This one has turned into something of an extended essay so grab a cuppa first and dig in.

Whilst not being a paid up member of the tinfoil hat brigade advocating the digging of bunkers and preparing for anarchy, I am getting a little concerned about just what is going to happen in future winters in the UK.

Whilst last year was bloody cold, this year has turned out (so far) to be a freeze of the kind that you heard about from parents and Grandparents.

Stories of ice on the inside of the windows in a morning, getting dressed under the bed covers before getting up and having to light the fire when they woke up just to get the air temperature up to something habitable in the front room.

The important thing there is that they had heat and that heat did not depend on anything else other than something to burn and someone to light it.

How many people can say they have independent means of providing warmth now?

Not many at all given the almost universal reliance on gas central heating which tends not to work at all if the electricity goes off even if the gas supply is fine.

Now, the reasons for me thinking about this are twofold.

Solar output and the Solar Cycle

Firstly, the suns cycle seems to entering a new minimum period which tends to bring along much colder winters.

The sun has various cycles, the most common being an approximately 11 year cycle – a brief explanation from wiki :

The solar cycle, or the solar magnetic activity cycle, is the main source of the ~10.7 year periodic solar variation (changing the level of irradiation experienced on Earth) which drives variations in space weather and to some degree weather on the ground and possibly climate change.^[1] The cycle is observed by counting the frequency and placement of sunspots visible on the Sun. Powered by a hydromagnetic dynamo process driven by the inductive action of internal solar flows, the solar cycle:

• Structures the Sun’s atmosphere, corona and wind;
• Modulates the solar irradiance;
• Modulates the flux of short-wavelength solar radiation, from ultraviolet to X-ray;
• Modulates the occurrence frequency of flares, coronal mass ejections, and other geoeffective solar eruptive phenomena;
• Indirectly modulates the flux of high-energy galactic cosmic rays entering the solar system.

Whilst most of the last 180 years has seen active sun cycles, moderate winters (mostly) and the rise of the AGW religion, the current cycle seems reluctant to get going at all from the current minimum and is shaping up to follow the pattern last seen in the early 1800’s – a period known as the Dalton Minimum :

The Dalton Minimum was a period of low solar activity, named after the English meteorologist John Dalton, lasting from about 1790 to 1830.^[1] Like the Maunder Minimum and Spörer Minimum, the Dalton Minimum coincided with a period of lower-than-average global temperatures. The Oberlach Station in Germany, for example, experienced a 2.0°C decline over 20 years.^[2] The Year Without a Summer, in 1816, also occurred during the Dalton Minimum.

Another, earlier period of low solar activity and cold winters was during the period known as The Maunder Minimum :

The Maunder Minimum (also known as the prolonged sunspot minimum) is the name used for the period roughly spanning 1645 to 1715 when sunspots became exceedingly rare, as noted by solar observers of the time.

…

The Maunder Minimum coincided with the middle — and coldest part — of the Little Ice Age, during which Europe and North America were subjected to bitterly cold winters. Whether there is a causal connection between low sunspot activity and cold winters has not been proven, however lower earth temperatures have been observed during low sunspot activity.^[3] The winter of 1708-09 was extremely cold.

That 1708-09 winter mentioned in the last quote seems to have been hellish indeed :

The Great Frost (as it was known in England) or Le Grand Hiver (as it was known in France) was an extraordinarily cold winter in Europe in late 1708 and early 1709,^[1] and was found to be the coldest European winter during the past 500 years.^[2] The severe cold occurred during the time of low sun spot activity known as the Maunder Minimum.

Anecdotal events

• Chicken’s combs froze solid and fell off
• Major bodies of water like lakes, rivers and the Baltic sea froze solid or froze over
• Soil froze to a depth of a metre
• Livestock died frozen in barns
• Trees exploded from the extreme cold
• Sailors aboard English naval vessels out at sea died from the cold
• Fish froze in rivers, game died in the fields, small birds died in the millions
• Herbs and exotic fruit trees died, as did hardy oak and ash trees
• The wheat crop failed
• People went to bed and woke to find their nightcaps frozen to the bedstead
• Bread froze so hard it took an axe to cut it
• When famine arrived, the French government forced its gentry to pay for soup kitchens for fear of a general peasant revolt

I particularly like the last point there – the rulers are always in fear of the peasants revolting.

One more quote from The Great Frost article which I will come back to shortly :

France was particularly hard hit by the winter, with the subsequent famine estimated to have caused 600,000 deaths by the end of 1710

Current observations show that the sun is a lot quieter than would be expected at this stage of a new cycle starting (from an article via Watts Up With That?) :

This is something you really don’t expect to see this far into solar cycle 24.

But there it is, the Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite shows the sun as a cueball:

The Ap index being zero, indicates that the sun’s magnetic field is low, and its magneto is idling rather than revving up as it should be on the way to solar max. True, it’s just a couple of data points, but as NOAA’s SWPC predicts the solar cycle, we should be further along instead of having a wide  gap:

The Ap index generally follows along with the sunspot count, which is a proxy of solar activity.

Remember that the cycles are around 11 years long and temperatures on earth lag slightly which would suggest a minimum point around 2014-15 which follows the last cycle being a weaker than normal affair and our current run of cold winters starting as the last cycle ended.

On the basis of current measurements and past occurrences, you would be wise to expect more (and worse) of the same freezing conditions.

Climate Change and the UK government

The second issue provoking me to action follows from the latest pronouncements from our wonderful leaders, and one Chris Huhne in particular, which all seem destined to lead us straight either into the land of enormous energy bills or more likely power cuts and shortages and enormous bills anyway.

Just recently, following on from Cancun (links to an article I wrote on the agreement) the UK agreed to emissions cuts of 42% by 2020 :

What about the existing UK target of a 34% cut in emissions by 2020 as drafted by The Crushing Fist and Milipede senior?

Well that will now be a 42% reduction in emissions by 2020 :

David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said the UN agreement would force governments to act. “The Cancun agreement is a very significant step forward in renewing the determination of the international community to tackle climate change through multilateral action,” he said.

The UK is already committed to taking the lead by cutting its emissions 34 per cent by 2020.

That target will increase to 42 per cent as soon as a legally binding global deal is achieved. Around £1.5 billion will be paid towards the green fund by Britain every year from 2020.

As well as another £1.5 billion in taxes to pay for the poor people plus fuck knows how much in costs for vast acres of bird mincers and pointless solar panels required here.

…

And, without a very forceful incentive to do otherwise we were looking to miss the original 34% reduction anyway :

Britain looks set to miss a European renewable energy target and its goal of a 34 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 as emissions decline more slowly, a report by Cambridge Econometrics said on Monday.

“The challenge now is to ensure that the 2020 targets are met by policies that can cause emissions to fall substantially in a context of economic growth,” said Paul Elkins, senior consultant at Cambridge Econometrics and the report’s co-author. The UK will meet its first two carbon budgets up to 2017 due to reduced industrial output from the economic downturn.

It may not meet its third budget (2018-2022) unless the new coalition government introduces firm policies to promote renewable energy and energy efficiency in sectors not covered by the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme, the report said.

While we are looking likely to miss the original target of 34%, they agree to up it anyway to 42% even though its only 9 years away and the current rash of green energy schemes are doing bugger all to help in the current weather.

Christopher Booker writing in The Telegraph covered the current policy very neatly in a recent article (emphasis mine) :

Chris Huhne has a blueprint for a green, cold, dark Britain

The government’s new energy policy will lead to widespread power cuts and economic disaster, says Christopher Booker

As much of the northern hemisphere last week froze under the snows of the fourth unusually cold winter in a row, our ministers, led by David Cameron and Chris Huhne, the Climate Change Secretary, laid out a blueprint that promises to inflict on Britain a social and economic catastrophe unique in the world. They chose this moment to announce what Mr Huhne called “a seismic shift” in Britain’s energy policy, the purpose of which, according to Mr Cameron, is to replace our “clapped-out” electricity supplies by making Britain “the greenest economy in the world”.

The chief driving force of the policy is the EU’s requirement that, within 10 years, 30 per cent of our electricity must come from renewables, mainly through thousands more wind turbines. This would be so expensive that the Government accepts it could only be made economical by massively rigging the market against any form of electricity derived from fossil fuels, such as the coal and gas which were last week supplying more than 80 per cent of our electricity. By a complex new system of regulations, including what in effect will be a tax of £27 a ton on CO2 emissions, the Government thus hopes to make renewables “competitive” with conventional power.

In addition, it will in effect make it impossible to replace the coal-fired power stations that will be forced to close in the next few years under an EU directive, while proposing a hidden subsidy to any new nuclear power stations. (Although, since the EU does not count carbon-free nuclear power as “renewable”, this may well fall foul of its ban on state aid.) All this, Mr Huhne assures us, might lead to a modest rise of £160 a year in the average household energy bill, but in the long run it will make electricity cheaper than if he had not intervened.

So riddled with wishful thinking and contradictions are these proposals that one scarcely knows where to begin. For a start, even if we could hope to build enough windmills to provide, say, 25 per cent of our electricity (10 times the current proportion), this would require not the 10,000 turbines the Government talks of, but more like 25,000, costing well over £200 billion, plus another £100 billion to connect them up to the grid.

At least the Government admits for the first time that the wind doesn’t always blow; so it proposes a Capacity Mechanism to subsidise the building of dozens of gas-fired power stations, to be kept running all the time, emitting CO2, just to provide instant back-up for when the wind drops. More than once on these recent cold, windless days, the contribution of wind to our electricity needs has been as low as 0.1 per cent – so the back-up to all those turbines will cost billions more, doing much to negate any CO2 savings from the turbines when they work. It does not take long to estimate that the capital cost of Mr Huhne’s new energy policy could well be more than £300 billion over 10 years, or £30 billion a year. Since the total wholesale cost of the electricity we used last year was only around £19 billion, this alone would be well on the way to tripling our bills by 2020.

All that results in either vast expense and a green economy or, more likely, vast expense, power cuts and general shortages.

Now, remember the quote earlier from The Great Freeze :

France was particularly hard hit by the winter, with the subsequent famine estimated to have caused 600,000 deaths by the end of 1710

I seriously believe that the only thing that will get our politicians (and the greater UN led AGW religious movement) to seriously consider that they are very wrong is for a lot of people to die needlessly in a cold winter due to their insistence on CO2 reductions.

Of all the places in Europe, I would suggest that the UK is the one where this would be more likely to happen for the following reasons :

• We import huge amounts of gas and electricity and cannot sustain our system without that.
• The population has been infantilised due to (at least) 13 years of nanny statism where every issue is someone elses problem.
• We are at the end of the pipeline for European gas and have seen what games Russia has played in recent years.
• Our energy minister is an eco loon.
• Our Prime Minister is an EU loon in disguise.
• The majority of UK household heating relies on an electricity supply to function unlike much of Northern Europe, for example, where wood fuelled heating is very common.

Taking the last point there, central heating is used in around nine out of ten houses in the UK :

The fuel mix in the domestic sector for space heating has changed significantly over the last three
decades. In 1970 10 per cent of households in Great Britain were centrally heated by gas and 9 per
cent used solid fuels. In 2000 71 per cent used gas for central heating and just 3 per cent used solid
fuels. Electrical storage heating accounted for 6 per cent of the total in 1970 and 9 per cent in 2000.
Less than a third of all housing stock in Great Britain had central heating in 1970. Thirty years later the
proportion had risen to 89 per cent.

2011 to do list

After that little lot, what am I going to do exactly?

Well, food you can stock up on, water is easily stored (and laying about in frozen heaps outside if you avoid the yellow bits) but heating is currently outside my control – if the electricity goes off for any extended period then I freeze.

Remember this bit :

How many people can say they have independent means of providing warmth now?

Well I will be fitting a solid fuel stove/boiler this summer as I certainly don’t intend to freeze to death as a sacrifice to the Warmists.

I picked up two last week at a scrap yard for bugger all as the boilers have rusted through.

A little summer welding in the workshop and I will have independent heat regardless of what the weather and power supply does next year.

Finally, I will leave you with three questions to consider :

1, Do you trust our current leadership to keep the power on in coming winters?

2, What happens in your house if the electricity goes off?

3, Most importantly, what are you going to do about it?