of years ago CO2 levels were at least 5 times greater than current levels with only beneficial effects on plant and animal life.

Scientific evidence thus proves that the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is completely false. Recent data show the earth’s temperature has decreased significantly for the last eight years. Arctic ice coverage has essentially remained unchanged for 20 years, with a slight increase over the last three. Sea level’s rate of rise has declined significantly over the last three years, and its average rate of rise for the last 20 years is about the same as it has been for the last 15,000 years.

The AGW advocates are left with nothing but half-baked computer models totally out of touch with reality and have been proven wrong. As I indicated in my 1994 paper: “Unverified models do not realistically represent that radiative balance (between the sun and the earth) and it would be absurd to base public policy decisions on them.”

Og han lader Macbeth summere hysteriet som “a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Konsekvensen af denne “sinus” tænkning om klimaets udvikling er som sagt at kurven vil kække igen på et tidspunkt og da temperaturen i de seneste ti år har været svagt faldene er nogen begyndt at spekulere i om det muligvis kunne være nu, som f.eks. Svensmark i den førciterede kronik

At Solen kunne falde i søvn i et dybt minimum, blev antydet af solforskere på et møde i Kiruna i Sverige for to år siden. Da Nigel Calder og jeg opdaterede vores bog ”The Chilling Stars” skrev vi derfor lidt provokerende »vi anbefaler vores venner at nyde den globale opvarmning, mens den varer«.

Faktisk er den globale opvarmning standset, og en afkøling er så småt begyndt. I sidste uge blev det fremført af Mojib Latif fra universitet i Kiel på FN’s World Climate Conference i Geneve, at afkølingen muligvis fortsætter gennem de næste 10 til 20 år.

Hans forklaring var naturlige forandringer i Nordatlantens cirkulation og ikke i Solens aktivitet. Men ligegyldigt hvordan det fortolkes, så trænger de naturlige variationer i klimaet sig mere og mere på.

En konsekvens må være,at Solen selv vil vise sin betydning for klimaet og dermed teste teorierne for den globale opvarmning. Ingen klimamodel har forudsagt en afkøling af Jorden, tværtimod.

Og Fox News er heller ikke blege for at tale Roma midt imod og her referer man også uden blusel til den slags teorier og teoretikere

Det gør man også i Rusland ifølge Daily Mail

Climate change adherents say the planet is warming due to man-made factors but Russian expert Professor Arkady Tishkov said yesterday that Siberia and the world are in fact getting colder.

‘From a scientific point of view, talk about increasing average temperatures on earth of several degrees are absurd,’ he said.

‘Of course we can’t say that global warming is a myth and falsification. In many regions of planet the temperature is higher than expected because of human impact.

‘But the climate system of the planet is changing according to different cycles - from several years to thousand of years.

‘From the scientific point of view, in terms of large scale climate cycles,  we are in a period of cooling.

‘The last three years of low temperatures in Siberia, the Arctic and number of Russia mountainous regions prove that, as does the recovery of ice in the Arctic Ocean and  the absence of warming signs in Siberia.’

Mr Tishkov, deputy head of the Geography Institute at Russian Academy of Science, said: ‘What we have been watching recently is comparatively fast changes of climate to warming, but within the framework of an overall long-term period of cooling. This is a proven scientific fact. 

‘The recent warming - and we are talking tenths of a degree at most - is caused by human activity, like forest elimination, the changing of landscapes.

‘The greenhouse gases so much discussed now do not in fact play big role. We have to remember that all the impact of industrial enterprises in Russia cannot be compared with one volcano eruption on our planet.’

En anden russer er inde på det samme ifølge UPI

A Russian scientist says the Arctic may be getting colder, not warmer, which would hamper the international race to discover new mineral fields.

An Arctic cold snap that began in 1998 could last for years, freezing the northern marine passage and making it impassable without icebreaking ships, said Oleg Pokrovsky of the Voeikov Main Geophysical Observatory.

“I think the development of the shelf will face large problems,” Pokrovsky said Thursday at a seminar on research in the Polar regions.

Scientists who believe the climate is warming may have been misled by data from U.S. meteorological stations located in urban areas, where dense microclimates creates higher temperatures, RIA Novosti quoted Pokrovsky as saying.

“Politicians who placed their bets on global warming may lose the pot,” Pokrovsky said.

Slaget om fortiden synes at være vundet af skeptikerne og så bliver det interessant at se i, hvor høj grad det vil påvirke slaget om udviklingen. Et er sikkert: Konsensus-schmensus.