It’s the Sun Dammit

[Wild Cobra]

Please, lets only focus on solar aspects of global warming within this thread. There are so many nuances to global warming that maybe we should separate those not related.

I have a solid belief based on available scientific facts that the Sun is the primary driving force for global warming. Not only have the long term celestial cycles stated as the driving force for ice ages, but the sun has other cycles as well. These cycles have an undeniable linear relationship between radiated heat, and the effect on the earth. Sunspot activity is a visual indicator of radiated heat, although, there are also the invisible to the eye Coronal Mass Ejections.

Here are a few interesting links about the Sun and sunspots:

Scientists Issue Unprecedented Forecast of Next Sunspot Cycle (http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2006/sunspot.shtml)

Solar Storm Warning (http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/10mar_stormwarning.htm) dated 3/10/06

Long Range Solar Forecast (http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/10may_longrange.htm) dated 5/10/06

Extracts:


The next sunspot cycle will be 30-50% stronger than the last one and begin as much as a year late, according to a breakthrough forecast using a computer model of solar dynamics developed by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Predicting the Sun's cycles accurately, years in advance, will help societies plan for active bouts of solar storms, which can slow satellite orbits, disrupt communications, and bring down power systems.


When the belt is turning "fast," it means that lots of magnetic fields are being swept up, and that a future sunspot cycle is going to be intense. This is a basis for forecasting: "The belt was turning fast in 1986-1996," says Hathaway. "Old magnetic fields swept up then should re-appear as big sunspots in 2010-2011."

Like most experts in the field, Hathaway has confidence in the conveyor belt model and agrees with Dikpati that the next solar maximum should be a doozy. But he disagrees with one point. Dikpati's forecast puts Solar Max at 2012. Hathaway believes it will arrive sooner, in 2010 or 2011.


"Normally, the conveyor belt moves about 1 meter per second—walking pace," says Hathaway. "That's how it has been since the late 19th century." In recent years, however, the belt has decelerated to 0.75 m/s in the north and 0.35 m/s in the south. "We've never seen speeds so low."

According to theory and observation, the speed of the belt foretells the intensity of sunspot activity ~20 years in the future. A slow belt means lower solar activity; a fast belt means stronger activity. The reasons for this are explained in the Science@NASA story Solar Storm Warning.

"The slowdown we see now means that Solar Cycle 25, peaking around the year 2022, could be one of the weakest in centuries," says Hathaway.

I modified a couple pics from two of the articles:

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x262/Wild_Cobra/Global%20Warming/sunspotactivitymodified.jpg

[xrayzebra]

Well, WC, here in Texas right now, we are going through our
own little ice age. Believe it or not, in Texas, in July, yesterday,
our high was less than 80 degrees. (78 deg). Damn Global
warming. Maybe a little of that sun would help........LOL

[Wild Cobra]

Well, WC, here in Texas right now, we are going through our
own little ice age. Believe it or not, in Texas, in July, yesterday,
our high was less than 80 degrees. (78 deg). Damn Global
warming. Maybe a little of that sun would help........LOL
Or...

Thank God for Global Warming, or things would really be cold!

[Extra Stout]

Is there a graph of the previous 11 cycles, to compare to the ones 1880-present?

[Wild Cobra]

Is there a graph of the previous 11 cycles, to compare to the ones 1880-present?
How about this one out of Wiki:

Solar Cycle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle):

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/46/Solar_cycle.gif

You now, I saw a program once on I think The History Channel. It covered how the dramatic seasonal change, affected the hardness of trees, and they went out and found ancient trees and verified this! It is suspected that is why Stradivarius (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratavarius) made violins that cannot be replicated for sound quality today!

Just note the 1600 to 1700 area on the graph. He started making violins in 1680, and they were if inferior quality to these made between 1698 to 1700. Makes sense when using wood of certain aged tress. His Golden Age was between 1700 to 1720, and even violins made after 1720 lacked the quality of those in the 20 year span.

[Wild Cobra]

Also note the historical Carbon 14 traces vs. sunspot activity:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b6/Carbon14-sunspot.svg/800px-Carbon14-sunspot.svg.png

Note that the Carbon 14 readings lag by 60 years. It takes that long for them to settle from the upper atmosphere, which also means it is a 60 year smoothing for the graph.

This is very important because Carbon 14 production is nearly linear with the radiation from the sun.

Sunspots are not a direct reflection of the suns energy being directed at earth, but is a general relationship. Proximity to the sun’s equator is one variable for spots, but there are several other things going on with the sun.

That's a rather nice rise in the Carbon 14 isotope since industrialization, isn't it? Approximate a 2.5% increase. A 2.5% increase in solar output striking the earth since then. 2.5% of 287 Kelvin (approximate average temperature) is about a 7.2 Celsius change. However, the earth wouldn't be at absolute zero with no solar radiation, so I'll say a 5 degree change to be safe, with most that energy building up as ocean heat. One third land makes it maybe 2 degrees with some of the ocean lag coming up too?

How can that be? Maybe the earth knows how to cool herself. Aren't the alarmists only claiming a 0.6 increase?

[Nbadan]

Ummmm......okey...dokey...



http://i.n.com.com/i/ne/p/2007/725bluesun550x550.jpg
The sun as it looked on July 24.

The sun is losing its spots
July 25, 2007 9:08 AM PDT



Here come the sunspots. NASA reports currently there are almost no sunspots on the sun--which most likely means sunspot activity has reached the solar minimum or low point of its 11-year cycle.

Because the magnetic energy from a sunspot is the source of solar flares, the chance of a solar flare, which usually causes communication outages as it nears Earth, is minimal right now. But it also means that solar activity will be picking up over the next five and a half years and the threat will be increasing.

CNet News (http://news.com.com/2300-11397_3-6198700-1.html)

[Nbadan]

'Sun not responsible for climate change'
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor


...The new study by Prof Michael Lockwood of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, near Oxfordshire, and Claus Fröhlich of the World Radiation Center in Davos, Switzerland, overturns claims by climate skeptics who say that the planet's climate has long fluctuated and that current warming is just part of that natural cycle - the result of variation in the sun's output and not greenhouse gas emissions. Their study appears in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A.

The sun not responsible for global warming

A new study further enforces the view that the sun is not responsible for recent climate change

The study found that global warming since 1985 has been caused neither by an increase in solar radiation nor by a decrease in the flux of galactic cosmic rays.

Some researchers had also suggested that the latter might influence global warming because the rays trigger cloud formation.

Prof Lockwood said that the comprehensive study was a response to misleading media reports. He cited 'The Great Global Warming Swindle', a television programme shown in March by Channel 4, as a prime example.

"All the graphs they showed stopped in about 1980, and I knew why, because things diverged afterwards. You can't just ignore bits of data that you don't like," he said. "The key point of our paper is that since 1985 all the possible solar influences have been in the wrong direction to give warming," said Prof Lockwood.

Although some have tried to counter this by arguing that the response of the Earth's climate system lags behind changes in the sun, Prof Lockwood added that the only way for this to work would be by invoking a very large response lag of the order of 50 years which would overturn previous ideas of how the Sun influences the Earth.

"This paper is the final nail in the coffin for people who would like to make the sun responsible for present global warming," Stefan Rahmstorf, a climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, told the journal Nature.

The new study compiled solar data for the past 100 years. The two researchers averaged out the 11-year solar cycles and looked for correlation between solar variation and global mean temperatures. Solar activity peaked between 1985 and 1987.

But mainstream scientists agree that the sun does have some influence on fluctuations in the Earth's temperature. As Prof Lockwood said: " I do firmly believe that there is a solar influence on pre-industrial climate and that may well have extended into the last century - up to about 1940 - but our results confirm that recent climate change is not caused by the sun. We do this with a simple and direct analysis of data and not using climate computer models - which are often a cause of scepticism."

A spokesman for the Royal Society said: "This is an important contribution to the scientific debate on climate change. At present there is a small minority which is seeking to deliberately confuse the public on the causes of climate change. They are often misrepresenting the science, when the reality is that the evidence is getting stronger every day. We have reached a point where a failure to take action to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions would be irresponsible and dangerous."

Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/07/11/scisun111.xml)

[xrayzebra]

And then you have some of the wonderful world of Global
Warming folks who kinda take offense at anyone who disagrees
with them.

www.washingtontimes.com


Article published Jul 27, 2007
Inside the Beltway


July 27, 2007

John McCaslin - Getting hotter

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency says he will investigate a threatening letter sent by the leader of an EPA-member group, vowing to "destroy" the career of a climate skeptic.

During a Capitol Hill hearing yesterday, Sen. James M. Inhofe, Oklahoma Republican and ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, confronted EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson about the strongly-worded letter written July 13 by Michael T. Eckhart, president of the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) that was sent to Marlo Lewis, senior fellow of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI).

"It is my intention to destroy your career as a liar," Mr. Eckhart wrote. "If you produce one more editorial against climate change, I will launch a campaign against your professional integrity. I will call you a liar and charlatan to the Harvard community of which you and I are members. I will call you out as a man who has been bought by Corporate America. Go ahead, guy. Take me on."

CEI does not dispute climate change, however it differs with certain environmental groups, including ACORE, on the causes. After Mr. Inhofe read Mr. Eckhart's comments, which were first reported by Inside the Beltway two weeks ago, the EPA chief promised to probe the matter.

"Statements like this are of concern to me. I am a believer in cooperation and collaboration across all sectors," Mr. Johnson assured. "This is an area I will look into for the record."

When Mr. Johnson confirmed that EPA is a member of ACORE, Mr. Inhofe asked if "it is appropriate to be a part of an organization that is headed up by a person who makes this statement."

Late yesterday, Mr. Inhofe announced he will send letters to the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, and EPA, urging them to "reconsider their membership of ACORE."

Based in Washington, ACORE's mission is to increase the use of renewable energy. Its 400-plus "paying" organizational members come from government, financial institutions, trade associations, academia, and other professional services.

Besides ACORE, Mr. Eckhart is co-chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy and a member of the Clinton Global Initiative. Previously, he was CEO of United Power Systems; vice president of the venture capital firm Arete Ventures; a General Electric manager; and a principal of Booz Allen Hamilton's energy practice.

In a written response sent to Inside the Beltway last week, Mr. Eckhart apologized to "all the public who were offended" by his choice of words. He said he intended his letter to be a "private communication" in the context of "personal combat and jousting."

However, this column earlier this week published another letter Mr. Eckhart sent in September to CEI President Fred Smith, saying "my children will have a lesser life because you are being paid by oil companies to spread a false story."

He said he would give CEI, which advocates "sound science," 90 days to reverse its "position" on global warming, "or I will take every action I can think of to shut you down," including filing complaints with the Internal Revenue Service "on the basis that CEI is really a lobbyist for the energy industry."



• John McCaslin can be reached at 202/636-3284 or [email protected].

[inconvertible]

In 500,000,000 years, the sun is going to get bigger, turn red and swallow up the earth. How green do we all have to get to stop that shit?

[inconvertible]

natural selction will allow some animals to live if global warming continues, probably reptiles and insects. so whats wrong with that. dinosaurs were here first anyway.

[Yonivore]

In 500,000,000 years, the sun is going to get bigger, turn red and swallow up the earth. How green do we all have to get to stop that shit?
:lmao

[Wild Cobra]

'Sun not responsible for climate change'
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor

Dan, do you bother reading and analyzing the articles you post, or just the headlines? Key sentence to consider:


The study found that global warming since 1985 has been caused neither by an increase in solar radiation nor by a decrease in the flux of galactic cosmic rays.

1985 to present not only is too short of a period to consider the sun, but the cycles in that period were similar in strength. I'm talking for all the years back that we can rely on solar proxies.

Any increase measured since 1985 may or may not be real, and they were small. There is likely a small increase just buy the growing heat in the ocean which does take time to have an effect.

Don’t forget surface measurements that are increasing do not follow troposheric temperature increases. The urban growth has been proven to affect some temperature reading sites.

[sabar]

It's all speculation, hence, moot points. We can't correlate anything without hundreds of thousands of years of data and ice cores only provide a tiny measurement that needs other factors to prove or disprove that varying amounts of greenhouse gases cause significant heating.

Stop worrying and check back on the global temperature in 50 years. If global cooling hasn't started by then, then we have a problem. Not to mention the fact that all the carbon emissions take thousands of years to dissipate anyways, meaning if global warming exists, we're screwed for the next 100 years even if we all stopped burning fuel.

In the end, this ends up becoming some silly issue to separate the right and left and give politicians a way of ignoring real issues.

Fact is, we know nothing without another 100 years of data. Instruments in the 1880's were too inaccurate which gives us only a 100+ year collection of data, which is insignificant on a celestial scale.

[Wild Cobra]

It's all speculation, hence, moot points. We can't correlate anything without hundreds of thousands of years of data and ice cores only provide a tiny measurement that needs other factors to prove or disprove that varying amounts of greenhouse gases cause significant heating.
Agreed. My speculation at lest has more merit than those politicizing it. The IPCC panel is a political body. Over time, their reports have become better, but global warming modeling is placing speculation into math and getting a close match. It's really an impossible task with as many variables as there are.

Stop worrying and check back on the global temperature in 50 years. If global cooling hasn't started by then, then we have a problem. Not to mention the fact that all the carbon emissions take thousands of years to dissipate anyways, meaning if global warming exists, we're screwed for the next 100 years even if we all stopped burning fuel.
Yep, in my 90's, I'll be recounting how I was right.

In the end, this ends up becoming some silly issue to separate the right and left and give politicians a way of ignoring real issues.
I wish it was that silly. The problem is that liberals want to regulate human freedoms based on this junk science, and they just might get their way.

Fact is, we know nothing without another 100 years of data. Instruments in the 1880's were too inaccurate which gives us only a 100+ year collection of data, which is insignificant on a celestial scale.
Thermometers were actually just fine for accuracy back then. 500 years ago and more, the Germans would regulate water temperature with mixed portions of ice water and boiled water for beer making. Proper temperature steps were critical for the different enzymes to work on the grain for making fermentable sugars. For centuries, it's been known that these two points make for calibrating thermometers rather accurate.

Solar data is accurate enough for the last 400 years to know what the trend is. Sunspots are loosely related to irradiance. They are not in a constant mathematical ration, but they are locked in phase for changes. The proxy isotopes are pretty accuracy for historical temperatures. More accurate than historic CO2 levels since as a gas, it can "outgas" from the ice samples. CO2 is measured in levels of concentration where the isotopes are measured in percentage of the element. With the know half life of carbon 14 at 5730 years, Beryllium 10 at 1,510,000 years, proper ratio's have to be corrected. Oxygen 18 and Deuterium (another proxy) are stable elements and taking decay into account is not required. Oxygen 18 is found in sedimentary layers and can be used as a solar intensity proxy going back millions of years.

The math is clear that solar radiation has a far greater effect on warming than the alarmists give it credit form

Something I haven't fully explored is the Milankovitch Cycle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovich_cycle). Scientists like to use the changing irradiance of the northern hemisphere vs. the southern hemisphere because of land mass differences. I think they partially disregard irradiance because the give higher numbers to when the northern hemisphere is closer to the sun rather than the southern hemisphere. They use a term called "65 degree Isolation.” In our current orbit, the earth makes its closest pass to the sun in early January. Most the work I've seen claims we should see cooling rather than warming over the long term. However, this theory fails to take into account that the land returns between 15% to 30% of the heated surface to space as Infrared radiation, with the 70% to 85% being trapped in the greenhouse effect. For long term changes, the ocean is the key. It absorbs in the neighborhood of 90% of the suns energy that makes it to sea level.

From the wiki link above:


Currently the difference between closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) and furthest distance (aphelion) is only 3.4% (5.1 million km). This difference amounts to about a 6.8% increase in incoming solar radiation. Perihelion presently occurs around January 3, while aphelion is around July 4. When the orbit is at its most highly elliptical, the amount of solar radiation at perihelion is about 23% greater than at aphelion. This difference is roughly 4 times the value of the eccentricity.

3.4% and 6.8% are huge values when considering the temperature change it induces from even 200 Kelvin as a zero crossing point.

[Wild Cobra]

I found an interesting link that suggests the sun is more to blame than most alarmists realize. Part of "The Deniers" series:

Read the Sunspots (http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/environment/story.html?id=597d0677-2a05-47b4-b34f-b84068db11f4&k=29751&p=1):

part of article... has four pages:

http://a123.g.akamai.net/f/123/12465/1d/media.canada.com/idl/ntnp/20070620/ntnp_20070620_fp017_readthesunspots_74031_mg0001.j pg


Climate-change research is now literally exploding with new findings. Since the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the field has had more research than in all previous years combined and the discoveries are completely shattering the myths. For example, I and the first-class scientists I work with are consistently finding excellent correlations between the regular fluctuations in the brightness of the sun and earthly climate. This is not surprising. The sun and the stars are the ultimate source of all energy on the planet.


Using computers to conduct what is referred to as a "time series analysis" on the colouration and thickness of the annual layers, we have discovered repeated cycles in marine productivity in this, a region larger than Europe. Specifically, we find a very strong and consistent 11-year cycle throughout the whole record in the sediments and diatom remains. This correlates closely to the well-known 11-year "Schwabe" sunspot cycle, during which the output of the sun varies by about 0.1%. Sunspots, violent storms on the surface of the sun, have the effect of increasing solar output, so, by counting the spots visible on the surface of our star, we have an indirect measure of its varying brightness. Such records have been kept for many centuries and match very well with the changes in marine productivity we are observing.

In the sediment, diatom and fish-scale records, we also see longer period cycles, all correlating closely with other well-known regular solar variations. In particular, we see marine productivity cycles that match well with the sun's 75-90-year "Gleissberg Cycle," the 200-500-year "Suess Cycle" and the 1,100-1,500-year "Bond Cycle." The strength of these cycles is seen to vary over time, fading in and out over the millennia. The variation in the sun's brightness over these longer cycles may be many times greater in magnitude than that measured over the short Schwabe cycle and so are seen to impact marine productivity even more significantly.

Our finding of a direct correlation between variations in the brightness of the sun and earthly climate indicators (called "proxies") is not unique. Hundreds of other studies, using proxies from tree rings in Russia's Kola Peninsula to water levels of the Nile, show exactly the same thing: The sun appears to drive climate change.

However, there was a problem. Despite this clear and repeated correlation, the measured variations in incoming solar energy were, on their own, not sufficient to cause the climate changes we have observed in our proxies. In addition, even though the sun is brighter now than at any time in the past 8,000 years, the increase in direct solar input is not calculated to be sufficient to cause the past century's modest warming on its own. There had to be an amplifier of some sort for the sun to be a primary driver of climate change.

ndeed, that is precisely what has been discovered. In a series of groundbreaking scientific papers starting in 2002, Veizer, Shaviv, Carslaw, and most recently Svensmark et al., have collectively demonstrated that as the output of the sun varies, and with it, our star's protective solar wind, varying amounts of galactic cosmic rays from deep space are able to enter our solar system and penetrate the Earth's atmosphere. These cosmic rays enhance cloud formation which, overall, has a cooling effect on the planet. When the sun's energy output is greater, not only does the Earth warm slightly due to direct solar heating, but the stronger solar wind generated during these "high sun" periods blocks many of the cosmic rays from entering our atmosphere. Cloud cover decreases and the Earth warms still more.

The opposite occurs when the sun is less bright. More cosmic rays are able to get through to Earth's atmosphere, more clouds form, and the planet cools more than would otherwise be the case due to direct solar effects alone. This is precisely what happened from the middle of the 17th century into the early 18th century, when the solar energy input to our atmosphere, as indicated by the number of sunspots, was at a minimum and the planet was stuck in the Little Ice Age. These new findings suggest that changes in the output of the sun caused the most recent climate change. By comparison, CO2 variations show little correlation with our planet's climate on long, medium and even short time scales.


Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe solar cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth. Beginning to plan for adaptation to such a cool period, one which may continue well beyond one 11-year cycle, as did the Little Ice Age, should be a priority for governments. It is global cooling, not warming, that is the major climate threat to the world, especially Canada. As a country at the northern limit to agriculture in the world, it would take very little cooling to destroy much of our food crops, while a warming would only require that we adopt farming techniques practiced to the south of us.