Blame the Sun for a Cloudy Day?

ScienceNOW Daily News ^ | 17 December 2008 | Phil Berardelli

[neverdem]

Exploratory Analysis of Similarities in Solar Cycle Magnetic Phases with Southern Oscillation Index Fluctuations in Eastern Australia

IMHO, this is not good for the global warmists.

[neverdem]

New World post-pandemic reforestation helped start Little Ice Age, say Stanford scientists

How genes are silenced - Molecular snapshot reveals the mechanics of RNA interference.

Publish in Wikipedia or perish - Journal to require authors to post in the free online encyclopaedia.

IMHO, the last link isn't the worst development. I search on Yahoo first. Results are often Wikipedia links. Scientific and technical searches will have more credibility. I wouldn't trust Wikipedia for anything dealing with politics.

FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.

[neverdem]

interesting stuff

[DB]

And the little ice age just happened to line up exactly with the Maunder minimum...

Why the constant search to avoid the obvious?

[this_ol_patriot]

Why the constant search to avoid the obvious?

It's hard to milk the sun for grants.

[DB]

And here I thought science was the pursuit of truth...

Silly me...

[DB]

There's one thing I find confusing by this theory.

If lower solar magnetic activity leads to more UV hitting the earth killing plankton which results in less dimethyl sulfide which in turn leads to less cloud formation, wouldn't that lead to warming and not cooling??? More clouds reflect more sun light away from earth meaning less solar heat for the earth.

All the published data indicates just the opposite affect. Lower solar magnetic activity results in fewer sun spots and a cooler earth.

What am I missing?

[steelyourfaith]

Thanx !

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !

[Caipirabob]

It's hard to milk the sun for grants. ,/I>

*Chuckle*

[Harrius Magnus]

And the little ice age just happened to line up exactly with the Maunder minimum...

Why the constant search to avoid the obvious?

To: DB

Why the constant search to avoid the obvious?It's hard to milk the sun for grants.

 

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Furthermore, it invalidates the moral-ethical framework of man-centered religion,  where only a proper liberal is omnipotent and must adjudicate between sinners and victims.  In the grossest form, it is still difficult to sue Sol.

 

And the little ice age just happened to line up exactly with the Maunder minimum...

Why the constant search to avoid the obvious?

[grey_whiskers]

On the other hand, Lockwood says, the paper contains no statistical tests, and connections such as the one it suggests "can arise readily by chance, even for extended intervals."

Snerk!

Break out the Kalman filters for meta-studies on the *pro*-AGW papers...?

[facedown]

Scientists have long known that the sun plays a key role in Earth's weather patterns.

Glad to see they finally figured that one out.

[Libloather]

Get a DVD of this and pass it around. The big secret - the sun warms the planet. Shhhhhh...

[neverdem]

What am I missing?

My guess is the original article.

"More UV radiation kills off some of the oceans' plankton, which produce dimethyl sulfide, one of the primary atmospheric chemicals involved in cloud formation, and fewer clouds mean less rainfall."

IMHO, that sentence needs more explanation.

piytar made a nice summary.

We Are the Green Team - Will Obama's environmental advisors spearhead a new global warming treaty by next year?

No sunspots -> less solar wind -> more cosmic rays -> more clouds -> more snow/rain and a cooler planet.

If lower solar magnetic activity leads to more UV hitting the earth killing plankton which results in less dimethyl sulfide which in turn leads to less cloud formation, wouldn't that lead to warming and not cooling???

It's more.

Plankton May Influence Climate Change Says UCSB Scientist

The findings indicate that phytoplankton will then produce more DMS(dimethyl sulfide) in response to this increased ultraviolet radiation, causing increasing cloudiness and mitigating the effects of global warming.

IMHO, it's another feedback loop that is fascinating, elegant and unlikely to happen by dumb luck.

[DB]

Thanks.

So that key sentence in the posted article is a bit funky leading to a wrong conclusion.

The original article essentially says the opposite of what the posted one implies.

[BossLady]

Here's some info including a model from NASA which shows how the phytoplanton comes and goes as it relates to El Nino and La Nina:

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/plankton_elnino.html

Nice & Clear Cycle Chart on Nino/Nina Impact -

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml

[neverdem]

Thanks for the URLs.

[xcamel]

FReepmail me to get on or off

Click on POGW graphic for full GW rundown

GREENIE WATCH

Ping me if you find one I've missed.

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[ngc6656]

More clouds reflect more sun light away from earth meaning less solar heat for the earth.

For what it is worth:

On the nightside of Earth, clouds prevent loss of heat by reducing its radiation into space.

Also consider that the planet Venus is shrouded in clouds. It is about 67 million miles from the sun. Earth is about 93 million miles from the sun. Using the law of inverse squares, (67/93)^2 = 0.52, shows that Earth receives from the sun about 52% of the radiation per unit of surface area that Venus does.

Yet Venus is a planetary hothouse.

[BossLady]

URL Welcome! ;)