From Australia’s Canberra Times:
NSW Treasurer Michael Costa is understood to be among a small group of Australian politicians and other opinion-shapers to embrace this notion.
It is wise to be sceptical of many Russian scientists and all politicians, so I have given this ”solar forcing” explanation of global warming little credence until I attended a forum at the Academy of Science earlier this year and heard it from a scientist of undoubted integrity and expertise in this area. A former head of CSIRO’s division of space science, Dr Ken McCracken was awarded the Australia Prize the precursor of the Prime Minister’s Science Prize in 1995. Now in his 80s, officially retired and raising cattle in the ACT hinterland, he is still very active in his research field of solar physics.
McCracken is adamantly not a climate change sceptic, agreeing that rising fossil-fuel emissions will be a long-term cause of rising global temperatures.
But his analysis of the sun’s cyclical activity and global climate records has led him to the view that we are entering a period of up to two decades in which reduced solar activity may either flatten the upward trend of global temperatures or even cause a slight and temporary cooling. In a paper given in 2005 to a ”soiree” hosted by then president of the Academy of Science, Professor Jim Peacock, McCracken said the sun was the most active it had been over 1000 years of scientific observation. This made it inevitable that its activity would decrease over the next two decades in line with historically observed solar cycles.
”The reduced ‘forcing’ might compensate, or over-compensate, for the effects of the increasing concentration of greenhouse gases,” he said. ”It is likely that there will be a cessation of around 20 years in the increase in world temperature, or possibly a decrease by 0.1 [degrees] or more.”
I put this to Dr David Jones, head of climate analysis for the Bureau of Meteorology’s National Climate Centre, whose overarching judgment is that the warming effect of fossil fuel emissions is an increasingly dominant factor on global temperature to the extent that it will not be slowed by lower solar activity.
After an email conversation, Jones said he and McCracken are in general agreement but differ on emphasis and one key judgment. ”Natural solar variability is potentially important, but the climate history and physics tell us that the probability of this factor sufficiently cooling the planet to offset the enhanced greenhouse effect is distinctly remote,” Jones wrote.
The main point of disagreement was McCracken’s view that the rate of global warming could be eased or reduced by a fall in solar activity. ”I have never seen a credible paper published using a climate model that shows this,” Jones wrote.
He points to recent data which indicates that global temperatures are probably rising faster than previously thought, raising the urgency of calls from climate scientists for political action to reduce emissions. Yet any uncertainty over the sun’s influence creates a lever that climate sceptics and developing nations will seize upon to stall such action.
If McCracken is wrong and temperatures continue to climb during a decade or two of low solar activity, the need for emissions reductions will be dramatically reinforced.
However, if temperatures do not rise over this period, steeling the political will for such action by all nations will be much more difficult.
The dilemma for the science sector is a classic: how to communicate uncertainty.
As McCracken rightly observed in 2005, a lull in temperature rises would provide a wonderful opportunity for political and technological effort to gain the initiative in the fight against climate change by turning global emissions around and thus hopefully avoid worst-case warming scenarios when the sun’s fires stoke up again mid-century.
But he also noted the risk that mainstream climate science, led by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, would be seen by its critics and others to have been ill-informed at best or misleading at worst, diminishing its credibility and eroding political commitment to emission reductions.
McCracken believes science should be upfront. ”I believe that we must state firmly that a cooling is possible in the near future, but that the warming would then resume 10-20 years hence,” he said via email. ”It will be very hard to argue for public trust if we say nothing about the possibility, and then try to argue our way out after it happens. Using an Aussie rules analogy, that would be like giving the climate sceptics a free kick 10m in front of goal.”
Australia is definitely entering a footy finals period, and the Earth may be entering a period where human-induced global warming slows temporarily. Many scientists will not be comfortable to consider this possibility, and even less comfortable that journalists canvas it, because in good faith they want nothing to deflect efforts to combat global warming.
However, I have always aimed to tell readers what they deserve to know, not what they may want to hear or what governments, scientists or interest groups would prefer they were told. This has earned me brickbats and bouquets over the years, as it should do, and as I expect it will on this occasion.
Simon Grose is Canberra correspondent for Science Media.
www.sciencemedia.com.au
This August will a shock cooling number for the SH and to a lesser extent the NH. Looks like the Warming Believers are manning the barricades in preparation.
Yes phillip B you are very correct
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/
600 and 400 MB
BTW its still just “normal” and I’m a very strong skeptic. I may go up or down but its still “normal” in the context of 1000 year climatic variations.
Here are some stats from a weather station in southern NSW. This station is located in a tiny and very remote hydro town and is located on a small hill and well removed from any man based influence. Being hill top it is also less subject to temperature inversion and other ground effects. The temperature in brackets shows the deviation from the long term average. As can be seen, the monthly extremes are not all that extreme but the deviations from the long term average is not insignificant.
Cabramurra, NSW (Australia)
July
Average max 2.8C (-1.3)
Average min -1.5C (-0.7)
Lowest max -1.1C
Lowest Min -4.6C
August 1-27
Average max 2.2C (-2.8)
Average min -2.2C (-1.8)
Lowest max -1.3C
Lowest Min -4.9C
Thanks, Anthony, Grose has an excellent explication of the question. This accentuates just how important it is to absolutely nail down the sensitivity of climate to CO2. Until that piece of evidence is known far better than we do now, we are really just floundering around in a dark space.
If we are cooling, as I believe, for twenty to a hundred years, the small effect of CO2 for warming, and its large effect for fertilizing crops will be life-saving, until we start to rewarm, at which time it might be useful to mitigate its warming effect. If we are cooling, then, it is redundant to say that present carbon abatement schemes are counterproductive. But if CO2 does have a monotonic and increasing effect, even if small, on temperature, then sooner or later we may have to abate the menace. Timings of all these policy propositions depend exquisitely on knowing what the sensitivity is of climate to CO2. Any endeavour directed otherwise is a waste of time and money.
So quit quibbling everyone, and get busy with settling the science.
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So natural variability causes cooling, but not warming. Eh?
The sun can cool the planet, but not warm it? What?
Even if the AGW hypothesis is correct, which it may well be, the cavalier and bullying attitude of its supporters is seriously undermining science – all science. They are providing textbook examples to support the post-modern criticism of science – that “knowledge” is socially determined, and facts are just convenient constructions to support the approved theory of the dominant clique.
The longer they go on this way, with no predictive power but simply a series of post-hoc emendations, the more science suffers. I believe Karl Popper used Marxism as an example of a theory that was unfalsifiable due to the constant apologia of its supporters. He might as well have used AGW.
The faith these “scientists” have in the accuracy of the temperature record and the climate models is scary. Of course, I have no faith in a “scientist” who “points to recent data which indicates that global temperatures are probably rising faster than previously thought”.
They put faith in Mann and his hockey stick (no need to check the work). They put faith in the SST record (no need to check the careless guesses). They put faith in all of Hansen’s “adjustments” to the temperature record (no need to know how or why). They put faith in climate models with an abysmal track record.
I guess being a climate “scientist” is really a just a matter of faith.
The AP is reporting this, Arctic sea ice drops to 2nd lowest level on record.
“It’s an unfortunate sign that climate change is coming rapidly to the Arctic and that we really need to address the issue of global warming on a national level,” said Christopher Krenz, Arctic project manager for Oceana.
Check out the weekly temp anomalies for Australia. Large cool anomalies for both min and max across almost all of Oz. The prior 2 weeks have been very similar. Hence my prediction for a shock SH temperature number.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/temp_maps.cgi?variable=minanom&area=nat&period=week&time=latest
From Benny Peiser’s CCNet 124/2008 26 Aug. Item 7 Lomborg vs Tickell by Stephen Ashworth. I read this:
“In his recent book on human evolution, for example, Professor Stephen Oppenheimer suggests that human-induced warming is already counteracting a return to ice-age conditions. The simplistic assumption would be that if 4 deg of anthropogenic global warming coincided with 4 deg of natural cooling over say a century or so, the two would simply cancel each other out, though of course the story might be more complex than that.”
This really bothers me because the positive feedbacks invoked in CO2 forced global warming are really temperature driven (increased humidity etc) so if there is no increase in temperature due to the effect of natural cooling forces then there can’t be any positive feedback can there? If this is so then CO2 driven warming won’t work very well in canceling natural cooling will it?
Leif Svalgaard (00:28:31) :
Leif, could you perhaps prevail on Ken to amplify his remarks? I, too, dislike the ad hom, and quite impolite coments of some. However, there are some good points about what has been claimed in the IPCC, and this “apparent” retreat. The comments in the lead article, in a way were so general, that I find it easy to understand why some would “take the bit in their mouths” and run towards the mud-slinging. I also think, even more importantly, that a more detailed, insightful respone by Ken could lead to a much better discussion and understanding of several issues. A couple of examples: 1.) a discussion on whether this or what it would take to increase the accepted solar sensitivity, and 2.) how does this natural variance impact the IPCC claim of detecting the antropogenic induced warming starting about 1950, if at all, and why for either case. Thanks.
KuhnKat (21:53:54) :
Leif mentioned that here in a thread I can’t readily find. He might not have mentioned the 1931, but did state things were still on the straight line decline.
Everyone here here should prick up their ears when they hear “Livingston”. It’s looking more and more like the next few years will be well beyond interesting. Perhaps we should update that old Chinese curse to read “May you live in fascinating times.” 🙂
“It will be very hard to argue for public trust if we say nothing about the possibility, and then try to argue our way out after it happens.”
So what believer predicted all this back in 1998?
In an Aussie Rules analogy, I think the guys in the white coats just gave the Skeptics two fingers straight out!
When the sun was abnormally active, we were assured by AGW activists that this had no, or at best barely measureable affects on global temperatures.
On the other hand, when the sun backs down from the abnormally active phase, this is going to cause cooling for 10 to 20 years.
”I have never seen a credible paper published using a climate model that shows this,” Jones wrote.
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Criminy. These guys actually believe that their models trump the real world.
I don’t really want to comment on the various opinions, but I would like to say that Ken McCracken is a good friend of ours and is a fine scientist with a long record of outstanding research, so ad-hom comments and attacks are misplaced.
Well Leif, that’s all well and good.
But then where did this come from?
“Global temperatures are probably rising faster than previously thought” and “I have never seen a credible paper published using a climate model that shows this”
I think he’s a little too invested here.
“…if there is no increase in temperature due to the effect of natural cooling forces then there can’t be any positive feedback can there? If this is so then CO2 driven warming won’t work very well in canceling natural cooling will it?”
Very insightful…
To think that man has any control of this is situation is laughable…….God is in total control and can just wink and eyebrow and change everything instantly.
Incidentally, Stanford’s Wilcox Solar Observatory updated the chart of the strength of the magnetic field at the solar poles yesterday
http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/Polar.gif
They’re still the weakest observed since the series began more than 30 years ago.
The importance of this is that some “precursor” methods of forecasting the solar cycle use the strength of the solar polar field to predict the strength of sunspot activity – weak polar field = weak solar cycle, according to this model.
Heres my little take on this article.
Quote : “the already difficult relationship between scientists and politicians on this issue”
You would never know this from the general MSM.
AS regards the SH and Australia’s case. Yesterday the fabric of the Australian Parliament changed. The current government is now held to ransom by the Greens Party in the upper house of our two tiered Westminster style system.
The Government has tied themselves into a Emission Trading Scheme (Carbon Reduction – governments words) from 2010.
The economic realists and those economic editors in the Australian MSM are starting to wake up and realise what an economic disaster that this scheme will place on the country. This is why the MSM is starting to pickup om the opposing view.
pofarmer,
Those quotes are from Jones, not McCracken.
Wow, that’s very interesting and informative. I would have thought it was still warming, but the facts you presented seem to be very credible.
12yeartech.wordpress.com
I’m hoping that the burgeoning cooling effect won’t last for too long or we are all in real trouble. The economic damage (higher fuel costs in a recession, famines caused by using land for ‘biofuels’) caused by ‘green’ taxation will be exacerbated by ruined harvests, even higher food costs etc.
The AGW crowd has recently gone hyper since the warming has clearly stalled, and I am afraid that we have only seen the tip of the iceberg in this regard. In the past couple of months I have seen more totally inflamatory statements, if not just outright lies, than at anytime in the past 20 years. More of the “there is no longer any disagreement” so you are retarded if you do not believe this. More “recent studies now show it is much worse, happening faster than anyone could ever have imagined.” More of the “we now have almost no time to act, we must have carbon taxes, etc.” More of the totally off the wall, screwball “studies” that predict imminent disaster for virtually all life on earth – disease, pestilence and the like. And the AGW crowd is just getting fired up. I predict, that if it actually does cool enough that some “too cold” problems occur, such as crop failures, their statements and studies will get even more radical.
John F. Pittman (05:35:12) :
could you perhaps prevail on Ken to amplify his remarks? I, too, dislike the ad hom, and quite impolite coments of some. However, there are some good points about what has been claimed in the IPCC, and this “apparent” retreat.
Pofarmer (06:12:35) :
Basil (06:52:20) :
pofarmer,
Those quotes are from Jones, not McCracken.
Generally, don’t confuse McCracken with Jones and the IPCC. Ken’s view is actually close to my own: there are small influences from the Sun and from CO2 and from Land Use and from volcanoes and from a myriad of other things. These small [barely detectable] sources are superposed on longer and larger variations, like Milankovic and ocean/atmosphere oscillations between ‘states’ or ‘modes’. What we don’t know is the climate sensitivity to all the ‘little’ causes and if there are any interplays between them. That the sun may be varying a bit now off where it has been for a while may actually give us clues to the relative importance of the sensitivities. As I read Ken, that is all he was trying to say.
The Arctic ice melt this year is actually worrying if I was an AGW proponent.
The reason is that most of the ice melted is first year ice – much thinner than the multi-year ice that was melted in prior years.
One would think that, given the same level of heat flow, that the first-year ice would have melted right away and we’d now be into the multi-year ice left over from last year and the melt area would now be MUCH greater than least year.
That appears not to be the case.
If we posit that first-year ice is 1/2 the thickness of multi-year ice, and that both melts started with the same area, then given a melt area 90% of last years, we have on first approximation a summer heat flow 90%*.5 = of 40% of last year’s.
A heat flow of 40% of last year’s is really a quite stunning change.
I don’t think the delta is that big, but there is a number there that is irreconcilable.