Helio, La Niña, and bad winters, awww nuts!!

While doom and gloom predictions continue about CO2 induced global warming, saying that it now is the largest driver of climate, overwhelming any influences of the suns variation, there appear to be other things happening. There are forecasts emerging for a wet and cold winter.

Lets review. We have a longer than normal solar minimum occurring, and we have a strong La Niña developing too. We have colder water in the Pacific.

Here is a animated view of the growing La Niña. Watch the animation, note the exapnding La Niña off the west coast of South America, note also the expanding pool of cooler water developing the Gulf of Alaska. This will be a key formation point for cold wet storms.

And there are other signs too. Acorns. Have you noticed this year we have an overabundance of acorns? I was walking in Bidwell Park a couple of weeks ago and the ground was covered with them, and they were still raining down like hailstones. I’ve never seen anything like it. This has been what biologists call a “mast year” for valley oaks.

While this may sound a bit like an “Old Farmers Almanac” moment, but I have a theory for it.

Trees are directly in touch with the sun, more so than other living things in the biosphere. Our “valiant” dendroclimatologists, like Michael Mann, point to tree rings as a proxy for earths climate. That may be true, but I think in addition to “treemometers” they also act as helioproxies too.

In a nutshell (ahem); I think it’s highly likely that trees have evolved survival strategies that are based on detecting changes in the sun’s output. It stands to reason that over the billion plus of years that plant life has been on earth and the millions of solar cycles they’ve been through, that they can detect changes in their primary energy source, the sun, and adapt accordingly. Producing abundant acorns could well be such a survival strategy.

We have strong signs of a solar cycle that is late and well below average, a near record low hurricane season, and a strong La Niña emerging.  Now we have valley oaks producing acorns like there is no tomorrow. Maybe we should heed the trees.

h/t Russ Steele at NCwatch for the animation for forecast links