My good friend Jim Goodridge, former state climatologist for California, came to visit yesterday to offer some help on my upcoming trip, as well as to talk shop a bit about the state of affairs on climate change.
He had previously authored a paper that I had hoped to present on his behalf at ICCC, but unfortunately it got excluded from the schedule by an omission. Yesterday he decided to rework that paper to bring out it’s strongest point.
One of the best and simplest ways of seeing the solar connection is to look at accumulated departure. Here is Jim’s essay on the subject:
Solar – Global Warming Connection
Jim Goodridge
State Climatologist (Retired)
jdgoodridge – (at) – sbcglobal dot net
March 22, 2008
Solar irradiance has been monitored from satellites for three sunspot cycles. The sunspot numbers and solar irradiance were shown to be highly correlated. Since sunspot numbers have been increasing since 1935 the irradiance must also be increasing.
The sun was once considered to be constant in its output, hence the term “Solar Constant”. Recent observations suggest that the sun is a variable star. Observations of solar irradiance have been made with great precision from orbiting satellites since about 1978. These observations are from Wikipeda: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation
They clearly indicate that the solar irradiance varies with the historic sunspot numbers:
Click for a larger graph
Click for a larger graph:
Using this relationship, 307 years of solar irradiance is easily inferred.
Sunspot numbers since 1700 were plotted as accumulated departure from average in order to compare them with weather variables. The sunspot number index indicates a declining trend for the 1700 to 1935 period and an increase from 1935 to 2008. The eleven-year cycle is clearly visible.
An increase in sunspot activity, and by inference, irradiance since 1935 is plainly indicated.
Moderators note: And I want to also call attention to these graphs, which shows the change in solar irradiance since 1611 and Geomagnetic activity over the last 150 years:
Clearly, solar geomagnetic activity has been on the rise. There will be more interesting posts on sunpots coming in the next week or two, stay tuned -Anthony
[…] Motl, Ph.D. Theoretical Physicist, Harvard) Surface Warming And The Solar Cycle (Science Daily) The Solar to Global Warming Connection (Jim Goodridge, Retired State Climatologist) The Sun Also Warms (Sallie Baliunas, Ph.D. […]
To put the whole Climate Change issue into perspective vis-a-vis the Peak Oil Crisis, everyone needs to ask themselves, their associates, all sitting elected officials and those seeking office, especially the office of President of the United States, “What is more threatening in both the long and short terms, a beneficial 1 degree F rise in average world temperatures over the past 100 years, or a 1 percent decline in world oil production over the last 100 weeks – with steepening declines forecast? Furthermore, can our economy better deal with declining fuel inventories in an environment of persistent warming, or in an environment of declining average temperatures over the next several decades, the most likely scenario given the highly reliable solar inertial motion (SIM) model forecasts of climate change?” Solar cycle # 24 will tell the tale. The problem is not AGW. The real problem is the end of cyclical warming coincident with the onset of Peak Oil.