Quick primer:
Beryllium-10 is an isotope that is a proxy for the sun’s activity. Be10 is produced in the atmosphere by cosmic ray collisions with atoms of oxygen and nitrogen. Beryllium 10 concentrations are linked to cosmic ray intensity which can be a proxy for solar strength.
One way to capture earth’s record of that proxy data is to drill deep ice cores. Greenland, due to having a large and relatively stable deep ice sheet is often the target for drilling ice cores.
Isotopic analysis of the ice in the core can be linked to temperature and global sea level variations. Analysis of the air contained in bubbles in the ice can reveal the palaeocomposition of the atmosphere, in particular CO2 variations. Volcanic eruptions leave identifiable ash layers.
While it sounds simple to analyze, there are issues of ice compression, flow, and other factors that must be taken into consideration when doing reconstructions from such data. I attended a talk at ICCC 09 that showed one of the ice core operations had procedures that left significant contamination issues for CO2. But since Beryllium is rather rare, it doesn’t seem to have the same contamination issues attached. – Anthony
Be-10 and Climate
Guest post by David Archibald
A couple of years ago on Climate Audit, I undertook to do battle with Dr Svalgaard’s invariate Sun using Dye 3 Be10 data. And so it has come to pass. Plotted up and annotated, the Dye 3 data shows the strong relationship between solar activity and climate. Instead of wading through hundreds of papers for evidence of the Sun’s influence on terrestrial climate, all you have to do is look at this graph.
All the major climate minima are evident in the Be10 record, and the cold period at the end of the 19th century. This graph alone demonstrates that the warming of the 20th century was solar-driven.
The end of the Little Ice Age corresponded with a dramatic decrease in the rate of production of Be10, due to fewer galactic cosmic rays getting into the inner planets of the solar system. Fewer galactic cosmic rays got into the inner planets because the solar wind got stronger. The solar wind got stronger because the Sun’s magnetic field got stronger, as measured by the aa Index from 1868.
Thus the recent fall of aa Index and Ap Index to lows never seen before in living memory is of considerable interest. This reminds me of a line out of Aliens: “Stay frosty people!” Well, we won’t have any choice – it will get frosty.
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David J Ameling (16:26:55) :
Increasing the concentration of CO2 just quickens the emitting of photons absorbed by CO2 back to earth which warms.
You have just explained the greenhouse effect.
This warming causes more photons to be radiated by earth, most of these reradiated photons will not be absorbable by CO2.
But they will. Many are of in the right wavelength band to be absorbed by H2O, CO2 and O3, and not be able to get out to space again. [half of them].
David J Ameling (16:26:55) :
There is no greenhouse effect.
If this is the staring point, then no amount of discussion can have any effect, so is not useful. There is a greenhouse effect. The important issue is how much of that is due to H20 and to CO2, how much is caused by man, and what the feedback mechanism my be that regulate all of this. As Roy Spencer points out, water vapor may be such a strong regulator [through precipitation] that the Earth effectively may have a thermostat that vis feedbacks keep the temperature close to what it is, combined with the heat storage in the oceans, that the current [short-lived] anthropogenic CO2 enhancement may have very little effect. To blindly state that there is ‘no greenhouse effect’ is not the way to deal with the important debate going on.
In response to Leif Svalgaard (16:09:15)
With regard to our possible misunderstanding regarding my intentions in raising the issue of assumptions of randomness, I’m going to opt to let that line of discussion expire. Thank you for the comments you have shared.
Regarding my question about mass-imbalances between the poles of the sun, I can try to restate my question:
a) Is there more mass in the solar northern hemisphere than in the solar southern hemisphere? (inside the sun – i.e. I’m not inquiring about the heliosphere more generally)
b) Does this vary over time? If so, how? on what timescales? – in response to what? – etc.
My aim is to learn whether people are being reasonable if they assume symmetry & constancy of the relative distribution of mass (between the poles – inside the sun). I should also clarify that I am not restricting use of the term “pole” to magnetic considerations. My primary curiosity actually relates more to rotation, but I welcome opportunities to learn about dynamic asymmetry with respect to both types of poles.
Leif Svalgaard (16:55:12)
Your saying that half the spectrum radiated by earth is absorbed by GHGs.
Even so every time these absorbable photons are returned to earth there number is halved. It doesn’t take very many halvings to make a negligible.
Increasing the concentration of GHGs just quickens the halvings.
PS
I still think a vauum is a conductor. Ortherwise vacuum tubes never would have worked.
Paul Vaughan (17:10:43) :
a) Is there more mass in the solar northern hemisphere than in the solar southern hemisphere? (inside the sun – i.e. I’m not inquiring about the heliosphere more generally)
If there were more mass in one hemisphere than in the other then the density would be higher and the sound speed therefore higher. Using helioseismology we can measure the speed of sound inside the Sun with extraordinary precision, and we find no signs of any asymmetry.
b) Does this vary over time? If so, how? on what timescales? – in response to what? – etc.
therefore no variation has been detected. The notion of symmetry is not dictated by ‘convenience’ but by no evidence to the contrary. This does not mean that we not in a hundred years time will find very small deviations from symmetry.
Asymmetries like you are hoping for would show themselves as what is called multipoles of the sun’s gravitational field which would have consequences for planetary orbits, and none are found in spite of the extraordinary precision modern astronomy works at, of the order of meters [~40 inches].
My aim is to learn whether people are being reasonable if they assume symmetry & constancy of the relative distribution of mass (between the poles – inside the sun).
Scientists [especially solar physicists 🙂 are among the most reasonable people there is. At least, all their work is based on reasoning, so that is what they are trained for and good at.
Leif Svalgaard (17:43:09)
“Asymmetries like you are hoping for …”
I’m not “hoping” for asymmetries, but I am keen about assessing the merits of assumptions. Thank you for your comments.
One last question: Have any interesting variations in the sun’s polar-moments-of-inertia been noted?
Paul Vaughan (18:26:57) :
I’m not “hoping” for asymmetries, but I am keen about assessing the merits of assumptions.
In science we hardly ever make assumptions. What we think we know is forced upon us by the hard and unforgiving data, often much against our will: we want the heavens to be perfect, yet we find the Sun has blemishes, we want the motions to be perfect circles, but we find that they are ellipses, we want space and time to be absolute, but we find they are not, we want life to have meaning, but we find it has not, and so on.
In trying to model what we observe we do make assumptions, but they are carefully chosen to be compatible with the data. Simplifying assumptions are necessary because our computational capabilities are limited, or because we want to express the essence of a cause-and-effect chain without too much distracting detail. For example, if an apple falls from a tree, we can assume that the acceleration of gravity that it feels is constant [although we know quite well that it isn’t] because it does not make a significant difference.
One last question: Have any interesting variations in the sun’s polar-moments-of-inertia been noted?
Not quite sure what you mean, but to change the moment of inertia means a lot of mass will have to be moved, which takes a lot of force. We know of no force strong enough to make a dent. Planetary effects are too small by many orders of magnitude, and as I have already remarked, any changes in the distribution of the mass within the Sun will result in changes in the orbits of the planets. We can observe such orbits with accuracy of 1/10,000,000,000 or better and find no observable changes that are not compatible with our theory of gravitation. In the far reaches of the solar system some people claim that a mysterious anomaly exists [the pioneer anomaly], but changes of the moment of inertia would affect most the planets in the inner solar system, e.g. from the Earth and in.
Paul Vaughan (18:26:57) :
I’m not “hoping” for asymmetries, but I am keen about assessing the merits of assumptions.
In science we hardly ever make assumptions. What we think we know is forced upon us by the hard and unforgiving data, often much against our will: we want the heavens to be perfect, yet we find the Sun has blemishes, we want the motions to be perfect circles, but we find that they are ellipses, we want space and time to be absolute, but we find they are not, we want life to have meaning, but we find it has not, and so on.
In trying to model what we observe we do make assumptions, but they are carefully chosen to be compatible with the data. Simplifying assumptions are necessary because our computational capabilities are limited, or because we want to express the essence of a cause-and-effect chain without too much distracting detail. For example, if an apple falls from a tree, we can assume that the acceleration of gravity that it feels is constant [although we know quite well that it isn’t] because it does not make a significant difference.
One last question: Have any interesting variations in the sun’s polar-moments-of-inertia been noted?
Not quite sure what you mean, but to change the moment of inertia means a lot of mass will have to be moved, which takes a lot of force. We know of no forces strong enough to make a dent. Planetary effects are too small by many orders of magnitude, and as I have already remarked, any changes in the distribution of the mass within the Sun will result in changes in the orbits of the planets. We can observe such orbits with accuracy of 1/10,000,000,000 or better and find no observable changes that are not compatible with our theory of gravitation. In the far reaches of the solar system some people claim that a mysterious anomaly exists [the pioneer anomaly], but changes of the moment of inertia would affect most the planets in the inner solar system, e.g. from the Earth and in.
On the greenhouse effect:
In my opinion here is a confusion of two systems of physics calculations. The classical thermodynamics one, and the quantum statistical. Gerlcih andTscheuschner have attacked it from the thermodynamics part and show that a perpetuum mobile machine is suggested by the usual explanations, (violation of the second law of thermodynamics), without suggesting a classical picture for the observed “green house” effect of the atmosphere. ( as I said, I cannot disagree with their conclusions).
The usual explanation of handwaving photons going up and down is not rigorous in a quantum statistical mechanics presentation to make real sense to a physicist. I suspect double countings but cannot put my finger on it.
I tend to go to the comfortable classical thermodynamic picture that the greenhouse gases must somehow increase the heat capacity of the atmosphere, and thus more heat is retained; not a hot water bottle, but good enough for what we observe.
David J Ameling (17:31:56) :
Even so every time these absorbable photons are returned to earth their number is halved. It doesn’t take very many halvings to make a negligible.
This would be true if the atmosphere was completely opaque, but it is not. If you look at http://www.leif.org/research/Erl71.png you can see that there are ‘windows’ of transmissions. As you go up in altitude the temperature decreases so the downward flux is shifted a bit in wavelength [into one of the windows] and hence can get through.
I still think a vauum is a conductor. Ortherwise vacuum tubes never would have worked.
Take a galls tube, install two plates – one at each end – pump the air out, connect each plate to external electric current, the plates will be charged and a strong electric field will build up, but no current will flow through the tube because the vacuum is the best insulator there is. Now having also placed a thin wire inside the tube near one of the plates, put a strong current through the wire. This causes the wire to heat up [look at a light bulb to see how hot the wire gets – it glows]. As is glows electrons are thrown out of the wire by the thermal vibration of atoms in the wire. These electrons feel the electric field and move towards the other plate and that is what make the vacuum tube work. There is more to it, like a grid of opposite charge, etc, but those are just details. The tube works, not because the vacuum is a conductor, but because we shoot a stream of electrons along the tube.
Take a glass tube,…
In response to Leif Svalgaard’s (21:24:01) comments in italics above:
Leif, in my many interdisciplinary years around universities, including 7.5 years in & around math/stats departments, I’ve seen a lot of terribly – & sometimes absolutely – ridiculous assumptions that were accepted mainly because of who was presenting them (or who couldn’t be bothered to challenge them), but I agree that people are generally trying to do the best they can with what is available. Clearly we need to invest more money and have more people involved in the process – that is my conclusion after seeing the monstrosity of the challenges and the extreme inadequacy of the “supporting” administrative systems. Perhaps more importantly, we also need to do more to get young people understanding nonlinear dynamics – and I don’t mean by sinking them in derivations & proofs – I’m talking about helping them develop intuition that goes beyond our society’s deeply-rooted linear culture. Communication about models is becoming a crippling problem, as evidenced by the recent economic fall.
I’m not sure if you saw where I was going with the moment-of-inertia question, based on how you responded – but I don’t want to leave the impression that I am trying to use you as a ‘personal solar physics tutor’, so I’m going to take a break from this discussion.
Thank you for your comments.
BTW – for all:
Here is an article I read today that I found interesting:
http://images.astronet.ru/pubd/2008/09/28/0001230882/425-439.pdf
Regards,
Paul.
anna v (21:37:52) :
I tend to go to the comfortable classical thermodynamic picture that the greenhouse gases must somehow increase the heat capacity of the atmosphere, and thus more heat is retained;
The question was how the effect is supposed to work. A completely satisfactory explanation will take hundreds of pages [Gerlich andTscheuschner’s paper is already 115 pages and is still not the final word – some say it is absurd and stupid – the usual stuff]. In science we often use a slightly wrong picture to convey the essence, like the Bohr model of the atom [little electrons like planets around their Sun – the nucleus] and the like. The greenhouse effect can also be stated [as you did] simply as saying that GHGs makes it more difficult for the infrared radiation to get out. The error is to postulate that because it is complex it doesn’t exist.
Paul Vaughan (22:04:38) :
I’m not sure if you saw where I was going with the moment-of-inertia question, based on how you responded
It is good style [and basic politeness too] to advertise beforehand where one is going with a line of questions.
Leif Svalgaard (23:04:04) :
It is good style [and basic politeness too] to advertise beforehand where one is going with a line of questions.
Thank you for this suggestion Leif.
Paul.
Leif,
But there must to be a photon in the beginning that started the process
Why? Isn’t it just a packet of energy, which can be received by collision.
From wiki: “Infrared radiation is absorbed from all directions and is passed as heat to all gases in the atmosphere. The atmosphere also radiates in the infrared range (because of its temperature, in the same way the Earth’s surface does) and does so in all directions.”
Are you saying a body of warm CO2 gas will not radiate unless it first receives photons from outside?
anna v.:
“I have to look up a particles table…”
Sorry, I should have been explicit. The average residence time in the atmosphere for 10Be is being inferred from McCracken’s work by Dr. S at approximately 2 years having synchronized the solar cycle series with a series of 10Be via dendrochronology.
Alternatively, those using 7Be to look at cosmogenic distribution patterns(Googled abstracts) say 70% lies on the ground. I would think a physicist would look at this and find for a shorter residece for 10Be time virtually identical to 7Be on the order of 6 mo.
I used 60 years for 14C by the same method as Dr. S. but find the latter method for the shorter 10Be residence time eminently superior when available.
lgl (01:05:17) :
Are you saying a body of warm CO2 gas will not radiate unless it first receives photons from outside?
I’ll ask how you get it to be warm in the first place.
gary gulrud (06:06:26) :
The average residence time in the atmosphere for 10Be is being inferred from McCracken’s work by Dr. S at approximately 2 years having synchronized the solar cycle series with a series of 10Be via dendrochronology.
No, the timing is done by counting annual rings in the ice, not in trees. The annual count can be checked using layers of nitrate that are deposited after super-flares. E.g. the 1859 flare has a distinct signature in the ice.
Alternatively, those using 7Be to look at cosmogenic distribution patterns(Googled abstracts) say 70% lies on the ground. I would think a physicist would look at this and find for a shorter residece for 10Be time virtually identical to 7Be on the order of 6 mo.
Why would physicist do that when the methods of production and deposition are different. The 2 years time for 10Be is an observational fact.
Leif Svalgaard (21:48:05)
Using your analogy with a tube, if you ask a plumber if the tube will conduct water he will say yes. You will say no because there is no water in the tube. I think the plumber is right even if he doesn’t have a degree. A vacuum offers no resistance to the flow of electrons. It is a super conducter. It all depends on how you look at it.
Leif,
I’ll ask how you get it to be warm in the first place.
By conduction, or even indirectly from H2O absorbing sunlight and then colliding with CO2.
It’s not an argument that most energy once came from the Sun as radiation. There is no ‘knowledge’ of that in the system. The CO2 molecule doesn’t think, oops, that H2O colliding with me once absorbed a photon so now I have to emit one, and the next time, this H2O came out of a volcano so this time I don’t have to radiate.
David J Ameling (09:34:45) :
A vacuum offers no resistance to the flow of electrons. It is a super conducter. It all depends on how you look at it.
No, conductance is a well-established physical quantity and does not depend on how ‘you look at it”. Once you put electrons into the vacuum to get a current, it is no longer a vacuum.
lgl (09:36:02) :
The CO2 molecule doesn’t think, oops, that H2O colliding with me once absorbed a photon so now I have to emit one, and the next time, this H2O came out of a volcano so this time I don’t have to radiate.
Why concentrate on CO2? H2O is the primary GHG. There are many more H2O molecules that absorb a photon, than coming out of a volcano. So, again, the chain starts with a photon from the Sun.
Leif Svalgaard (10:05:49)
You got me, a vacuum is not vacuum if there is something in it like electrons, therefore a vacuum cannot be a conducter. This gets pretty philosophical. Can a vacuum be a vacuum if there is a force field present, etc
Going back to previous discusions can you give me a reference as to what happens to the sun’s magnetic field when the sun’s poles flip?
David J Ameling (10:39:05) :
Can a vacuum be a vacuum if there is a force field present, etc
Of course, otherwise you could not see the Sun or the stars. furthermore, the vacuum is a seething see of particles that flick in and out of existence.
Going back to previous discusions can you give me a reference as to what happens to the sun’s magnetic field when the sun’s poles flip?
The Sun’s magnetic field has many parts. One part is that bottled up in sunspots, another part is that forming the polar fields [the two parts are not independent]. The polar fields are eaten away by the sunspot fields and disappear and then then replenished by more sunspot magnetic field until being eaten away during the next cycle, etc, cycling for eons.
Jan Stenflo’s historical account of his involvement with solar magnetic field research may be of interest: http://www.astro.phys.ethz.ch/papers/stenflo/pdf//PRL07.pdf
Another good source is http://solar.physics.montana.edu/SVECSE2008/pdf/liu_svecse.pdf
I am at the moment involved in the HMI instrument described there and to be launched on SDO later this year.
David J Ameling (09:34:45) to Leif Svalgaard:
Using your analogy with a tube, if you ask a plumber if the tube will conduct water he will say yes. You will say no because there is no water in the tube. I think the plumber is right even if he doesn’t have a degree. A vacuum offers no resistance to the flow of electrons. It is a super conducter. It all depends on how you look at it.
It is not that effective narrative like David’s trumps (debatable) “observational facts”, but rather that such narrative gets through to the masses with ease. Activity in discussion forums like this one may be proof that interdisciplinary-communication divides are among the biggest climate challenges we face. I am reminded of a piece I once read on the psychology of persuasion – in which the author was hammering the point that the most important thing to keep in mind in catering your message is who your audience is.