The sun today. There appears to be an emerging Cycle 23 spot
at the left, but still no new Cycle 24 spots. Click for large image
That’s never a good sign. Below is an excerpt from an article in Science Daily that ponders the question:
Excerpt: The sun has been laying low for the past couple of years, producing no sunspots and giving a break to satellites. That’s good news for people who scramble when space weather interferes with their technology, but it became a point of discussion for the scientists who attended an international solar conference at Montana State University. Approximately 100 scientists from Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa and North America gathered June 1-6 to talk about “Solar Variability, Earth’s Climate and the Space Environment.”
The scientists said periods of inactivity are normal for the sun, but this period has gone on longer than usual. “It continues to be dead,” said Saku Tsuneta with the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, program manager for the Hinode solar mission. […] The last cycle reached its peak in 2001 and is believed to be just ending now, Longcope said. The next cycle is just beginning and is expected to reach its peak sometime around 2012. Today’s sun, however, is as inactive as it was two years ago, and scientists aren’t sure why. “It’s a dead face,” Tsuneta said of the sun’s appearance.
Tsuneta said solar physicists aren’t like weather forecasters; They can’t predict the future. They do have the ability to observe, however, and they have observed a longer-than-normal period of solar inactivity. In the past, they observed that the sun once went 50 years without producing sunspots. That period, from approximately 1650 to 1700, occurred during the middle of a little ice age on Earth that lasted from as early as the mid-15th century to as late as the mid-19th century.
I’m never encouraged when a solar scientist describes the face of the sun as “dead”.
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Okay folks, take a look at the sun. Don’t stare at it. Looks small. BIG ball of fire. Very, very, VERY, big ball. Now take all the fires going right now: Amazon, forest, California, Florida, camp, stove, bon, you name it. Put them all together in one very big high school graduation bonfire to end all bonfires. Then compare that bonfire to the sun. Some people forget that the sun is much bigger and hotter than you think when you look at that relatively small orange bright light in the sky. My sense of proportion tells me that burning wood on earth cannot have the same affect on us as the sun does.
Case in point, planets that are LOTS hotter than ours are apparently undergoing climate change that seem to be mimicking our own. Unless you have inside information about the aliens sneaking in an illegal bonfire here and there, me thinks the sun is the culprit.
Pam,
Sun good.
People bad.
Only us
can make earth sad.
undestood?
(I knew you wood.)
Pamela:
I agree with you that the sun has driven Earth’s climate in the past and will continue to do so. This whole air pollution thing started when leebert stated yesterday that industrial pollution has a dramatic impact on the Arctic’s climate and sea ice. I dispute the DRAMATIC part (i.e. 90-94%), which implies that the sun and many other factors are essentially meaningless, but I do not dispute the Arctic haze or soot, just its exact magnitude and power, as well as the full list of what causes it.
I agree with the sun being the driver.
I was trying to make a couple of points. One if sot was a contributing factor then China and India might be too far away. However, record fire seasons in the northern regions might contribute to the ice melt by depositing sot.
What I really think is interesting is the increased strength of the fire seasons. The AGSWATs tell us that CO2 is increasing. If the fireseason over the last 15 years have been increasing by millions of acres, from a total of 16 Million to over 35 million in a four year period, it will create an artificial rise in CO2 on the planet, it might even mask the fact that the cooling oceans are absorbing CO2.
I live in the Seattle area, it is very gray and cool around here. I don’t like the cold PDO, give me back my warm PDO! Please, sun!
Flowers:
The case against sootfall in the Arctic has been corroborated by many researchers. Regardless of the various swings in ice extent the progressive decimation is what has eaten away at the ice in a gradual two century process. Prior to the 19th C. era of coal-fueled industrialization the rate of decimation from wood fuels (characterized by vanillic acid) was 1/8th of the ensuing industrial era from thereon. Even if the progressive decimation from industrial-era soot was 60% (well w/in the std. error) the effect was still very pronounced. And the ongoing effect is still easily 1/3rd of all other dynamics affecting the Arctic.
As for the source of the soot, it varies by season. China’s soot travels via intermeridionals into the N. Pacifc where the soot has been found to seed winter mega-storms – actual T-storms – that loft the soot into the stratosphere that in turn is borne into the Subarctic and Arctic via high-level wind currents.
The Soot Files:
http://www.scientificblogging.com/the_soot_files/soot_black_icebergs_and_arctic_ice
The seriousness of the soot problem is such that you’d think the environmentalists would be all over it, esp. considering the future plight of the polar bears. If you think global warming poses a serious threat then soot mitigation could well buy human societies time into a low-carbon conversion:
http://www.scientificblogging.com/the_soot_files/fixing_soot_gains_20_years_against_global_warming
Honestly I think the enviros are playing games with the CO2 cause. Everything’s being subsumed under the aegis of CO2 Cap & Trade. There are many reasons this is wrong-headed, as I spell out here:
http://www.scientificblogging.com/the_soot_files/blog/soot_calling_bull_on_global_warming_activists_and_politicians
As far as the global warming activists are concerned, soot is the carbon that must not be named.
leebert:
Thank you for responding. Two things:
1. Are you now backtracking from your statement that, essentially, almost all Arctic ice melt is due to soot from industry? Are you now saying that it is simply one of many factors (me and D. Quist say natural and human wildfire soot is there, and of course I think the sun, ocean, wind, and cloud cover are the dominant factors on the Arctic with soot in fifth place)? The question is this: Are you willing to concede a more balanced and less extreme number for soot’s effect on Arctic ice melt (such as 1/3 to 60%, instead of 90-94% of all factors)?
2. Arctic and worldwide sea ice, glaciers, and snow have ALWAYS been dirty. How dirty through time? How dirty if humans didn’t exist? We will never know. There is simply no way that our planet is a spotless and pristine wonderland, however. The magnitude of Arctic haze and soot today has been demonstrated, but the amount attributable to human activities and its melting power has not been conclusive (you say/said that it is 90-94%, Zender(?) 90% with big air warming, Ramanathan(?) 60%, NASA says “less than CO2”, IPCC says “tiny”, I say “there, but in fifth place”, and ScienceDaily says “worse in 1870-1911” which is coincident with global cooling due to decreased solar activity and subsequent glacial and ice advance). However, there is something that we both agree on: There is no question that albedo loss due to dirty snow in the Arctic is dramatically underestimated in comparison to the mega-hysteria that is CO2-based warming, and that the activists are covering it up.
In summary, I am just wondering if you think the 90%+ number is correct, which I highly disagree, or if you are saying that it is somewhat of an underlying factor that gets “awakened” by solar, ocean, wind, and cloud changes. You can say what you want, of course, but if you give a more modest and less extreme number I will drop active discussion of this area of the topic and be more “peaceful” and ramble less with this debate.
Leebert and Flowers,
Why doesn’t NASA KNOW the percentage that soot is responsible for?
Mike
Just wondering….
Lotta talk about soot. It obviously absorbs a huge amount of energy compared to fresh snow or even old ice.
After last years melt in the Arctic I would think there would be little soot in the new ice to increase melt rate. Could be why the extent rebounded so quickly, even if temporary.
I do have a question. Does anyone know of a study about the effect of soot over time? That is, the first year the soot is pretty much on the surface and melting in. After the first winter the older soot should be below the ice surface and contributing less absorption as the ice surface reflects most of the energy. I am wondering how much this “melting in” and/or covering with new snow, changes the effect.
Gary Gulrud:
Thank you for that info … I did indeed grill that eminent heliophysicist on that question & he pooh-pooh’d the idea. If terawatts of incoming energy tend to focus in two very thermally sensitive geographic loci then there’d have to be some kind of effect. Spread out over the entire planet, probably not. Focused at magnet poles, makes me wonder…
I’ll go look that paper up.
Flowers,
I’m not backtracking. I think you’re misunderstanding the numbers I’ve cited. Zender cites “up to 94%” total bicentennial effect from all soot, mostly human-caused. Industrial soot is worse, showing 8x intensification of the effect in the industrial era.
This isn’t a firm position on numbers, but on opportunity. Zender’s 94% is up to the extent of his confidence interval, so if you want to land in the middle of the error bars the figure’s probably 60%. That’s all. That’s a historical figure that also reflects Arctic decimation rates in the early industrial era before the role of greenhouse gases played a bigger role.
Ramanathan is saying his 60% is the equiv. effect of current CO2, that is a 37:53 heating mix ratio for just those two greenhouse agents. The problem here is that soot was claimed to be masking CO2’s effect by surface shading, thereby leading researchers to implicate CO2 even more. The reality is that soot isn’t masking CO2’s effect, so CO2 is henceforth partially exculpated by the same margin since it isn’t hiding behind a curtain of soot.
You’d do better to go read Ramanathan’s & Zender’s testimony before Rep. Henry Waxman’s subcommittee. They lay it all out, both come with impeccable creds in climatology, very conventional scientists, esp. Ramanathan, he’s an old IPCC warhorse. So when Ramanathan speaks, people should listen.
If you believe CO2 poses a tangible threat, then soot mitigation could buy up to 20 more years window of opportunity. And if you don’t, then soot mitigation explains a great deal, as could surface ozone, stratospheric ozone depletion and solar phenomena that can warm the middle atmosphere.
Gary Gulrud:
> Brett Andersen’s global-warming blog at Accuweather a month
> back quoted a paper implying a 2-3 degree Arctic temperature
> anomaly might be traced to solar wind input during the ongoing
> denoument to solar minimum.
Would you have a link for that? Thanks!
/lee
leebert:
I apologize for the confusion, as I rather rushed through my last post. It appears that our underlying disagreement stems from our views on AGW. I say that humans have no effect on climate and a small effect on temperature which no one has been able to find, and may be getting canceled by negative feedback (Roy Spencer). My “side” is with Anthony Watts, Joe D’Aleo, Timothy Ball, S. Fred Singer, Richard Lindzen, Reid Bryson, William Gray, Hans Shreuder, Phil Chapman and many, many others including a vast majority of posters on this site and others. Upon looking at past posts on this site I have come to the conclusion that you seem to be a “lukewarmer” who thinks that Earth and human climate changes are shared, and that your opinions and research (Ramanathan and Zender) on soot are designed to appeal more to the hardcore AGW religionists who say that evil capitalistic CO2 is the cause of all of the universe’s problems, and that they should not be so shortsighted. Am I right or wrong?
As for Ramanathan and Zender, they are good scientists (maybe, I hope), but their complete lack of mention of natural factors is obviously to get their research published in the world of SCRIPPS, IPCC, and NASA world of AGW propaganda which states that the sun, continental drift, cosmic rays, ocean currents, underwater and abovewater volcanoes, plate tectonics, changes in: orbit, rotation, and tilt of the Earth all have no effect in modern times. The effects are from human-only CO2 according to the “consensus”, while Ramanathan and Zender say it is CO2 AND soot. Am I right or wrong?
As for comments and opinions on Ramanathan and Zender, I agree with both of them of the sources of soot in the atmosphere and the Arctic, that it is from multiple sources of industry and also from wildfires, and that the IPCC is underestimating. However, their studies are full of: “can”, “possibly”, “estimate”, “may”, “uncertain”, “about”, a lot of “between x and x”, and the dreaded “simulate” and “model”. As for the study I agree with the most, it is “Industrial Soot And Its Arctic Impact” by Joe McConnell and Ross Edwards. All of these scientists’ research on this, as well as all climate on Earth, requires much more time and study.
Flowers:
I think you’ve got the gist of it. I’m a climate moderate by some standards in that I don’t have a problem with CO2 contributing some margin to atmospheric temperatures. The temperature trend of the past 50 yrs would roughly reflect CO2 baseline logarithmic function, so not much to be concerned about.
If, however, we subtract the 20th C. effects of higher solar intensity, soot, ground-level ozone and Pinatubo’s ozone destruction (which depleted the ozone for 8 years enough to cool the stratosphere significantly which would’ve warmed the upper troposphere by almost the same amt) it’s possible to hierarchically regress back CO2’s contribution to even less. Other solar effects are possible as mentioned by Gary Galrud above.
The big evidence is that Hansen’s ocean heat bucket (smoking gun, pipeline) isn’t as severe, a natural lag & plateau reflecting the already-dimming sun (-0.1 degrC or -0.33 w/m-2 since 1993 or so).
Hence our current temperature plateau. I expect a net -0.3 degrC influence from decreased solar irradiance, or -0.015/yr. effect within 20 years, maybe sooner.
My reasons for continuing to cite Ramanathan & Zender are:
1. They want their data to be accepted by the mainstream field (IPCC) so they avoid heresy. No conjectures, just “mainstream” science.
2. They are tip toeing thru a political mine field & they know it – Ramanathan lost his funding once b/c of politics in his INDOEX work on the Asian Brown Cloud. So they give the consensus view its due. A sentence usually suffices, but they’re not going on like James Hansen about the sky falling either.
3. And yet they press on as though their ballywick is of paramount import. Ramanathan could just as well go back to grinding the usual IPCC axe. Reading between the lines I surmise he knows this changes a lot of things. He’s admitted the popular assumption that the cooling trend of the 1970’s was caused by aerosols could be utterly wrong – false.
It underscores the hypocrisy of the activists… they’re hiding soot behind CO2 b/c they’re afraid of what else it’ll reveal about carbon, polar bears, the Arctic, Asian soot emissions, globalization, UN CDM “Clean Coal” projects, the whole long list. It’s as though global warming was the only problem, even though HALF of the mercury deposition in the Amer. West Coast comes straight from Chinese smokestacks as well as the soot.
Who’s writing their script? Maurice Strong? Al Gore? (same difference…)
They’ve yet to change their tune that CO2 is hiding behind soot despite the preponderance of evidence to the contrary and yet this data’s been out nearly a year.
Y’ know the old saying… You know they’re lying b/c their lips are moving…
leebert:
That was the answer I was looking for! Thanks. I will make one last point about Ramanathan and Zender. I think their strategies are very interesting. They say “Oh, yeah. Super capatalistic catastrophe is imbound from CO2. The IPCC says we are doomed so obviously it is true. But hey, don’t forget about the fact that many of the things that emit CO2 also emit SO2, which is nasty pollution that can land on snow and ice and decrease its albedo and cause it to melt faster. Less snow during sunny days means increased warmth, so how about we get rid of this first as it is easier and as it is a double-edged sword: less of it means more snow which means cooler temps, and of course, the most important, better air quality.” Of course the communists want humans to repent and want to eliminate advanced benificial technology instead of crappy polluting technology so everyone can sacrifice for the greater good: Gaia.
Flowers:
Yes, it seems they’re hoping to come in through a side door that won’t embarrass the patrons.
However according to the behavioral piety of those imbued with Gaia-fear, CO2 is our original sin. Have you seen the CO2 death calculator at the Aussie ABC? Un-f******* berievable.
It’s clearly an ideological strain with some big socialist backing, globo-soc magnates ala Soros, Strong, Gore, the Club of Rome cabal. Some of it is logical to some end – fuel conservation – but the invidious abuse of science is dangerous, as are the appeals to building a nanny state. None of this would be so bad were it truly marginal in terms of taxes or GDP, but its not zero sum in terms of economics or civil liberties. It has invited all manner of excessive taxation and invasive gov’t in Britain – which is now on the cusp of an anti-Green rebellion. People will only tolerate so much.
It further puts the lie to the entire project when we’re being told to subsidize other countries’ emissions of more CO2 than we can abate, to blood-let more wealth in addition to our trade deficits.
And the polar bears and Arctic soot. In a way this is the quintessential duplicity that lifts the veil off the depth of the corruption of activism. Of all the charismatic megafauna I’d think would provoke conservationists into paroxysms of anti-soot mania, it’d be the polar bears. Abate the soot, save the bears! Seems a simple calculus to me.
Given that EDF has lead with blog coverage on Arctic soot, then I must assume they know. So then are they holding a gun to the polar bears’ heads, still believing CO2 is a big threat and want to force the issue? Or is the whole thing just a big game to foist a penultimate dirigist’s dream on the world? I wouldn’t give them the benefit of the doubt on the former but suspect the latter, it’s more consistent with the science.
I’m worried, as are others who are climate moderates. We’re in a quandary between watching our civil liberties get subsumed under the aegis of environmentalism vs. remaining conservation-minded. In Britain I think a lot of people have clued onto this. Here in the USA we’re less exposed to the direct impact of socialism so we’re not as suspicious of the results of encroaching gov’t. We may be in for a hard lesson.
Implied, but not explicit, profanity not recommended, but I understand the sentiment.~jeez
Flowers: I responded to this article:
http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_releases/european_union_cap_and_trade_program_for_carbon_dioxide_working_well_says_mit_analysis
leebert,
What a great vocabulary you have! I had to look up seven words.
Also, I agree with jeeves, you need not resort to (implied) pro fan i ty.
Leave that to lesser minds.
And what if the goreacle has the outcome correct, but got the mechanism wrong.
You could have global cooling + high CO2 and still melt the Polar Ice Caps.
Has anyone noticed the super-stubborn highs & lows off the West Coast?
The darn things are just about parked. Even though they wobble east-west, they never leave town. We have almost a full year of heavy windstorms as these behemouth pressure cells set up house.
And what if they presented a path for heat to travel up to the Arctic where it was trapped by CO2 or cosmic-ray induced low-lying clouds cover?
So, you could still melt the Polar Ice Caps all the while the rest of the Earth cools simply because it got trapped there.
Does is really matter which way we perish if we are guilty of adding insult to injury with our massive output of pollution?
The G8 Summit today focusing on energy conservation, claiming global warming (right or wrong) but it could just as easily be worldwide economic woes.
Gore may be wrong about all the effect of warming being due to the CO2 emissions, but in the end it doesn’t really matter because we still have finite energy supplies. Take your pick. Everybody’s a winner if we get this oil price killer bee sting back in the bottle.
For a flat-lined Sun, we got record hot temps here in No. Ca.
I would have thought that it would be more mild, but I guess the big Pressure Cells really dominate all else when it comes to cooking your brains during Summer and freezing your tootsies off during Winter.
No Sun to drive the wagon which is stuck in Lodi.
Will the recent 07/13/08 burp of 700+km/s solar wind drive the weather now and unstick the pressure cells?
Sure didn’t unstick anything.
The sun is as quiet as a mouse.
Run silent, run deep.