WIRED – Two sunspots are visible on our star’s face for the first time in more than a year, possibly ending an unexpected lull in solar activity.
Solar flares rise and fall on an 11-year cycle, so scientists thought sunspot activity would pick up some time in 2008. It didn’t. And this year has been quiet, too. No sunspots have been visible on the sun for 80 percent of the days this year.
Sunspot activity is correlated with the total amount of energy we receive from the sun. If the sun’s activity were to change remarkably, it would have an influence on global climate. So, in the context of climate change, the fact that the current solar minimum has been the longest and deepest in more than a century has been of special interest.
In May, a big sunspot seemed to augur a return to normal, but it faded away and sunspotless days returned. The latest activity might not mark the end of the solar minimum, however. People have been counting sunspots since Galileo first observed one in the early 17th century. Through the 28 documented cycles, stretching from 1745 to today, some variation in cycle length has been observed.
Maybe NOW we can get a little of that global warming… and winter won’t suck after all.
The ‘sun doesn’t cause global warming’ line is a little absurd. Yes total solar irradiance has not changed much. That is not the only mechanism being suggested for the sun’s impact on global temperatures. The paper you linked even says there are other methods which are too complex to evaluate, and that more study is needed.
Your 5-15% number for the influence of the sun(which you used to say was as high as 30%)
doesn’t say much either. Taking a model that doesn’t accurately model the earth’s climate or handle solar influence well, and then varying solar influence in the parameters of this bad model, and seeing a 5-15% variation, doesn’t say very much. So really they are saying, if our models are accurate, then the sun accounts for no more than 15% of the warming. These are the same models that somehow did not conclude that temperatures would be roughly even for a decade.
Another problem is that the paper you cite reviews a 30 year period. It’s quite possible that a 30 year period doesn’t have an effect from the sun on global warming, but that a quiet sun would cancel out the effects of CO2, and then cool things down, and possibly even enter an ice age. Nothing in that paper contradicts that. They simply couldn’t find evidence of the sun driving global warming instead of CO2.
Not to worry, once the earth heats up enough, 95% of the human population will die off, thus fixing the global warming problem for the next 10 centuries.
Damn!
I was hoping we’d all freeze to death just so the environmentalist wackos would finally SFU.
You’ve watched way too many computer models and not yet understood their intent.
There are no “lines” of magnetism.
Magnetism is an all encompassing force.
The lines drawn on the computer models you see are there to help you visualize the magnetic force and it’s
direction (or dipole moment)
Earth’s magnetic field is everywhere,
like the air you breath, only more so
in that it can permeate anything and everything that does not deflect it.
(it is a form of energy-IMO)
Evidence is seen in lava flows.
as they harden, magnetic material within them will align to earths magnetic field and make a snapshot of the field at that time.
Also, it’s not a theory, its fact. i’m not sure which body of physics apply because i only concern myself with the actually processes which seem to cover several areas.
i gather it combines the physics of resonance, electromagnetics and electronics..maybe nuclear as well. (the study of atoms)
anyway..hope that helps.
-s
-No thanks, that would be a waste of time. Gore is a lawyer and a politician, therefore nothing he says or does can ever be trusted. -a simple fact of life, that.
The way i see it, it was a perfectly hatched plan.
The “higher ups” should have access to all the ancient knowledge and history of the planet and therefore know all the cycles of the sun/solar system/galaxy combined with the true way the weather system works on this planet.
As the solar maximum peaked in 2000, (and had bush not stolen both elections) Gore would have gotten in and initiated the global warming carbon [credit] scam and instituted heavy carbon caps and taxes on all industry. -and most likely would have gotten the Brits to go along with it as well.
(seeing as how “The Crown” still controls this country..and all presidents have a bloodlines that lead back to it, -including obama,
yada yada yada)
As we started down the path to the solar minimum, the *real data* would have shown that the earth is starting cool for which of course, Gore, his policies and his other hand puppets would have taken credit for.
Since mainstream Science is nothing but a another political hand puppet, they would have complied and molded the data to show that in fact, the carbon caps are the cause, the planet
is cooling, global warming is being averted and Gore would be heralded as saving the planet.
(We are in the middle of a millennium class solar minimum, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise..over 700 “spotless” days so far)
A simple yet brilliant plan. i’d bet my first born that is exactly what they planned to do.
Although it would have been interesting to see how they would played the mad weather and mini-ice age we are about to enter into.
(i gather the repubs would then capitalize on it and then try to blame Gore for freezing the planet) -lol
Life is always stranger than fiction.
There are no coincidences.
And like they say:
“This has all happened before and will happen again.”
-s
Oh..and FWIW: just like the water molecule is polarized.. Gravity is actually polarized EM (electromagnetism)
-this makes water’s life as a could so much the easier..
-and as for the sun, well it controls alot more than the weather.
People, we Live in a Mirror Image World.
Learn the real way things work so your not shocked to hell when some wild stuff happens soon..
-s
#30 Soundwash,
So, in your mind, the properties of clouds, even if they are as you say, imply that gravity is incorrect? Have you jumped off a building lately? Did you hit the ground?
#34 – MikeN,
One year does not a trend make. Even if 2008 was cooler, it was still warmer than every single year prior to 1997 and most since 1998. And, 2008 was a La Nina year. Learn to read a trend. Do you not see temps rising overall even if there are fluctuations? You don’t strike me as THAT stupid.
Your own graph only starts in 1990 and still shows a definite overall warming in any of its views. I think it is you who do not know how to read a graph. Remember, we’re looking for whether there is a climate trend (and there definitely is) not a weather forecast for a single week or even a particular year.
MikeN,
Unfortunately for both of us, you are right about the climate models. None of them have forecast the rapid changes in climate that are already being observed. All of them have underestimated the problem. When you state that they are inaccurate, you should pay attention to which way they are wrong.
Things are far worse than most predictions said they would be. Events are unfolding now that were not expected to begin for decades, such as methane clathrates beginning to melt and give off methane along the arctic coast of Alaska.
Scott, I am not claiming global cooling. It is the alarmists that are claiming catastrophic levels of global warming, and the burden of proof is on them. 2008 being warmer than 1997, doesn’t contradict the fact that there has been a ten year leveling off of temperatures, and this levelling was not predicted.
Joe Romm predicts a high level of warming for the next century yet is only willing to bet a ten year growth of .15 degrees C.
A warming of 2C for the next centure would not surprise me at all, as the planet as coming out of an ice age, combines with the effects of CO2. The levelling off of temperatures suggests that the high end of global warming predictions are not very likely.
# 42 Misanthropic Scott said
#30 Soundwash,
So, in your mind, the properties of clouds, even if they are as you say, imply that gravity is incorrect? Have you jumped off a building lately? Did you hit the ground?
::sigh:: it’s obvious you are incapable of independent learning and comprehension.
I never implied (or said) anything about gravity itself.. I said
The Theory of Gravity
Its still a theory because it has
yet to be PROVEN. the equations are wrong, and yet they act the are.
Why do you think gravity is still
“a mystery”???
The single biggest mistake they refuse to correct is that Spin is not a function of gravity.
Gravity is a helical (corkscrew) EM wave that is created from the spin of the electrons in all atoms. the more electrons in the element, the more gravity created. -hence why denser elements (with more electrons) are heavier to lift.
see, easy stuff, yes?
Heck Von Braun discovered this during the launch of the first U.S. satellite, Explorer One back in
the 50’s..
Anyway..stop wasting your time flaming people and educate yourself.
-This is stuff is not hard.
-s
#44 – MikeN,
No Mike. That 2008 was cooler than 1998 does not show a ten year leveling. It shows one cool year. The averages are still increasing. You are still misreading the data. As for the coming catastrophe, you are clearly not looking around.
95% of the world’s glaciers are melting.
Perhaps you don’t care about glaciers. But, everyone who depends on them for fresh water does.
We have already lost 10% of our arable land to desertification.
Perhaps you don’t care about deserts. But, people who eat should care about loss of farmland.
Weather patterns are already changing.
Perhaps you don’t care whether rain falls on New England and New York instead of California and Australia. However, a lot of farmland is where the rain patterns are shifting away from. Further, too much rain is also not good for farmland. It also causes crop failure and top soil runoff.
The oceans are becoming more acidic.
We have already dumped 575 billion metric tons of CO2 into the oceans. Perhaps you don’t care so much about the PH of the ocean. But, the pteropods that form the base of much of the ocean food chain will not be able to form their thin shells in lower PH. If you don’t eat seafood, that’s fine. But, a billion people depend on ocean fish for the bulk of their protein.
So, is there a catastrophe on the way?
That depends on how big a mass extinction is required for you to call it a catastrophe. We have already caused a greater mass extinction than the comet that took out the non-avian dinosaurs 65.3 million years ago. Do you want to try to beat out the Permian/Triassic extinction of 250 million years ago? It was very likely caused by runaway global warming (not human caused, of course).
We’re on our way.
Soundwash,
You have truly lost your mind.
Gravity is a helical (corkscrew) EM wave that is created from the spin of the electrons in all atoms. the more electrons in the element, the more gravity created. -hence why denser elements (with more electrons) are heavier to lift.
Black holes are the densest gravity wells we know about and have no electrons. They are effectively collapsed atomic nuclei.
If gravity/mass were a function of electrons, nuclei would be massless and electrons would have all the mass of the atom. In the real world, the nuclei are about a thousand times more massive than the electrons.
I know about the “mystery of gravity” and the lack of a detectable graviton thus far. However, your idea for the replacement with a new theory doesn’t work.
When Newton’s Laws were superseded by the Theory of Relativity, it was acknowledged that Newton’s Laws still work within a limited domain. You seem unwilling to grant that same status to the Theory of Relativity.
As for your “Theory of Gravity” crap. Do you think there is anything in physics called the “Theory of Gravity”? The current theory for gravitation is called General Relativity.
http://tinyurl.com/y8rokwg
It is widely acknowledged that at the point where Quantum Theory and the Theory of General Relativity overlap, they contradict each other and both break down.
So, it is true that we need a new “Theory of Everything” or “Grand Unified Theory”, take your pick on terminology.
But, what you propose is to throw away two generations of working physics and replace them wholesale with something that is literally contradictory with existing evidence. Afterall, you have just stated that electrons contain all the mass in the universe. So, you are obviously flat dead wrong and a blithering idiot.
Sorry to be so harsh, but the truth must be told.
According to Hadcru, 1999-2008 are all colder than 1998, while NASA has 205 higher and 2007 tied. So that is either ten years colder, or nine out of ten at the same temperature or worse.
I call that a levelling, not an increase.
All your other points are just more alarmism, that when evaluated break down. Let’s take your worst case, ocean pH. First of all the oceans are not acidic, so more CO2 would not make them ‘more acidic’. They would become ‘less basic’ or neutral.
The theory is that CO2 would form carbonic acid that dissolves shells. However, the current ocean pH is about 8.2. Even if more CO2 changes this to 8.0, that would barely increase the number of H+ ions in the water, and would bring it to 1/10 the level found in pure water(pH is the negative logarithm of H+ concentration). Also, adding an acid is different from adding CO2, which on net would lower pH, but increase the amount of calcium carbonate and carbon, increasing phytoplankton growth as well as shell growth.
The shells are not fixed structures, but are constantly being shed in water and regrown as more calcium carbonate is added.
#48 – MikeN,
So, 1998 was a particularly warm year. So was 1934. Again and again and again, one year does not a trend make. The reason that graphs use a rolling average is to see the trend.
MikeN,
I kept searching for more temperature graphs. I fail to see any leveling in the global average temperature.
http://tinyurl.com/2fq44q
One could just as easily say that the early 1990s were a leveling. Or, one could point to the mid 1950s.
You’re simply looking at too short a time frame to be meaningful. When you look at the bigger picture (as in figure three below, it still looks just like a hockey stick.
http://tinyurl.com/lxyh3g
That second link is fatally flawed. OK not the link but the paper. He takes 1209 proxies, but does not have any real evidence that these proxies are valid proxies for temperature. If you make up 1200 lines of random data, and run that through his program, it will still yield a hockey stick. You can also make a temperature record that looks like a sine wave.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2008/10/11/will-the-real-hockey-stick-please-stand-up/
I hope you try to understand what is happening here. He is using the same proxies and program. Mann’s program selects out the proxies that are correlated to temperature, then averages them together. So of his 1200 proxies, about 800 were thrown out as not related to temperature. What type of study is this that throws out 2/3 of the data? Shouldn’t they have determined that the data is valid before starting? Then when you take the 2/3 that are correlated with temperature and average them together, you get a hockey stick, because the early part average out to roughly zero, while the late part looks like a hockey stick, because you have selected the ones that show high values for current times.
You are guaranteed to get this result no matter what data you feed in.
Looking at it another way, suppose I went and took tree ring samples, from 100 trees in one location, and that 60 of them showed no changes throughout history, and forty of them looked like hockey sticks. This program would select the 40 that look like hockey sticks, and reject the other 60. Is that a valid temperature reconstruction in your mind?
Or if all the trees had different results. The program would select out the minority that were correlated with temperature, and the historic signal would be balanced out.
All it really takes is one tree that looks like a hockey stick, and if everything else balances, you would still get a hockey stick average.
Indeed, this is how most of these studies operate. They rely on a Yamal proxy, for example in the latest Arctic warming paper.
>95% of the world’s glaciers are melting.
Perhaps you don’t care about glaciers. But, everyone who depends on them for fresh water does.
People who depend on glaciers for fresh water, depend on having the glaciers melt.
#51 – MikeN,
C’mon please. At least do some real work looking for real data. Don’t send me to blogs. I give real links. At least have the courtesy to do the same.
Try google scholar to find better links.
http://scholar.google.com/
#52 – MikeN,
The people who rely on glacial meltwater need a stable glacier that expands in winter and contracts in summer. When it melts completely, they move away or die.
So your not interested in a detailed explanation of the paper you linked. That’s OK. I can understand your reluctance, but don’t expect me to believe these researchers who can’t acknowledge their own mistakes, even when pointed out by panels of experts appointed by Congress.
Again, if you analyze the papers in detail, and the math behind it, there are fatal flaws in that paper.
Here are some other problems with these hockey stick studies. They basically never proved that the things they are measuring accurately reflect temperature.
http://74.125.155.132/scholar?q=cache:con8U8nzlQoJ:scholar.google.com/+Loehle+2007&hl=en
http://www.springerlink.com/content/45u6287u37x5566n/
I’ll have to take some more time on the first link there. It does look interesting.
The second link didn’t work.
Just as an aside though, without knowing specifically which hockey stick paper this may be intended to address, note that the link I gave was to a 2008 version of the article that addressed all concerns with the older version and still came up with essentially the same graph.
This appears to be the same paper.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Loehle_Divergence_CC.pdf
>So, 1998 was a particularly warm year.
Yet in 1998, the scientists weren’t saying this. They were saying it was proof of global warming. They also didn’t say we can expect temperatures to stay below this level for a decade. They said the danger was imminent, we need to sign Kyoto(which was already signed.)
They also predicted record temperatures for 2009, but it doesn’t look like that’ll happen, so maybe next year. The alarmists who predict 5C, 6C, or higher temperature rises certainly didn’t predict this. Even if you take a 5 year average, the rise is too small for a hundred year gain in the range of 6C. 2C is much more likely, if they’ll look at the real world evidence. And another important thing is that previous temperature lulls had a volcano to explain them, like Pinatubo.
#57 – MikeN,
Don’t twist facts. I was listening in 1998. Yes, they were saying it was the warmest year on record, which turned out to be incorrect. They were also saying that 9 of the 10 warmest years on record were in the last N years. I don’t remember N from that time, but it was not much more than 10. This is what they were calling evidence of warming, not the individual year.
As for whether current changes indicate 2 or 6 degrees celcius, surely you aren’t claiming to have that level of knowledge. You are neither a climatologist nor a seer. I look at the graphs and see multiple sustained periods of rapid warming with lulls in between. That is, if I am looking for patterns.
Either way, the exact amount of any given forecast may be irrelevant. We have widespread desertification. We have ocean acidification. We have what may be real changes in rain patterns already beginning, though yes, this is less definite.
We also have the knowledge that we are currently at a higher global average temperature than humans have ever survived. It is now warmer than any time in the last 200,000 years. We don’t know what the limit is for our survivability. We know we can and have survived periods of much colder (5 degrees C) temperatures. We have survived ice ages within the last 200,000 years. We have not survived a warm period.
5 degrees, if it happens, would be truly catastrophic. 5 degrees is the amount of temperature difference between 55 million years ago, before life began to bounce back from the K/T extinction, and today. 6 degrees was the amount warmer than today that occurred during the P/T extinction event, the current record holder for destruction of genera and species for the entire period from the cambrian to today.
Are you willing to take the risk that this may happen and may happen as a direct result of the evolution of humanity?
Would you not rather take some strong and decisive action to attempt to prevent such a catastrophe, even if the likelihood is only 10%?
Would you really bet that the likelihood is so low even when the vast majority of climate scientists say otherwise?
Does it matter that they may be incorrect when the possibility that they may be correct is so dire?
Would you take the chance of being wrong if your doctor told you that you were likely to have a heart attack because your cholesterol was 280?
Why do you behave differently when the doctor is saying the same about the entire biosphere?
Because I have reason to believe the doctor, and reason to disbelieve the climate scientists.
Their statement of 10% probability or whatever probability is not a mathematical fact like rolling the dice. It is a judgment call from the scientists, based on various model runs. I have reason to believe the models are flawed, as well as various claims made by the scientists in support of their science. For example, I don’t believe that current temperatures are the warmest in 200,000 years or even 2,000 years for reasons already stated.
>As for whether current changes indicate 2 or 6 degrees celcius, surely you aren’t claiming to have that level of knowledge. You are
No, but I can look at the temperature graphs, and the predictions made by people who predict 6C, 2C, and everything in between. Unfortunately, none of the model runs stored at the Climate Explorer predict in excess of 4.5C. Nevertheless the warming periods and lulls to date are not reflective of high warming scenarios.
#59 – MikeN,
Well, since all you’re saying is that you think you know more than all of the climate scientists in the world, I hope you don’t mind if I simply assume you’re full of shit and believe the scientists.
Further, since I actually do travel to a lot of the world and can see warming with my own eyes everywhere I go, I will state that from my own personal observations, you are full of shit.
Glaciers are melting. Deserts are enlarging. Birds are migrating earlier in spring and later in fall. Mountaintop species are being pushed ever higher and are declining in numbers because the mountains are only so high. Permafrost in the arctic is already melting and the clathrates are already giving off methane. Hunting time for the polar bears and for the Inuit is already being dramatically reduced due to arctic sea ice loss.
So, I will say that based on the best available science and based on personal observations, you are truly full of shit.
More accurately, you are likely in denial over leaving a dying world to your children.
MikeN,
Rereading both your article and the updated hockey stick article, they seem to be completely unrelated. Perhaps you didn’t read even the abstract on the new hockey stick article. Since you missed an important point, I will quote the abstract in its entirety here (emphasis mine).
Following the suggestions of a recent National Research Council report [NRC (National Research Council) (2006) Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years (Natl Acad Press, Washington, DC).], we reconstruct surface temperature at hemispheric and global scale for much of the last 2,000 years using a greatly expanded set of proxy data for decadal-to-centennial climate changes, recently updated instrumental data, and complementary methods that have been thoroughly tested and validated with model simulation experiments. Our results extend previous conclusions that recent Northern Hemisphere surface temperature increases are likely anomalous in a long-term context. Recent warmth appears anomalous for at least the past 1,300 years whether or not tree-ring data are used. If tree-ring data are used, the conclusion can be extended to at least the past 1,700 years, but with additional strong caveats. The reconstructed amplitude of change over past centuries is greater than hitherto reported, with somewhat greater Medieval warmth in the Northern Hemisphere, albeit still not reaching recent levels.