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If you weren’t concerned over recent news that Earth may be heading into a mini ice age as soon as 2030, you aren’t alone.
The mini-ice-age idea came out of a report projecting a drop in solar activity by 60 percent during the 2030s, creating freezing conditions not seen since 1645.
Jim Wild, a professor of space physics at Lancaster University, says the possibility of another "Little Ice Age" like that seen in the mid-1700s is tempered by a few factors:
- Volcanic activity in the mid-1700s probably affected the climate, with gas and ash reflecting solar radiation back into space, increasing the cold on Earth
- Data shows the Little Ice Age in the 1700s started well before the solar fluctuations associated with the cold by today's "mini ice age" researchers.
- The cold winters in Europe during the Little Ice Age don't appear to have been part of a global phenomenon.
Wild also says the reduced solar activiy and hypothetically colder winters might offset a few years’ worth of global warming — but not more than that.
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