Plummeting Temperatures Could Send World Into ‘Mini Ice Age’

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According to new research, Britain could be faced with a ‘mini ice age’ by 2030 which could see people ‘skating on the River Thames’.

The mini ice age, which would ‘freeze major rivers’, could see temperatures starting to drop from as early as 2021.

A team of researchers, led by Professor Valentina Zharkova of Northumbria University, built on work from Russia to predict the movements of two magnetic waves produced by the Sun, writes Sky News.

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The research predicts ‘rapidly decreasing’ magnetic waves which will continue for ‘three solar cycles’. This, the team say, will begin in 2021 and will last for 33 years.

Extremely low magnetic activity on the Sun marries up with well-documented cold periods on Earth.

Professor Zharkova claims 97 per cent accuracy for the model which dovetails with previous mini ice ages, including the Maunder Minimum period from 1645 to 1715 when frost fairs were held on the frozen Thames

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But she cautions that her mathematical research cannot be used as proof that there will be a mini ice age this time around, not least because of global warming.

The professor said:

I hope global warming will be overridden by this effect, giving humankind and the Earth 30 years to sort out our pollution.

She also warned ‘any downward impact’ on global warming will last only until the Sun’s two magnetic waves become active again in the 2050s.

Adding:

We have to be sorted by that time and prepare everything on Earth for the next big solar activity.

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At the moment, the UK is in the middle of a very snowy winter, with climatologists predicting the ‘snowiest winter in 27 years’.

78-year-old David King – who says he can predict the weather months in advance – says there’ll be little snow until 2018, but come January, freezing conditions will arrive, report the Evening Standard.

These chilly conditions will reportedly bring blizzards to the UK, causing travel chaos for those of us unfortunate enough not to be ‘snowed off’ from school or work.

We’ve already seen some absolute nightmare conditions, Stansted Airport cancelled all flights earlier this week, and it’s snowing outside as I write this.

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Mr King, a retired Metropolitan Police constable, uses thousand-year-old moon charts and studies the plants, birds and other animal behaviour in order to predict the weather, saying:

In the next couple of months there will be some snow in northern parts of the UK but certainly below Birmingham and Norwich there will be no snow, or no snow of any consequence, through until after Christmas.

The start of the New Year will be a different ball game. It’s going to be very cold, there will be a lot of snow and there will be travel problems.

In the south it will get down to -5C. It will be the worst snow since 1991.

However, Mr King, from Edenbridge, Kent, insists he’s nearly always accurate in his predictions and says he has been forecasting the weather for the last 40 years.

Adding:

Last September I said it would be the earliest and warmest spring for years, the summer warm and damp and the autumn stormy, damp and very mild, so far so good.

The predominant feature for January is cold, blizzards to start the month then frost which will freeze the snow, followed by more snow with another freezing session of ice.

Finally more frost to end the month.

I don’t want this ice age, it doesn’t sound fun.

UNILAD