NEWS: NASA to hold press conference on the state of the sun

Mr. Watts, you tease us. There is nothing to see at the link for the graphics.
What I have often wondered, though, is how the Sun moving through areas with different amounts of “dark matter” might affect the fusion reactions that generate the Sun’s energy. I believe it has been discovered recently that atomic decay seems to vary with our distance from the Sun for reasons not exactly understood. Could it be there is more “dark matter” closer to the Sun? Could that affect fusion reactions as well?
Are ice ages brought on by the solar system moving through areas with more or less dark matter and the interglacials caused when we “pop out” of those bands?
REPLY: I’m not the tease, NASA is. Note they say to check back on Sept 23rd to see the graphics…they don’t want the media conjecturing the graphics, obviously.

Where is the proof for Dark Matter?
If you allow the speed of light to vary over time, the need for Dark Matter goes away. A varying C also fixes the early hot sun paradox.

This is precisely why laypeople like myself cannot comprehend the lackadaisical attitude of SDIC concerning the accurate counting of sunspots and solar activity.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to observe and document an uncommon solar cycle?
If I were a solar ‘scientist’, I’d be absolutely giddy w/ excitement! Triple checking the observations, meticulously recording the data and making absolutely SURE what I was documenting (for posterity) was top quality. [I’d show up early and stay late every day-it’s that exciting!]
What do we get? The SDIC can’t be bothered to report data correctly, apparently don’t care, and pooh-pooh Anthony for expecting otherwise!! (I view the earlier brouhaha as a dreadful shame and wasted opportunity. ) Who can trust anything from SDIC? If they can’t get 1 spot counted correctly-how can they be trusted to count 100 correctly?
Of course, I am assuming that it’s easier to count to “1” than it is to count to “100”.
Thank you Anthony for your tireless and wonderful work. You, sir, are appreciated. I have two sites I check twice a day. “Drudge” and “Watts…”. If it’s not on one of these two-it’s not newsworthy.

“The sun’s current state could result in changing conditions in the solar system.”
Okay. No mention of Earth’s climate. Of course we know the sun has no effect. We have been told so.

Is there a site to check for updated info on the ice-caps on Mars…or possible effects on other planets related to the reduced solar activity?

I’ve been wondering how NASA was going to save face, is this is it? Did all the childish hockey-stick and data-hiding nonsense finally push someone up top over the edge? I’m visualizing someone slamming a fist down on a desktop and saying, “All right, enough! Do we do science here or don’t we?”
Anthony, you once said that forces were moving behind the scenes on these issues, I’m hoping we’re about to see some results.
Or maybe it will be something totally different, who knows (trying to keep my hopes in check.)
Anyway, thanks for an extremely useful and educational and fun-to-read blog, I check it every day and occasionally toss an opinion in, but I don’t think I’ve ever said thanks for all the work you’re doing keeping us up-to-date.

Ric – you slay me. Thanks for the humor.

Another thought, connecting some dots, here’s NASA (Hansen) contributing to a legal decision in Britain that okay’s defacing energy plants, while in the US the Democrats and Republicans have greenlighted offshore drilling and other energy projects, in joint recognition of our need for more and cheaper energy.
How’s that for bad timing on NASA’s part? Kind of leaves them out in the cold, I would think. Yeah, Hansen did it on his own time but its hard to ignore the fact that its NASA’s name that gives him all that credibility in the eyes of the public.
OTOH a news conference like this must have been in the works for quite some time, so it was probably just a coincidence…

Dan Lee
This isn’t anything new, doomsday predictions have been around since time began for humans. 2012 is not about the end of the world, actually the end of the Mayan Calendar, whereby the earth will apparently be aligned with the centre of the universe for the first time in 26000 years…something like that….apparently an interesting energy phenomenon will occur which will bring about spiritual/energy change on earth.
haha at least NASA is finally being forced to accept that the sun does rule. After all it is the solar system , not the anthropogenic system…

Gary:
Have a more readable reference at Scientific American:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=how-did-humans-first-alte
We have been touching on this issue of ‘are we naturally heading toward an ice age that is being warded off by global warming’ for quite a while in these blogs. I have posted a link to a Scientific American article published in 2005 titled HOW DID HUMANS FIRST ALTER GLOBAL CLIMATE? This article offers an alternate explanation to Fred Hoyle’s meteor on demand theory, although I wouldn’t count that out as a possibility; for the last 400K years or so.
I keep coming back to this article because it provides an effective
explanation for both warming and cooling. Here are two links to the author William Ruddiman and the article I refer to.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ruddiman
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=how-did-humans-first-alte
I don’t think I can reproduce the article here as Scientific American still wants payment for it but it is more than worth the read. I offer this excerpt from his conclusions which I believe is ok to reproduce (up to you Anthony).
Implications for the Future
The conclusion that humans prevented a cooling and arguably stopped the initial stage of a glacial cycle bears directly on a long-running dispute over what global climate has in store for us in the near future. Part of the reason that policymakers had trouble embracing the initial predictions of global warming in the 1980s was that a number of scientists had spent the previous decade telling everyone almost exactly the opposite—that an ice age was on its way. Based on the new confirmation that orbital variations control the growth and decay of ice sheets, some scientists studying these longer-scale changes had reasonably concluded that the next ice age might be only a few hundred or at most a few thousand years away.
In subsequent years, however, investigators found that greenhouse gas concentrations were rising rapidly and that the earth’s climate was warming, at least in part because of the gas increases. This evidence convinced most scientists that the relatively near-term future (the next century or two) would be dominated by global warming rather than by global cooling. This revised prediction, based on an improved understanding of the climate system, led some policymakers to discount all forecasts—whether of global warming or an impending ice age—as untrustworthy.
My findings add a new wrinkle to each scenario. If anything, such forecasts of an “impending” ice age were actually understated: new ice sheets should have begun to grow several millennia ago. The ice failed to grow because human-induced global warming actually began far earlier than previously thought—well before the industrial era.
In these kinds of hotly contested topics that touch on public policy, scientific results are often used for opposing ends. Global-warming skeptics could cite my work as evidence that human-generated greenhouse gases played a beneficial role for several thousand years by keeping the earth’s climate more hospitable than it would otherwise have been. Others might counter that if so few humans with relatively primitive technologies were able to alter the course of climate so significantly, then we have reason to be concerned about the current rise of greenhouse gases to unparalleled concentrations at unprecedented rates.
The rapid warming of the past century is probably destined to persist for at least 200 years, until the economically accessible fossil fuels become scarce. Once that happens, the earth’s climate should begin to cool gradually as the deep ocean slowly absorbs the pulse of excess CO2 from human activities. Whether global climate will cool enough to produce the long-overdue glaciations or remain warm enough to avoid that fate is impossible to predict.

Well I’m just glad the Sun is doing it’s small part to help fight global warming.
🙂

Everyone has it all wrong…..
CO2 is still a problem, the sun just now changed…..
rolling eyes…
Steve

terry 46 (10:19:14) Thanks… actually I was looking for updated effects on other planets….i.e. has the ice cap on Mars started growing again? any effects on Saturn or Jupiter consistent with a quieter sun?

This is very hush hush, so don’t tell anyone.
The teleconference is to announce that the planet is about to be attacked by an enormous mutant star goat. In order to protect mankind, NASA has built three space arks. The idea is that into the first ship, the ‘A’ ship, will go all the brilliant leaders, the scientists, the great artists, you know, all the achievers; and into the third, or ‘C’ ship, will go all the people who do the actual work, who make things and do things, and then into the `B’ ship will go everyone else, the middlemen. Hairdressers, tired TV producers, insurance salesmen, personnel officers, security guards, public relations executives, management consultants and most important of all, the climatologists.
The captain of the ‘B’ ship will be James… and we’re not talking T Kirk. He will lead the glorious departure from our doomed planet to crash… err… land on our new home Golgafrincham. That way, when the rest of us arrive, we’ll be sure to get a good haircut and know the greenhouse gasses are under control.
Douglas Adams saw the future.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/hitchhikers/guide/golgafrincham.shtml

This reminds me of that study that looks at carbon concentration in the atmosphere and how a study was soon to come out.
What ever happened to that study?

Comparing the two graphs below, baselining from 1991 and removing the 1998 and 2006 El Nino spikes, global temps show a good correspondence with the referenced solar activity, with a noticable short lag. From this I would recommend stocking up on firewood and blankets for the next several years.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/uah_august2008.png
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/solar-geomagnetic-ap.png

The NASA PR mentions that the solar wind is at 50-year low. Fifty years ago was 1958. Was the solar wind lower than it is now before 1958? What was used to measure solar wind in the 1950s and before?
Could it be that the solar wind is at a 100 year low, or maybe a 200 year low?
Scott

Ric Werme
Perhaps an agreement with T. Boone, to construct a giant turbine farm adjacent, to the solar fields, to power giant search-lights, to shine on the solar panels, will provide a solution to the problem of lower energy output from the sun and also alleviate the darkness problem with solar power generators. This of course will necessitate massive subsidies, but not a bail-out, right?
Quite obviously, grants from the DOE will be necessary for feasibility studies, to be conducted, to ascertain the most expensive and least effective solution to the problem.

the sun’s solar wind is at a 50-year low
If I can get no interest / no payments until 2012, I might buy a few bags.
The sun’s current state could result in changing conditions in the solar system.
But a certain website said that when ice caps were shown to be melting on Mars, we were all overreacting….

Off topic, but interesting:
“In the full-scale plan, 16 trillion lenses would be required to make up the million square miles of area of the sunshield. It is estimated that the shield would require one orbital launch every 20 minutes for about five years to be completed. The programme also investigated the use of a “coil gun” electromagnetic launcher to propel the lenses into space.
Unfortunately, Iris suffered a delayed second stage ignition at around 3,500 feet, and the mission was unsuccessful.”
http://spacefellowship.com/News/?p=6605
The rocket doesn’t look inexpensive, there has to be some whackos with lots of money. Reminds me of the idea, playing on TV, of thousands of robot ships spraying ocean water to make clouds that would reflect sunlight and cool the horribly warm planet.

Mike Kelly,
Privately I agree with you, but publicly (on this forum) I prefer to avoid the politics. No point getting derailed from discussing this very interesting bit of news.

I think the longer this goes on, the more vindication there will be for Dr. Svalgaard’s work on polar magnetic fields and his prediction with regard to solar cycle 24. Obviously we will have at least a decade before full confirmation, but pretty soon I think Dikpati and all the other theorists predicting a large cycle 24 are going to be searching for new ideas.
Kim

“…data from the joint NASA and European Space Agency Ulysses mission that reveals the sun’s solar wind is at a 50-year low.”
Will they discuss how this will effect the output of T. Boone’s wind turbines? Will the solar wind be disruptive of solar panel arrays?
“The sun’s current state could result in changing conditions in the solar system.”
The word “could” is often use as a disclaimer. Scientists have to be very cautious about possibly confirming that the Sun has an effect on the Solar System, which, of course, includes planet Earth. Admission of such a fact would place certain scientists in a defensive position.
Attempts at humor aside, this conference may provide the “solar stake” to drive into the heart of the AGW “vampire.”

Since the “climate crisis” hasn’t really lived up to expectation … perhaps NASA’s prepping us for the dreaded “Solar crisis”. No doubt it will involve an instant, massive influx of money from hysterical taxpayers.

NASA will not attempt to make any solar-climate connection in this press conference, I can just about guarantee that. It will probably just be about the sun and the solar system, with little reference to possible effects on earth’s climate.

Me think, NASA discovered carbon in the sun,
and calculated it’s “carbon-footprint”
…. so politicians can calculate how to tax the sun. LOL

I hate to be a party pooper, but NASA has a history of telegraphing “important announcements”, that get the media and blogo-sphere buzzing, before disappointing their expectant public with a relatively benign piece of research.
As we know from reading this blog, the current lack of sunspots does not signal any kind of catastrophe (yet), much as some people here might like it to. I’m reminded of the 3 year ocean circulation research that gave certain people the impression that the North Atlantic Drift was “shutting down”. Unfortunately for the researchers, it turned out to be a natural cycle (like so much in Science these days!). It wouldn’t surprise me if NASA were going to spin some fact or other in a catastrophic light, and then propose funding some more research/little space vehicles, to find out what’s really going on.

NASA Conference to announce Hansen resigning from Lehman Bros. advisory position. Graphics shows inverted hockey stick which was erroneously used in carbon trading scheme for Gore. I am sorry I could not resist.

Leif – I really enjoy and learn from your posting here. You’re a patient man.

but right now the solar wind is just were it was 100 years ago, so the Sun is not doing something strange
100 years ago earth was cooler. so low solar wind ~1900 = cooler. low solar wind ~2008 = cooler; is this not what we’ve seen over the last decade? Temps peaking and dropping in conjunction with the peak and fall of solar activity?
I agree, it’s not “doing something strange,” it’s doing what does. Irrespective of whatever causal mechanisms we have or have not discovered, the sun varies and takes our climate with it on the ride.

Leif: I am grateful for the explanations and patience.
About oceans … I am awaiting a marine scientist responsible … the same way that Dr Leif is a competent solar scientist.

Hi Leif,
Could you please answer this question for me?
UV doubles from solar maximum to solar minimum. UV reacts with oxygen and forms ozone. When electromagnetic radiation peaks at solar maximum, ozone levels rise about 3% in the stratosphere.
In the late 70’s, NASA placed a satellite over Antarctica and found a hole in the ozone layer. The hole increased during the winter season in the Southern Hemisphere. We blamed and banded CFC’s.
With the sudden decrease in solar activity over the last 400 days and with the winter season coming to an end in the Southern Hemisphere, does NASA satellites show an increase in the hole in the ozone layer? And, if so, does that help acquit CFC’s, or are they still guilty of destroying the Ozone layer?
Thanks for your time,
Jeff Wiita

The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. It seems that Leif and NASA are operating on the absence of evidence as if it were the equivalent of evidence of absence. Clearly a logical error, but one that most scientist commit from time to time.
“We have no studies to indicate that . . . .” “I know of no evidence that . . . .” and so on. Using an absence of evidence to imply the evidence of absence. Science has a way to go to grow out of moronic ignorance.

If the end is at hand, I would suggest buying this CD for your final moments. It is a Mass written for the year 1000 AD. It is sung by a group of four sopranos and listening to them is to hear the angles sing!
Since the world didn’t come to an end in the year 1000 or even the year Y2K, I suggest we recycle the music for the next apocalypse.
1000: A Mass for the End of Time / Anonymous 4
http://www.amazon.com/1000-Mass-End-Time-4/dp/B00004UFGW/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1221865859&sr=1-7
Steamboat Jack

Angels not angles!
hey, I’m an engineer. What do you expect!
Steamboat Jack

The earth’s magnetic field has decreased by about 10% in the last 100 years and the rate seems to be accelerating slightly.
If cosmic rays do affect climate, will this decline have any impact on future climate?

Leif,
How could the earth still have a degree to cool down. The total warming was never more than 0.7C to begin. Almost all of which has been lost in the last 10 years.

For sunspot numbers, start with http://www.spaceweather.com, and follow the links from there.

The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. It seems that Leif and NASA are operating on the absence of evidence as if it were the equivalent of evidence of absence. Clearly a logical error, but one that most scientist commit from time to time.

Such a thing, however, is not a license for making stuff up…

I suggest we all rug up it will get cold in the years to come.

“looks like David Archibald was spot on after all….”
No, Landesciedt was. Years ago….

http://www.dxlc.com/solar/old_reports/
This site has the solar record going back to 2004 in a graphical form containing solar flux, Planetary -A index and daily sunpot. I can find a grpahic for solar wind, but only the current daily updated. I cannot find anywhere a record for the solar wind.
http://www.dxlc.com/solar/history/
This link has selected graphs going back to 1954.
Again, no link will take you to the historic of the Solar Wind.
So, if NASA is saying that the solar wind in the lowest in 50 years (since 1958) I cannot find the data on which they base this.
I assume they mean a weekly or monthly average.
If someone know WHERE you get the hist. data on solar wind, I’d like to know BEFORE they go a give this big report.
Not that I don’t trust them, I just like to see the proof in the pudding.

Dr. Svalgaard’s comment that Stanford is “flat as a pancake” comes as quite a surprise! When I lived there as a young boy we used to fly kites on the beautiful Kite Hill, since turned into faculty housing. Cow Hill, atop which sits the “The Dish,” Stanford’s well-known radio telescope, was last used for sledding on snow in 1974. It is a mighty hill, with nearly 500 feet of vertical drop. I admit that only two or three hundred of that could be used on a single sledding run 🙂
If I happen to be visiting family during the next Bay Area snowstorm I will be sure to look for the good doctor and offer to lend him my sled 🙂

I ALWAYS said the quiet Sun was the most fascinating thing to watch. Apparently so.

During the winter of 1998-1999, I remember 12″ deep snow at the top of Page Mill Road, 10 miles due west of Stanford.

The http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/08/13/spotless-days-400-and-counting/ post commented on upcoming milestones of number of spotless days. It said, “total spotless days of the previous ten solar minima: 309, 273, 272, 227, 446, 269, 568, 534, ~1019 and ~931. The current count of 362 spotless days is not even close to the longest.” We are nearing the next one. Depending on how many sunspots we get in the next while, the next milestones are near:
446: Sept 29, 2008
534: Dec 26, 2008
568: Jan 29, 2009
If we only get a few sunspots here and there, then these dates will only be pushed back a week or two. I wonder if the longer this period is, the weaker solar cycle 24 will be.
John M Reynolds

Dr. S,
As always I enjoy your sense of humor and your semi infinite patience.

“we have no evidence for a gorilla in the closet”.
I’m glad you cleared this up Dr. Svalgaard. Somethings been making an awful racket in there for a few days now… (Turned out to be the cat)

While all this stuff about the sun is really interesting I tend to agree with the idea that it is the water of this planet that is the main driver of climatic change.
The polar waters loose a great deal of energy every year.It is the water of our polar seas that is the main source of cooling for our oceans.
When 10 million square Km. of sea ice melts it cools off more sea water which sinks below the reach of summers sunlight. When all that water freezes it causes even more cold water to sink. How much? How cold? don’t know. When it comes to ice covered water there is a great deal less of this cooling going on under the protective layer of multi-year ice.
To me, the greater the loss of sea ice area the greater the loss of thermal energy the next winter. Melting first year sea ice is colder than melting multi-year ice. Multi-year sea ice melts about one meter per season while reforming the same amount. First year ice forms and melts about twice this amount. Colder and more of it. Where does all this cold water go? Hydrolic pressure pushing this way and that.
As an aside, surface waters at the equator are still colder close to Equador and the drift is Westward.

Who is making things up?

Those who claim that because there’s no evidence of their pet theory that it could still be happening. You know, like Astrology, Psychic powers, etc.

Sorry I am late everybody. Seems like a rather lively and interesting debate. Having read down it doesn’t seem as if there is much for me to comment on – either because my own questions andthose of others on here seem to have been answered sufficiently or because the topic being discussed or expounded upon is not interesting to me. But I will add this to our discussion.
I have always lived by the mantra that being an ‘expert’ on anything does not ensure that you are always right, it just makes it less likely for you to be wrong. But even so there is still a wide field and as many roads (if not more) lead to failure as to success for even the best minds. Just ask Leif, as one representative of a small patch of what we call science. Also, let us not forget the scientific method has very strict criteria for admitting something into the realm of truth for very good reasons.
When one fights very hard against an opponent, it is easy sometimes and particularly in debates to absorb the tendencies of one’s opponent, especially when that opponent is particularly powerful and influential. Having observed the opposition myself, let me caution us here against three things:
1. The use of ‘common sense’ arguments with that include scientific language to make them sound like the genuine article.
2. Impatience at the ignorance of science.
3. Being unaware that science is perpetually incomplete and has no set pace of achievements.
Explanation: For the first, if we value science, we must uphold the scientific method as the law of the land. The opposition does not do this with anything approaching consistency, despite the many scientists in its ranks. No matter how much sense an argument may make to you, or what you feel you have heard or read from trusted sources, if it has not been through the gauntlet that the scientific method demands then it should be treated with great caution and regarded with a high degree of skepticism. This must even apply to things we hold dear as well, even if we feel the opposition is trying to cover them up to gain some advantage.
Second, because of our desire to know things, it can often be frustrating when we are not certain or just plain do not know. If anything does, science is supposed to give us a form of certainty about our world even while our own science denies the ability to be absolutely sure about anything. It is a scientists job to say honestly when we just do not know. Just because our opposition is in a rush to say that we do know, that the science is settled when it is to their liking. let us not follow them in trying to make the science settled to our own liking. The science is simply not settled one way or the other yet, and it must be allowed to be so for as long as it needs.
Third, we are prone to a pace of what we like to call ‘progress.’ We assume that because we have come thus far technologically that we should be on schedule for learning and solving the mysteries that confront us. We ought to know this by now becomes we do know this now. Even with things we are well familiar with, such as gravity for example, we still have many, many unanswered questions. There is no guarantee we will have them answered, and if we do they will very likely lead to more questions (perhaps the only thing science can guarantee with absolute certainty). There is much that we know but also much more that we think we know that we do not. Recognizing this and making the distinction is one of the paths to wisdom and truth (I mean in the real and practical sense, not in the Zen-like you-should-use-Yellowbook sense).
For most here I do not doubt the motivations are honest and sincere in the attempt to understand and to help in our small part here to circumvent the obvious global-scale political aspirations of our opponents. So it is more with a sense of self-awareness than with anything else that I ask us to act, a self-awareness that realizes our own weaknesses and tendencies first, even while we act with boldness and courage once we ascertain the truth.
Lastly, we will see the measure of these scientists in what they speak about. If they go to things related to their field, yet not directly in its purvue (as no doubt many in the media would like them to) then we shall know their quality (low). If they shy away from this, and avoid the three pitfalls I have outlined above in their explanations to the press and those of us listening in online, then we shall have good reason to think better of them. So listen carefully and judge carefully. No doubt there will be much to discuss.

The following is a simple way to understand why and how it is possible that the sun has small impact in the changes of climate/weather
There is the thermodynamic model of the sun and a planet as a stove and a kettle. Sun on, kettle boils( day side) sun off kettle freezes (night side). This fits the moon very well.
The earth is different and, evidently, must follow a different thermodynamic model. A simple example is the air conditioner. The power source is steady, can even play within 5% , the temperature and humidity is controlled by the thermostat, and NOT by the power source.
The power source ( sun) is necessary but is not sufficient to describe the earth’s response. A many parameter system is necessary (ocean currents, air currents, precipitation, evaporation, cloud formation,…) , similar to a thermostat, since for millions of years there has been no tipping point into a boiling earth or a snowball earth.
People who think “it is the sun stupid” should ponder a bit on the last example.

Jeff Alberts (21:23:50) :
“Who is making things up?
Those who claim that because there’s no evidence of their pet theory that it could still be happening. You know, like Astrology, Psychic powers, etc.”
Beware single-issue experts with pet theories:
http://thefatbigot.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-expert-is-expert.html

Wow! This is just great. This is absolutely fascinating & even incredible! Years of “models” telling exactly when the Sun will start Cycle 24, a dead cert, how furious it will be, another dead cert, shifting the start dates by “tuning & refining” the model because it didn’t start when they thought. Is this really the start of things? I ‘ve noted that the Met Office (UK) have declared that this winter maybe/possibly/could be/might be/ may just/be a little tad colder this time! I am no synic of course, being a half-century old engineer but it appears to me that rear-ends are being covered here, so that all the old rhetoric will be dressed up as being “merely indications based solely on the available science at the time,” etc., despite many scientists, economists, & policymakers saying “hold on just one minute lets not be too hasty here!” I’ve been reading this website & ICECAP & CA for several years & all that’s been said appears to be bearing fruit. We’ve had warnings from “those in the know” about global cooling for a set period, eg, to 2015, 2018, 2020, making 20 years of cooling, all after it started to occur, now we’re getting the works. Somehow I still think CO2 will get blamed even for this one! Perhaps it’s escaping thro’ the atmosphere (only the anthropogenic stuff naturally) being dragged towards the Sun by gravitational pull & shutting down the Sun’s magnetic field, has to be true, just has to be, the debate is over! We’re running out of time! Where is a good old Serbian astrophysisist when you need one? We’re all doomed, Captain Mainwearing!
Does anyone out there in the blogosphere know where I can buy a really top notch Crystal Ball, my old one appears to be firing on only two cylinders?
Apologies for this grumpy old rant but it’s just my age. I am fed up with eco-hysteria & Man being tried, found guilty in his “absence” from the trial by his worst enemy, himself!

anna v, as an engineer that analogy annoys. Power fluctuations to the unit will most certainly affect its output and the thermostat is merely switching the actual power source. Maybe you could find a better one – although I can see the point you are trying to make.

I agree with Roy,
I urge everyone to read ‘The Chilling Stars – A Cosmic View of Climate Change’, by Henrik Svensmark and Nigel Calder (Icon Books Ltd, 2008). It is a very accessible, very absorbing, and incredibly important read given the current state of things.
I do very much believe that, whatever NASA say at the much awaited conference, hummanity as a whole has been so self-absorbed and so self-important that we have been ‘barking up the wrong tree’ with regards to climate change. We should have paid more attention to the myriad of ancient civilisations who were obsessed with solar activity.
Oli
http://www.ocook.net

I can think of a few simple questions:
1.) Might this be an indication as to temporary fuel pressure loss in the Sun (aging process)?
Are you certain that the loss of open magnetic flux is the end of the chain, and that it does not indicate an even deeper loss.

“Except it still has a long way to go [like a degree or so] to get down to where it was.” – Leif
And he has a hockey stick to prove it.
Ross McKitrick has produced a peer reviewed study, that to my knowledge has not been refuted that puts the number at half that. The rest seems to have a very high correlation with human economic activity. Where I live there is significant warming on one side of the lake, Vermont, where population has grown significantly, and far less warming on the other side of the lake, The Adirondack Park, where economic activity has all but frozen since the 19th century, and populatio has dropped significantly since the ’60s.

When an ‘expert’ scientist claims that something can’t happen, he is almost certainly wrong. When he says that something is possible, he is often right.

So when we’re told unequivocally that current warming is unprecedented it’s most likely wrong? Or when we’re told that humans are definitely causing this unprecedented warming it’s most likely wrong?
As for the ozone hole. As far as we know it’s always been there and always will be. It hasn’t changed appreciably since it was discovered in the mid ’50s.

Anna V:
Many of the people who say that the sun has an influence aren’t saying its only the sun. But we understand that the sun does have an influence. The correlation between global temperatures over the last 600+ years and sunspot activity is too large to deny. Now, does the thermal input change dramtically? No. But other things seem to – this includes changes in the sun’s magnetic fields, leading to the cosmic ray/cloud formation theory. I haven’t looked into Pamela’s UV theory to say that its realistic or not, but it is interesting. THe cosmic ray theory though could very well explain the little ice age and colder temperatures last century.
Additionally, many of us here argue that the asorption bands that CO2 is supposed to have an influence on are heavilly saturated, and that due to reradiation effects, CO2 influence is near its asymptote on afffecting temperatures. My old PhD advisor was telling me last year he had spent a significant amount of time examining the issue, and had come to the conclusion that many of the CO2 claims are insuportable. He is a carefull, brutally intelligent guy who makes me look like a mouthbreather – but he had come to the same conclusion I had.
So, sure, the atmosphere acts like a regulator system. But I’d like you to remember – to keep your house temperature at a constant, the air conditioner has to work at longer or shorter times, depending on the outside temperature. Earth’s air conditioner has operated for billions of years without the runaway affect you have insinuated – including operating at significantly higher CO2 levels than we see now. This impies a system that with significant feedback affects that are not easily overcome.
Over ten years ago, I argued with my AGW friends that I would wait ten years to see if there was some significant impact. After all, if things were as bad as they were saying in the 90’s (and with the mouth spittle reactions in ’98) surely by 2008 things would be really bad. That hasn’t happened. Given that things haven’t quite gone the way the AGW crowd said they would ten years ago, I’m willing to state we need to wait another ten years before we wreck our economy on unsupportable energy policies (not that its not close to a wreck now).
Am I an anti-progress freak? No – but I believe energy has given humanity more freedom to reach its potential than anything else we have developed. I am all for more nuclear (and no, we don’t have to store the waste for 10K years – there are alternatives -even alternatives to using uranium as the fuel source). If wind is effective, lets use it. If solar works (cost effectively) we can use it too. Kyoto specifically stated that nuclear could not be used as an alternative to meet its requirements. Doesn’t that say something about the intentions of its writers? Certainly what I’ve seen at CA says something about them too….
By the way, until we do have a good mobile fuel alternative – drill here. Drill now.

NASA press release from 1996, showing strong evidence of life on Mars.
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/marslife.html
the findings are thought to be strong evidence pointing to primitive bacterial life on Mars.
—-
Don Savage
Headquarters, Washington, DC March 14, 1997
(Phone: 202/358-1547)
Linda Copley
Johnson Space Center, Houston TX
(Phone: 281/483-5111)
NOTE TO EDITORS: N97-18
PRESS BRIEFING TO PRESENT NEW DATA AND STATUS OF
‘PAST LIFE ON MARS’ DEBATE SCHEDULED FOR MARCH 19
Seven months after NASA’s initial announcement
suggesting that a Martian meteorite shows life may have
existed on ancient Mars, a panel of science experts will
present new data and deliver a progress report on the
continuing “Past Life on Mars” discussion at a press briefing
scheduled for 1 p.m. EST, Wednesday, March 19, in the media
briefing room at the Johnson Space Center (JSC), Houston, TX.
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/text/nasa_pr_970314.txt

Leif,
Anthony,
re: wattsupwiththat (08:04:20) :
…Dr. Leif Svalgaard as the WUWT “official solar physicist”….
I do totally agree with that. There needs to be someone, who put’s
us – scientifically – down to earth – in some cases.
Pro Leif:
Yesterday, I had some good old friends (since the mid-seventies) from
Flensburg and Apenrade (danish Åbenrå) and from Netherlands were here.
They had two bottles of Ålborg’s Jubileaums Aquavit with them.
Oh my dear, awaking was tough. Ahm still amazed that my head fits through the doors. So my expirience is: Two bottles of Aquavit and two boxes of
Flensburg Pilsener (16 x 0.5 Liters each, “BeugelBuddelBeer”) are beyond anything good. But is was nevertheless a long and funny night.
One of the friends is still with the German Sea Rescue Service Society,
http://www.dgzrs.de
or
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dgzrs
english: http://www.dgzrs.de/index.php?id=265
(“We go out when everybody else tries to get in”).
One is still with the Netherlands Sea Rescue Service, another is
already retired.
Have much fun and keep posting
KlausB

Leif: “In Denmark we drink that stuff for breakfast, some people drink something worse called Gammel Dansk 🙂
Does warm you up on a cold winter’s morning.”
Do we drink Jubilæumsakvavit for breakfast? I didn’t know that. Not in our family. Perhaps in Leif’s 😉
Schnapps (eg Jubilæumsakvavit) is usually enjoyed at lunch or dinner time. It is particularly popular around Easter and Christmas when we also eat pickled heering (sometimes the heering is fried also) and drink lots of beer with it.
Gammel Dansk is a different story. The awful bitter is loosing popularity but yes it is(was) often enjoyed at breakfast time with “rundstykker” (a kind of breakfast rolls)

I’m not sure what they’ll have to say about the solar system, but I’m a bit worried that they will try and pre-empt the “deniers” of climate change by providing an explanation for recent cooling. In simplified terms, it could go like this:
1. Higher CO2 levels lead to higher temperatures.
2. Over the past century, while the sun was behaving “normally”, the increase in man-made CO2 was therefore responsible for rising temperatures.
3. However, the sun is now entering a temporary period of abnormally weak output which will lead to cooler temperatures.
4. This doesn’t mean that man-made global warming is a hoax, but rather that a new, extraordinary, one-time event is occurring that will temporarily offset the effects of rising CO2 on temperatures.
5. We still need to reduce CO2 emissions while the world cools down because when the sun eventually returns to “normal” output in X years, we will witness a dramatic spike in temperatures, reverting to the previous trend, if CO2 levels have been allowed to continue rising.
Not sure how we would respond to such a line of reasoning.

It is silly to assume that variation in solar activity plays no measurable or significant part in climate change. Evidence and support literally abounds in the literature. Even IPCC considers some measure of increased solar activity as cause of the increase of the first half of last century’s temperatures.
“Similarly, the Modern Maximum is partly responsible for global warming, especially the temperature increases between 1900 and 1950. Residual warming due to the sustained high level of activity since 1950 is believed responsible for 16 to 36% of recent warming (Stott et al. 2003).”
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Sunspot_Numbers_png
As to attempts to downplay increased solar activity:
“Solar activity before 1882 is lower than generally assumed and consequently solar activity in the last few decades is higher than it has been for several centuries.”
http://www.springerlink.com/content/j88xl5q6u7931728/

Leif,
Since the sun basically consists of H and He what mechanism is responsible for the sun’s magnetic fields?

Ric,
Now that you mention the Galveston Hurricane, the period 1900 -1915 encompasses two small solar cycles and a significant drop in global temperature, and the two Galveston Hurricanes occured during two solar minima. 1900 was said to be a Cat 4, and the 1915 was said to bring sea surges of +20 feet to Galveston.

“I once said that you would only use or believe ‘official ‘ numbers.”
Huh? So what if you said that. Probably you mean I said that, but I didn’t. You may have misunderstood, but regardless there really is no point in arguing what you claim is wrong with literature. My quotes stand on their own, unless you wish to claim quotemining.
“There is no ‘additional’ support”
Uh, yes, I have provided additional support. More just today, in fact.

Leif,
Regarding the magnetic properties of the sun that edcon asked about, don’t extremely compressed gasses aquire metallic properties. I have a memory/delusion that I read that somewhere.