[caveat emptor]

Saint Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory is one of the world's best equipped observatories and has been since its founding in 1839. Dr. Abdussamatov is head of Pulkovo's space research laboratory, and is one of the world's chief critics of the theory that man-made carbon dioxide emissions create a greenhouse effect, leading to global warming.

The real news from Saint Petersburg -- demonstrated by cooling that is occurring on the upper layers of the world's oceans -- is that Earth has hit its temperature ceiling. Solar irradiance has begun to fall, ushering in a protracted cooling period beginning in 2012 to 2015. The depth of the decline in solar irradiance reaching Earth will occur around 2040, and "will inevitably lead to a deep freeze around 2055-60" lasting some 50 years, after which temperatures will go up again.

Because of the scientific significance of this period of global cooling that we're about to enter, the Russian and Ukrainian space agencies, under Dr. Abdussamatov's leadership, have launched a joint project to determine the time and extent of the global cooling at mid-century. The project, dubbed Astrometry and given priority space-experiment status on the Russian portion of the International Space Station, will marshal the resources of spacecraft manufacturer Energia, several Russian research and production centers, and the main observatory of Ukraine's Academy of Sciences. By late next year, scientific equipment will have been installed in a space-station module and by early 2009, Dr. Abdussamatov's space team will be conducting a regular survey of the sun.

This is a welcome relief from the usual global warming BS. This guy makes some actual predictions (in contrast to "scenarios", hysteria, and smears), and has plans to test them. It remains to be seen if the Russians will be able to do some objective science. Read the whole thing . There is a Mars connection.

[neverdem]

bfl

[lostlakehiker]

The usual global warming BS isn't all BS. We ARE putting a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere. It isn't a coincidence that we burn coal and oil, and carbon + oxygen yields CO2, and ta-dah, more CO2 in the air.

The sun isn't getting that much hotter on the time scale of a century or so. And we do have ways to measure it. Increased solar output doesn't begin to explain the climate change we're seeing.

[Bittersweetmd]

ping

[Drammach]

I recall reading somewhere that Pluto's atmosphere had increased or expanded due to solar influence..

If there is an actual causation / correlation effect, it reaches all the way to the edges of the solar system..

It will be interesting to see if the russian's theories can be validated...

[A. Pole]

Global warming extends to Mars, where the polar ice cap is shrinking, where deep gullies in the landscape are now laid bare, and where the climate is the warmest it has been in decades or centuries.

Al Gore was right (read my tagline)!

[neverdem]

It is no secret that increased solar irradiance warms Earth's oceans, which then triggers the emission of large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

That fact is easily corroborated, as in comment# 13.

[Beowulf]

bttt

[syriacus]

Two questions:

1. Will archeologists ever pinpoint the location of the factories which caused the Wisconsin ice sheet to recede?

2. Are people who live in the upper half of the US allowed to be happy that the Wisconsin ice sheets retreated from their area?