New analysis counters claims that solar activity is linked to global warming

Guardian (England) ^ | July 11, 2007 | James Randerson

[liberallarry]

It has been one of the central claims of those who challenge the idea that human activities are to blame for global warming. The planet's climate has long fluctuated, say the climate sceptics, and current warming is just part of that natural cycle - the result of variation in the sun's output and not carbon dioxide emissions.

But a new analysis of data on the sun's output in the last 25 years of the 20th century has firmly put the notion to rest. The data shows that even though the sun's activity has been decreasing since 1985, global temperatures have continued to rise at an accelerating rate.

[aruanan]

James Hansen! This guy has more global warming grant money stuffed under his bed than he knows what to do with. He's Al Gore's little beotch!

If you want to see James Hansen beotch-slapped scientifically, read

Carbon Dioxide and Global Change: Separating Scientific Fact from Personal Opinion

A critique of the 26 April 2007 testimony of James E. Hansen made to the Select Committee of Energy Independence and Global Warming of the United States House of Representatives entitled "Dangerous Human-Made Interference with Climate"

Prepared by

Sherwood B. Idso and Craig D. Idso

Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change

6 June 2007

[aruanan]

The ultimate truth lies in the facts unearthed by experiment

You mean "by careful observation"? That comes before and is foundational to any attempt at manipulating variables, if that is even possible, which, in some branches of science, notably astronomy, it is not.

[aruanan]

For more on Hansen's inability or unwillingness to separate personal opinion from scientific fact, click on the link HERE.

[aruanan]

Yes, but I observe that the temperature rises when a forest is replaced by a parking lot...and that we're pouring tons of garbage into the atmosphere every hour. It would be miraculous if that turned out to be good for us, as if eating raw sewage turned out to be a cure for cancer.

Human environment in the United States is cleaner and safer now that it has been in over a hundred years. The air is cleaner. The water is cleaner. There are more forested areas. And this all has been a trend since before there was anything named OSHA or the EPA. The only thing that has happened since then has been a decrease in the rate of improvement due to excessive government interference.

[Axenolith]

Among all of the responses to this(citing other studies with more directly linked data), the most cogent response to this balderdash was contained in this statement...

Gee I wonder why scientists receiving millions in government grants continually espouse ideas that give the government tremendous power?

If the "scientific community" is in agreement that the sun isn't the primary cause, I sure as hell didn't get the memo...

BTW, Geophysical Review also published a work concluding that solar output had increased 0.05% per decade since at least the 70's.

And furthermore, any given period you look to where the planet was any appreciable amount warmer than now shows that the profusion of life, biomass and arable land was FAR greater than now. You might have some backup if you go all the way back to the Permian, but all the freakin' continents were in one place then...

Is this just "made up"???

[chessplayer]

Speaking of James Hansen;

“James Hansen was granted a quarter of a million dollars from the Heinz Environment Award a.k.a. U. S. Senator and former Presidential Candidate John Kerry’s wife’s foundation”.

http://home.earthlink.net/~ponderthemaunderg/ponderthemaunder/

HEA also gave doomster Paul Ehrlich a quarter million dollars and an award. Ehrlich is the one who predicted hundreds of millions would starve to death during the `70`s and `80s, that in 1980 the life expectancy in the US would drop to 42 and it`s population would drop to 22.6 million because of mass starvation and pesticide use.

[Covenantor]

And what exactly did you observe in that situation? Was it an increase in the ambient air temp., or the surface temp. of the pavement?

And when, where, and how did you measure the temp. in the forest?
Again, was it the ambient air temp.?
Temp of the forest floor?
Temp. of the air in the shade of the tree canopy?

Or perhaps the air temp. above the forest canopy?
Or did you measure all of the above and derive an average?
How did you weight the data?
What were the humidity levels in the various areas?
How broad was the area measured?

You don't know, do you? Because it was a totally subjective and vague observation. You can not quantify your "feeling?

And this is at the root of the conflict. The existing data sets are so general that the fudge factor, conscious or unconscious. So much of the presented man-made argument is based on meta-studies, that is study of studies.

Even Lockwood, with all of his credentials, stated in 1999, IIRC, that his conclusions were based on meta-studies and computer models. Yet not one software analysis can be proved to use past data and predict temp. for a past point in time for which we have "average temps. Not one.

Consider that the amount of solar radiation provides roughly 1200 to 1300 watts per sq. meter per second.

What man-made activity even approaches a fraction of that number globally?

Now consider what a 5% fluctuation in solar energy means over the course of a single day on your patch of pavement.

The cavalier attitude that dismisses the variation of solar energy ought to tell you that something other than objective science is at work here.

[Madame Dufarge]

Thanks, I’ve bookmarked it.

[aruanan]

HEA also gave doomster Paul Ehrlich a quarter million dollars and an award. Ehrlich is the one who predicted hundreds of millions would starve to death during the `70`s and `80s, that in 1980 the life expectancy in the US would drop to 42 and it`s population would drop to 22.6 million because of mass starvation and pesticide use.

He also lost huge in a bet with Jules Simon about diminishing natural resources. Finally, after a long time of dragging his feet, he paid up.

[expat_panama]

1200 to 1300 watts per sq. meter per second.

Technically, that should be "watt-seconds per second", but we get the point.  

Numbers are neat, and that kw per meter² cranks out to about a couple hundred terrawatts world wide, while the geothermal losses are 'only' about 30 or 40 terrawatts.  Any talk about the earth gaining or loosing heat has to take take into account fluctuations of solar activity --big time.

[AlexW]

“The Guardian is printing nonsense.”

The Guardian IS nonsense, as it is the fish wrap of the UK.
It may even be worse then the NY Slimes.
Anyway, it is as left as they come.

[expat_panama]

download the complete article

We've got the whole analysis but just clicking here, thanks!  What I'm seeing as the core of the work is the Lockwood's correlations on the right.

Compare to my post 75. 

What Lockwood's using for air temp is "based primarily on meteorological station measurements (Hansen et al. 1999)" --and that can go a long way to explain why he's showing such an enormous spike in the last six years of the 20th century.  

Let's do our own peer review now, and this is where the layman is crucial --after all, most voters are laymen.  Lockwood failed to show solar flux numbers for that temp spike, but anyone who's ever used a thermometer before can make a judgment on the wisdom of saying how hot the earth is by looking at a few crowded cities.  My take is that satellite temps vs sunspots could tell us a lot more.

More importantly, as bad as we want to paint the solar/temp connection, consider how much worse the CO²/temp connection looks under this same scrutiny.

[chessplayer]

From the article;

“The data shows that even though the sun’s activity has been decreasing since 1985,”

I do believe the majority of studies (scientific consenus)have shown that the Sun`s activity has been increasing. It will be intersting to see if the Apocalyptic`s latch on to this study and turn their backs on scientific consensus.

[liberallarry]

Your welcome.

I'm going to try to struggle through the report but - no promises. Too many things I don't know or am not sure of. For example, a preliminary glance at the report indicates that he used some kind of mathematical smoothing procedure to reveal trends in the time period of interest to him. I have no idea whether that procedure is considered valid to his peers.

[cogitator]

Maybe I am missing something obvious in the paper cog?

I tried a short read, but didn't comprehend it well. Give me a couple more days and I'll try to respond. (Not that I can guarantee any remarkable insights, but I'll offer my interpretation.)

[Thermalseeker]

I didn’t say it was perfect.

Okay, just making sure you understand that temperature, just by virtue of being recorded by a satellite, doesn't necessarily make the reading more accurate. In fact, quite the opposite is true for a variety of reasons.

[liberallarry]

Ok, I've read the paper thoroughly - once.

It's highly technical and I, as a layman, do not feel qualified to critique it. There's simply too much I do not understand - about the reliability of data collection, about modeling techniques, about what is acceptable theoretically and what is not. This is the first such technical paper I've read and I'll have to read it several more times simply to be able to talk about it comfortably.

But, you've asked for a layman's opinion and I'll give you mine. Lockwood begins by talking about the proposed mechanisms by which solar variations supposedly influence climate on earth. He discounts the 11 year solar cycle because it is modulated by the oceans and looks at longer trends in the relevant parameters. He finds that these are all in decline while global temperatures are rising and therefore they can not be use to explain what has happened in the last 25 to 40 years (or perhaps it would be better to say that they've moved in directions opposite to what one would expect if they were responsible for climate change during this period). He is at pains to point out that there's much we do not understand about extraterrestrial forcings and - in particular - about variations in solar activity so that no conclusions can be drawn about future correlations...or lack of. The heart of his argument - for me - lies in the last paragraph of section 4 and in section 5, conclusions.

I await the comments of the well-known climate skeptics with international reputations. Will they agree with him, or not? With what caveats? It is interesting that the first such person - the Israeli scientist mentioned in the Guardian - has had to propose a totally new mechanism (if the newspaper is to be believed). Not a very good start for the skeptics.

For the amateurs who think they've caught Lockwood in simple graphical or mathematical errors, in obvious omissions of well-known facts, or in believing results posted from ground-stations located next to large incinerators...I say seek professional help. The sooner the better.

[expat_panama]

It's highly technical and I, as a layman, do not feel qualified to critique it. There's simply too much I do not understand...

What I hear a lot in this debate is that people may not understand the evidence, and the lack of understanding is not about to stop them from believing that manmade CO₂ is warming the globe.   If that's your position then you're in really good company. 

This topic is just not nearly as mysterious as the grant-beggars like to get everyone to think, and I invite you to consider that the real reason that you don't follow what they're saying is because they actually aren't saying anything. 

Feel free to ping me if there's any particular technical point you want me to go over with you.  In the mean time please don't vote to raise my taxes before getting a better handle on the tech side of the debate.

[liberallarry]

If that's your position then you're in really good company.

My position is quite clear. I know we're dumping thousands of tons of shit into the atmosphere every day and I don't need any special training to know that's true and can't be good for us.

How that actually plays out is the province of specialists.

I invite you to consider that the real reason that you don't follow what they're saying is because they actually aren't saying anything.

I didn't say I didn't follow the argument. I said I couldn't judge it's merits. I don't think you've progressed even that far...whether because your bias so clearly overwhelms your ability of reason or because you lack that quality, I couldn't say.