Via Roger Pielke Sr. climatescience blog:
At the December 2008 NRC meeting “Detection and Attribution of Solar Forcing on Climate” [see] there was extensive criticism by Gavin Schmidt and others on the research of Nicola Scafetta with respect to solar climate forcings. He was not, however, invited to that December meeting.
There is now a new paper that he has published that needs to be refuted or supported by other peer reviewed literature (rather than comments in a closed NRC meeting in which the presentors would not share their powerpoint talks).
The new paper is
Scafetta N., R. C. Willson (2009), ACRIM-gap and TSI trend issue resolved using a surface magnetic flux TSI proxy model, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L05701, doi:10.1029/2008GL036307.
The abstract reads
“The ACRIM-gap (1989.5-1991.75) continuity dilemma for satellite TSI observations is resolved by bridging the satellite TSI monitoring gap between ACRIM1 and ACRIM2 results with TSI derived from Krivova et al.’s (2007) proxy model based on variations of the surface distribution of solar magnetic flux. ‘Mixed’ versions of ACRIM and PMOD TSI composites are constructed with their composites’ original values except for the ACRIM gap, where Krivova modeled TSI is used to connect ACRIM1 and ACRIM2 results. Both ‘mixed’ composites demonstrate a significant TSI increase of 0.033%/decade between the solar activity minima of 1986 and 1996, comparable to the 0.037% found in the ACRIM composite. The finding supports the contention of Willson (1997) that the ERBS/ERBE results are flawed by uncorrected degradation during the ACRIM gap and refutes the Nimbus7/ERB ACRIM gap adjustment Fröhlich and Lean (1998) employed in constructing the PMOD.”
A key statement in the conclusion reads
“This finding has evident repercussions for climate change and solar physics. Increasing TSI between 1980 and 2000 could have contributed significantly to global warming during the last three decades [Scafetta and West, 2007, 2008]. Current climate models [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007] have assumed that the TSI did not vary significantly during the last 30 years and have therefore underestimated the solar contribution and overestimated the anthropogenic contribution to global warming.”
Interestingly, TSI has been on a slight downtrend in the past few years as we get closer to solar minimum. The graph below is from the ACRIM project page.
Click for a large image
It remains to be seen if we have hit the minimum yet.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
My final comment was in reference to the “graphic at the head of Anthony’s story.
The ACRIM site has another interesting plot besides the one Anthony shows above http://acrim.com/ It show the TSI results from the various satellites that have been measuring the value since 1979. It is real clear why it is so hard to get a solid value for TSI and whatever trends it their may have been in the last 30 years let alone over longer periods of time. The plot Anthony showed had a slope in the curves of about -0.003 to -.009 percent per year (I think this is normalized data) since the sunspot max, but the trend since 2000 has been -0.014 percent per year in the ACRIM3 data or -.2 W/m2 per year in real units.
Dorlomin (03:19:58) : There is a greenhouse effect, though not the strawman you have attacked.
Lindsay was quoting from the abstract of the paper he linked.
aron, to be fair, that comment by Gore is a compliment not an insult. it is an old joke to say “that guy has forgotten more than i will ever learn” meaning that they are so learned that they have forgotten more than most will ever even have the chance to learn.
Ah . . . Total Solar Irradiance . . . I was just testing you guys.
LOL, thanks!
Grant
OT
another cycle twenty three tiny tim has formed.
However small the TSI variability actually is there really does seem to be a closer match to climate changes than anything in the CO2 measurements.
The current absence of a generally accepted mechanism is not good grounds for denying the existence of a relationship.
If with more and better data we find a stronger correlation then that is good evidence for a causal mechanism even though we don’t know what the causal mechanism is.
I remain sceptical that TSI is the primary driver of the observed temperature data reported as the global temperature anomaly, but then I think the main drivers are local and regional effects, UHI, aerosols, land use changes, etc.
If these could be removed perhaps the temperature changes we would be left with are due to TSI with some contribution from GHGs.
There is consensus across the scientific community regarding climate change….
Oh really? There isn’t even consensus in the AGW community about it.
At the recent Copenhagen conference they were raving about the increasing and accelerating sea-level rise attributable to Greenland ice melting faster than ever and faster than previously feared. Yet, at the same Conference they were presenting calm data that showed that an alleged “melting tipping point” was actually much further away than previously thought as Greenland’s ice is NOT as susceptible to warming as previously assumed.
Both stories carried in the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/mar/08/climate-change-flooding (sunday 8th March 2009)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/10/greenland-ice-sheet-climate-change
(Tuesday 10th March 2009)
No points or prizes for guessing which of the two above stories coming out of the Copenhagen conference the BBC reported and which one they ignored!
Re: Aron’s comment
Aron, just to correct — when Gore said, as you quoted above:
“James Lovelock has forgotten more about science than I will ever learn.”
That was intended by Gore to be a compliment, not a criticism. (Ironically, though, it’s a form of compliment usually paid by one “man of science” deferentially to another, more senior person. But since Gore took only one (an intro) course in science while at Harvard, that is perhaps an unintended example of ‘damning by faint praise”)’
So — the takeaway is, unsurprisingly, that Gore is in love with the “Gaia” stuff.
So when are urban heat islands going to be brought up as a main driver of surface measurement data? I know they say they correct for it, but wouldn’t it be better to move the stations to a proper spot with proper data collection?
The surface stations could be operated remotely now, if it can be done with buoys(JASON) it can be done with surface stations. With the billions being wasted trying to prove a hoax, why not do the simple science stuff first. It would be interesting to see what the results would be if only surface stations that still could achieve accreditation were used.
Unless the obvious answer, you don’t want to know.
Do we have temperature guages working on Mars? If earth may be heading toward doom, perhaps its worth sprinkling Mars with temperature guages or finding a satisfactory way to monitor temperature on a number of spots on Mars to see if the sun might be to blame before going to the astronomical cost of sequestering every extra CO2 molecule we make.
“Mike Monce (05:42:26) :
Dorlomin,
Please read the paper Lindsay cited. I, also, was willing to concede some CO2 greenhouse effect until I just recently went through this paper. I found the paper to be well done and very thorough in its treatment.”
Then read one of the rebuttals.
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0802/0802.4324v1.pdf
And while your at it may I suggest drafting a couple of letters, one to Richard Lidzen who famously wrote this….
“”… [T]he impact of CO2 on the Earth’s heat budget is nonlinear. What this means is that although CO2 has only increased about 30% over its pre-industrial level, the impact on the heat budget of the Earth due to the increases in CO2 and other man influenced greenhouse substances has already reached about 75% of what one expects from a doubling of CO2, and that the temperature rise seen so far is much less (by a factor of 2-3) than models predict (assuming that all of the very irregular change in temperature over the past 120 years or so—about 1 degree F—is due to added greenhouse gases—a very implausible assumption).”.”
And another to Freeman Dyson who wrote this widely published piec
“Everyone agrees that the increasing abundance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has two important consequences, first a change in the physics of radiation transport in the atmosphere”
Id be grateful if you would post any responce from Freeman Dyson suggesting he does not understand basic physics.
Ken Hall (07:26:38) :
“No points or prizes for guessing which of the two above stories coming out of the Copenhagen conference the BBC reported and which one they ignored!”
Which is why the MSM has lost so much mindshare. They have yet to grok the public’s migration to internet is a direct result of credibility loss. BBC, wire services, PBS, etc. don’t even hide their rubber-stamped scripts, and then stare like a deer in headlights at their audience exodus.
Blogs and alt news sites, like mimeographed newsletters of yore, will gain mindshare proportional to MSM loss of street cred.
Moderator: Is there a guide to text formatting for posts at MUWT?
Philip_B (07:16:25) :
“However small the TSI variability actually is there really does seem to be a closer match to climate changes”
Evidence suggests otherwise. TSI a hundred years ago was no different from what it has been the last decade, but temperatures were, so “where is the beef”?
Ken Hall
Re the Guardian story of rising sea levels.
The press always raises the deluge of the Ganges delta and other such places that would ensue if the sea level rose. I have never come across an objection to this outcome. It is well known that when sea level rises (or a delta slumps) that the river silt is arrested by the rising waters, drops its silt and builds up the delta again. Since the last ice age, Mississippi delta has risen 130 metres or so, keeping pace with rising sea levels. The added bonus for a place like Bangladesh is that aggrading of the river waters builds up the new land with fertile soil. I suspect there weren’t enough geologists invited to the AGW party when it got going.
Hmmmph. I was explaining to my wife and nephew just last night that it was the heliosphere blocking cosmic rays and thus preventing cloud formation that was the sun’s contribution to global warning and not radiance. Now I gotta re-do my rant. RATS! “The Science is settled!” Indeed.
For a glimpse at just how consensus is arrived at, take a look at Professor Mike Hulme’s guest post in Roger Pielke, Jr.’s Prometheus about the Copenhagen conference.
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/obama-on-cap-and-trade-climate-impacts-and-chicken-little-5054#comments
Jeff Id has an interesting commentary on Professor’s Hulme’s piece here:
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2009/03/14/an-interesting-post-on-prometheus/#more-2726
My own pontification in the matter is that while the science may not be settled the politics almost certainly are. We are watching Alinsky type tactics being played out before our very eyes. If a cap-and-trade bill is not in place soon, watch for a million man march on Washington demanding immediate action, which will be followed by executive orders and EPA regulations, bowing to the clear will of the people. Think November 9, 1938.
Sorry. That first link should have been:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/what-was-the-copenhagen-climate-change-conference-really-about-5055#comments
I really gotta see about a new prescription.
Eye glasses! I’m Talking Eye-glasses!
Is there an explanation for Fröhlich’s reconstruction appearing to be about ten times less variable than Willson’s? One also wonders about the level change before and after 1990 in Fröhlich’s data when compared to Willson’s.
Hugo M (08:38:19) :
Is there an explanation for Fröhlich’s reconstruction appearing to be about ten times less variable than Willson’s?
One is daily values, the other monthly means. This is a reasonable trade-off to show the levels as otherwise the blue points would be largely covered up by the red ones.
So why does the top graph say “LEIF2007” and not “SVALGAARD2007”? Is Leif the only scientist referred to only by his first name in the literature? 😉
Hadrcut us out. Down for Feb at 0.345
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh%2bsh/monthly
Jeff Alberts (08:54:41) :
So why does the top graph say “LEIF2007″ and not “SVALGAARD2007″? Is Leif the only scientist referred to only by his first name in the literature? 😉
Tycho comes to mind
I actually produced that graph and there was room in the Maunder Minimum period for LEIF2007 and not for SVALGAARD2007. Also a nice play on the four-letter LEAN.
Dear Leif:
Evidence suggests otherwise. TSI a hundred years ago was no different from what it has been the last decade, but temperatures were, so “where is the beef”?
Oceans are the missed point. Oceans act as modulators of Earth’s climate, i.e. thermostats. Any changes of SI mean a change of temperature on planets; nevertheless, oceans may delay the effects or enhance them. Evidence points to a warming of the whole solar system; however, planets like Mars and Venus, which have not oceans, suffer of extremes violent changes, while on Earth those changes are smoothed by the large amounts of liquid, solid and gaseous water.
Nasif Nahle (09:04:41) :
“Evidence suggests otherwise. TSI a hundred years ago was no different from what it has been the last decade, but temperatures were, so “where is the beef”?
Oceans are the missed point. Oceans act as modulators of Earth’s climate, i.e. thermostats. Any changes of SI mean a change of temperature on planets; nevertheless, oceans may delay the effects or enhance them.
The evidence claimed is that there is no delay between TSI and temps. TSI was small around 1900 and Temp was low around 1900, not 1900+D. How large would you say D is? 1 year? 10 years? 100 years? 1000 years?
Leif Svalgaard (09:18:26) :
TSI was small around 1900 and Temp was low around 1900, not 1900+D.
For clarification, the claim is that TSI was small. My argument is that TSI was the same, but temps were different, hence no connection. With a suitable D [you tell me what it is] one might restore a connection. But with a free parameter, like D, it is easy to find correlations…