There's only a two year reprieve if the sun gets cold - though northern countries might feel it

Surprisingly, WUWT has foregone the temptation to tell the people who live in the denier bubble that we're heading for an ice age and the Thames is about to freeze up. Then again, Anthony hasn't mentioned any of the extreme weather of the past few weeks either. He might be busy attending to his big announcement that he promised would arrive this last week, but didn't.

About the sun - others haven't been so reticent. The Royal Astronomical Society (not to be confused with the Royal Society) put out a press release about a conference paper that was apparently presented at the National Astronomy Meeting in Wales earlier this week. It looks as if it's part of a long time project of Prof Valentina Zharkova, of the Department of Mathematics and Information Sciences at Northumbria University.

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UPDATE:  See below. I've just listened to a NZ Radio National interview with Valentina Zharkova (h/t Hot Topic NZ). She comes across as another "it's the sun" person who doesn't understand climate. So she isn't to be taken seriously when it comes to climate. That doesn't mean that she's wrong about her magnetic harmonic dynamo theory. It does mean she is way out in her estimate of what it will mean for climate. It's probably wise to wait for her published paper and see if it stands scrutiny. Meanwhile anything she says about climate is to be ignored.

Sou - 11:03 am 13 July 2015

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"It's not the sun". Another look at what would happen if there were a Maunder Minimum this century.

Today WUWT-ers are in a dilemma. They are being asked to look at a climate discussion about the role of the sun in climate change. (The WUWT article is archived here.) Marcel Crok has posed a question for discussion at Climate Dialogue, namely:

What will happen during a new Maunder Minimum?

This question has been discussed at HotWhopper in the past, for example, here and here. And here is a link to a scientific paper on the subject, and one to a realclimate.org article. Even a grand solar minimum would only have a small temporary impact on global temperatures compared to the impact of rising greenhouse gases.

If you want to read the discussion by scientists, go to Climate Dialogue. The scientists who have presented their various scientific findings are:

• Mike Lockwood from the University of Reading
• Nicola Scafetta from Duke University
• Jan-Erik Solheim from the University of Oslo
• Ilya Usoskin from the University of Oulu
• José Vaquero from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

The only public comment that appears so far is by Jos Hagelaars.