Call this the Graph Of The Year. Or Graph Of The Decade And A Half, if you prefer. Via Power Line…

The UK Daily Mail piece quoted by Steven Hayward at Power Line says we’ll likely be treated to scare-mongering about a new Ice Age next. But for now, the global warming pharisees are being awfully quiet…

Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.

You can bet that low-key approach won’t last. Silence won’t get you grants, and it won’t get you funding. You need one of those dumb Roland Emmerich apocalypse movies in order to gin that up…

Meanwhile, leading climate scientists yesterday told The Mail on Sunday that, after emitting unusually high levels of energy throughout the 20th Century, the sun is now heading towards a ‘grand minimum’ in its output, threatening cold summers, bitter winters and a shortening of the season available for growing food.

Solar output goes through 11-year cycles, with high numbers of sunspots seen at their peak.

We are now at what should be the peak of what scientists call ‘Cycle 24’ – which is why last week’s solar storm resulted in sightings of the aurora borealis further south than usual. But sunspot numbers are running at less than half those seen during cycle peaks in the 20th Century.

Analysis by experts at NASA and the University of Arizona – derived from magnetic-field measurements 120,000 miles beneath the sun’s surface – suggest that Cycle 25, whose peak is due in 2022, will be a great deal weaker still.

But this is the part you’ve just got to love (emphasis ours)…

However, it is also possible that the new solar energy slump could be as deep as the ‘Maunder minimum’ (after astronomer Edward Maunder), between 1645 and 1715 in the coldest part of the ‘Little Ice Age’ when, as well as the Thames frost fairs, the canals of Holland froze solid.

Yet, in its paper, the Met Office claimed that the consequences now would be negligible – because the impact of the sun on climate is far less than man-made carbon dioxide. Although the sun’s output is likely to decrease until 2100, ‘This would only cause a reduction in global temperatures of 0.08C.’ Peter Stott, one of the authors, said: ‘Our findings suggest  a reduction of solar activity to levels not seen in hundreds of years would be insufficient to offset the dominant influence of greenhouse gases.’

These findings are fiercely disputed by other solar experts.

‘World temperatures may end up a lot cooler than now for 50 years or more,’ said Henrik Svensmark, director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at Denmark’s National Space Institute. ‘It will take a long battle to convince some climate scientists that the sun is important. It may well be that the sun is going to demonstrate this on its own, without the need for their help.’

Yep. The British meteorological office actually thinks CO2 emissions have a larger effect on how warm this place is than the sun. British taxpayers pay for that analysis.

You’ve got to feel for Henrik Svensmark. How he manages to cope with his supposedly learned peers in the climate science business refusing to recognize that the sun drives climate is beyond us – this guy has to be the first one to the bar at the climate conferences.

Maybe he can show them this…