Report shows UN admitting solar activity may play significant role in global warming

FOX News ^ | 2-1-2013 | By Maxim Lott, Charles Couger

[Islander7]

The Earth has been getting warmer -- but how much of that heat is due to greenhouse gas emissions and how much is due to natural causes?

A leaked report by a United Nations’ group dedicated to climate studies says that heat from the sun may play a larger role than previously thought.

“[Results] do suggest the possibility of a much larger impact of solar variations on the stratosphere than previously thought, and some studies have suggested that this may lead to significant regional impacts on climate,” reads a draft copy of a major, upcoming report from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

[norwaypinesavage]

"I’ve [pointed out supressed zeros] a few times and received some very weird responses...*sigh*"

Back in the '60s (that's 1960's to you newbees) I had a boss who absolutely forbade suppressed zeros in engineering reports. I've mostly followed that rule since then. a problem exists with temperatures, though. There is zero C, zero F, zero K, and zero R. None of these is usually helpful. I also learned from him that it is extremely easy to record a thermometer reading, and extremely difficult to measure the temperature of something.

[William Tell]

norwaypinesavage said: "... extremely difficult to measure the temperature of something. "

Probably the main reason for this is that "temperature" is not a conserved quantity.

Under controlled circumstances, where only non-nuclear reactions are involved, ENERGY is conserved, not temperature. If the volume of a quantity of gas is allowed to expand, the temperature will fall. If such a volume is decreased, temperature will rise. Energy must move out of or into the volume of gas to accomplish the volume change.

It would be ridiculous to try to assign one temperature to such a changing situation.

[bmwcyle]

Who gave you your chart? Time, CNN, CBS......?

[GreenAccord]

I’m calling it: IBTZ

[TADSLOS]

Good call. I smell ozone too.

[M Kehoe]

Welcome to FR.

Let's for the sake of argument, that the data in that chart is correct. What can you, me, the government of the whole world do about it?

Easy answer, nothing.

5.56mm

[Moltke]

Not to go off on too many tangents in this thread, but the only meaningful temperature scale that need concern us is, of course, the Kelvin scale. Celsius, Fahrenheit, Réaumur et al. are pegged to spurious observations or of arbitrary definition, and are of no greater consequence (though the use of the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales are convenient in our daily lives by way of familiarity - all the other scales have gone the way of the Dodo...).

[Lazamataz]

One of the most common and persistent climate myths is that the sun is the cause. This argument is made by cherry picking the data - showing past periods when sun and climate move together but ignoring the last few decades when the two diverge.

Except for the inconvenient truth that Mars, Venus, and moons of Jupiter and Saturn have been shown to be warming.

OOPSY!

Feckin' fraud.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Islander7.

[lesslucid]

Well, I suppose the first thing that to do, if the date in the chart were correct, would be for sensible people to agree that the claim that solar irradiance is the cause of global warming is not correct. That doesn't mean it's human-caused, of course, or that limits on carbon emission are a good idea, or any such thing. But we should be able to agree that claims which lead toward conclusions we agree with are still subject to the same rigorous tests that claims which lead toward conclusions we disagree with are. Let's make all the good arguments against the claims of global-warming alarmists that we can, but let's not just fall for any old argument that happens to look like it supports our position.

That's assuming the data is correct, of course.