NatGeo: Sun Oddly Quiet – Hints at Next "Little Ice Age"?

[ “I think you have to bear in mind that the CO2 is a good 50 to 60 percent higher than normal, whereas the decline in solar output is a few hundredths of one percent down,” Lockwood said. “I think that helps keep it in perspective.” ]
I wonder if he thinks a few hundredths of a percent of say a billion dollars is less than a 50 to 60 percent increase on a few hundred dollars. The scale I’m using is of course just an example but the main point is that context is important. Putting something into perspective requires context and the context he provides of percentages (with the implication that they are relatively equal in actual effect) can be grossly misleading.

“preemptive denial” – What else need be said ?.

“preemptive denial”
Okay — now I know it — stupid is now the ‘in’ thing.
So, before the data is in, before the cooling starts (if it starts), they’re denying it can happen. How about waiting to see what happens first? I mean, sure, the last time the sun was quiet for any length of time we had a cooler climate. Speaking for myself, it may happen again; I’m just waiting to see how the data comes in over the next few years. Maybe I’m being old fashioned but isn’t that the way science is done? At least I thought it was done that way before this global warming fad hit the planet.

“[Global warming] skeptics tend to leap forward,” said Mike Lockwood, a solar terrestrial physicist at the University of Southampton in the U.K.”
Ha ha ha.
“The Arctic will be ice-free in 5 years”
– Al Gore, December, 2008

C Shannon (20:56:38) : A billion dollars.
I like that comparison. Good thought.
And that 50 to 60 % of CO2 increase isn’t much due to humans so the comparison is even more lopsided.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The thing that made me laugh, though, was this by the author:
“The lull is causing some scientists to recall the Little Ice Age, …”
I can recall things that happened in 1949 and for most other years since then! I guess there could be a definitional issue here but my mind conjured up an image of a very very old scientist as I read this line.

Hmmm….. if by normal he means a value of 300ppm (.03%, .0003), than aren’t we talking about hundredths of a percent with CO2 also?

“I think you have to bear in mind that the CO2 is a good 50 to 60 percent higher than normal, whereas the decline in solar output is a few hundredths of one percent down,” Lockwood said. “I think that helps keep it in perspective.”
Well wouldn’t that depend on how much each contributing factor actually contributes to the total energy input into the Earth from the Sun?

“But researchers are on guard against their concerns about a new cold snap being misinterpreted.”
Of course. After the 20-year cold snap, it still might take only another 60 years before global warming destroys The Creation:
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/averting-our-eyes-james-hansens-new-call-for-climate-action/?apage=3

Anthony- At this current rate of AGW progression, I am predicting that sometime in the very near future you are going to have to reclassify this blog as comedy. But hey, you can then win Best Blog for both Science and Comedy! … a 2fer…
This site totally rocks…. 🙂

Robert Rust (20:52:27) :
Good! Let them paint and paint and paint themselves into a corner. IF it does cool due to the solar minimum (big IF!) – then where can they go to explain it away???
I believe the article broadcasts where they intend to go IF such an event should come to pass. In the article, they maintain that even The Little Ice Age was local in nature and was not a global phenomenon. You could be up to your behind in icicles and dodging glaciers, yet those folks would not acknowledge anything other than CO2 induced global warming. They don’t “leap forward” the way skeptics do, They hang right in there, no matter what the evidence might reveal. That’s just the way religion works.

@ Graeme Rodaughan (21:49:36) :
“The sun is the least active it’s been in decades and the dimmest in a hundred years. The lull is causing some scientists to recall the Little Ice Age, an unusual cold spell in Europe and North America, which lasted from about 1300 to 1850.”
They are saying the Little Ice Age (LIA) only happenned in Europe and North America. They are not admitting to a global cooling period. That would be heresy.
My personal opinion is that there is enough evidence from numerous studies around the globe to call the LIA a global event.
This makes me an evil and immoral person because I have examined the evidence and come to the wrong conclusion.
Mea culpa. Absolve me, Pater, quia peccavi.

So let me see if I understand their position correctly, they are unsure about the effect and causes of the solar minimum but they are sure that it will not affect man made global warming?
They are getting a little desperate to protect their AGW/MMCC theory with statements like ‘preemptive denial’ I thought the role of scientists was to observe events and consider the implications and extrapolate the data NOT engage in quasi political attacks.
The effects of solar minimums are well known and recorded, the science of measuring solar activity in relation to the earths climate isnt that difficult, what is difficult is reconciling the AGW/MMCC theory with solar output variance because the models have not taken this into account, if they are now forced to take account the very thing they worked so hard to ignore and minimize then the implications could be dramatic to say the least.
The uncomfortable reality for the AGW/MMCC believers is that actual observed effects of the supposed carbon dioxide driven global warming are non existent even at present IF solar varience is taken fully into account it means there may well be no temperature rises as advertised in the models, no dramatic melting of the poles at best there may well be temperature stasis within normal variance boundaries and at worst we could be in for a period of global cooling.
The whole basis for enforced reductions in supposed ‘green house gasses’ is to prevent a marked rise in global temperatures leading to a runaway warming, if temperatures fall even slightly over the medium term then the whole basis for rationing,taxing and limiting fossil fuel use is nullified isnt it?
The warmist/alarmist believers have to discount/minimize solar variance or lose the whole argument for dramatic cuts in our living standards, carbon capture becomes useless, cap and trade becomes useless, windmills become useless, solar power becomes useless, carbon/green taxes become useless, all these schemes will not be needed and that is going to upset the applecart of a lot of people who were going to make huge amounts of money and win huge influence over society, the vested interests of powerful people is under direct threat and the vested interest groups will fight to the bitter end to protect their longed for gains both fiscal and political.
The stakes are high the potential losses for the vested interests are huge, no wonder the attacks on the realists/sceptics are so venomous!

…CO2 is a good 50 to 60 percent higher than normal….
If the current CO2 ~385ppm is 50%-60% above normal then that would make normal somewhere between 241ppm and 257ppm. Where the heck does that number come from. Lockwood apparently knows something we don’t know.
Then there’s “premptive denial” which is nearly an oxymoron and reflects an hypocracy in that the word ‘denial’ was almost totally reserved for the skeptics.
Nevertheless, it took some scintilla of integrity for NatGeo to publish this article seeing as they have been increasingly committed to AGW.

“I think you have to bear in mind that the CO2 is a good 50 to 60 percent higher than normal, whereas the decline in solar output is a few hundredths of one percent down,” Lockwood said. “I think that helps keep it in perspective.”
– If you do the maths using the 60% claim it works out that “Normal” is ~ 240ppm. Where does this “Normal” figure come from ? If you assume 300ppm to be a more realistic idea of “Normal” then we are currently at ~28% above normal.

Drat. Squidly beat me to this:
“At this current rate of AGW progression, I am predicting that sometime in the very near future you are going to have to reclassify this blog as comedy.”
The blog isn’t comedy but this National Geographic News blurb passes the test.
“pre-emptive denial”? You have to love English when terms like that can be so easily coined.
I think that means “you are wrong before you speak.”
Will someone send pizza to those astrophysicists glued to telescopes? Then let Prince Albert out of the can.

I wonder how long till Al Gore takes credit for saving us from disaster with his carbon trading scam, oops I meant scheme, and how long before the cooling is blamed on man due to land use change and aerosols?

so co2 is now 0.0387% of the total gas in the atmosphere .If it doubles it will be 0.0774%. man that must heat the earth up.lol.

just to add to the above comment. http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7a.html

The major media is dropping AGW in favor of cleaning up the air pollutants and fazing out the use of fossil fuels. I believe the smart money is beginning to realize the evidence is more and more aginist AGW and they need to change the subject.
Now if we could just convince Lief that IT”s the sun.

Compare Mike Lockwood’s quote, “I think you have to bear in mind that the CO2 is a good 50 to 60 percent higher than normal, whereas the decline in solar output is a few hundredths of one percent down. I think that helps keep it in perspective” with the following:
A National Academy of Sciences geophysical paper from 2000 by Perry and Hsu (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=18780) showed solar output modeling for the past 40,000 years. The difference of solar output was expressed in tenths of a percent of the 90,000 year solar output average. A 0.3% difference of solar output produced around a 54 meter change in sea level (18 meters per 0.1%) in ten thousand years from the Younger-Dryas event to the near present. Following that study, a one-hundredth of one percent change in solar output would therefore produce a 1.8 meter sea level change. A “few hundredths” as suggested by Lockwood would represent a change of around 5.4 meters based on Perry and Hsu’s study. Without stating what normal was, Lockwood declared that CO2 is 40% to 60% higher. Has anyone documented a five meter rise in sea level since the Industrial Revolution-induced CO2 rise?
Let’s move it out one more order of magnitude and suggest the solar output variance now is more like a few thousandths of a percent. A 54 centimeter change in sea level is closer to the real rise in sea level over the past hundred years and projected another hundred in to the future. So the real “perspective” in Lockwood’s example is that a few hundredths or even thousandths of a percent change in solar output has a substantially greater affect than a 40%-60% change in CO2.
I believe Lockwood was trying to imply the opposite, relying on the assumption that the masses would buy that 40%-60% is a bigger amount of anything than ~0.03% without knowing that 0.03% of the sun’s irradiance is orders of magnitude more significant than 40-60% of a minor gas in our tiny planet’s atmosphere.

“I think you have to bear in mind that the CO2 is a good 50 to 60 percent higher than normal, whereas the decline in solar output is a few hundredths of one percent down,” Lockwood said. “I think that helps keep it in perspective.”
Impressive logic! My potter friend changed her low power kiln for a fancy big new high power one that’s TWICE as powerful, whereas the sun is only a few hundredths of a percent down. Expect global warming to really ramp up from now on.
What’s that? Stupid argument? Sure, but it’s the very same logic this so-called “scientist” uses. He should be dismissed forthwith for either being completely incompetent or deliberately lying.

So I have a question. People seem to make great pains to say that periods of reduced solar output aren’t enough variation to produce any dramatic climate change. Ok, fine. Lets accept that argument. So what DID account for all the climate cooling coincidental with the periods of lesser Sun spot counts?
Is it some period of greater regional expansion of the universe? Maybe flying through a cloud of dark matter? I mean if the lack of spots didn’t cause the cooling, and cooling and lack of spots seems to be fairly well synchronized over time, then the answer has to be that whatever caused the cooling had to also cause a lack of spots. So if the lack of spots don’t directly cause the cooling, then there must be a third thing that causes both. Which is it?

If there was ever a dumb statement by a scientist, it is:
“I think you have to bear in mind that the CO2 is a good 50 to 60 percent higher than normal, whereas the decline in solar output is a few hundredths of one percent down,” Lockwood said. “I think that helps keep it in perspective.”
Sorry Lockwood, but it does not. Here Lockwood is basically saying CO2 has as much impact on the earth’s climate as the sun!
That’s absurd. It’s scientific amateurism.
Again the warmists are completely overstating, 100-fold, CO2’s role in climate.

“I think you have to bear in mind that the CO2 is a good 50 to 60 percent higher than normal, whereas the decline in solar output is a few hundredths of one percent down,” Lockwood said. “I think that helps keep it in perspective.”
It certainly does put things in perspective.
For instance, a ‘50% increase in CO2’ has managed to give us a supposed 0.6°C of warming but the ‘few hundredths of one percent’ decrease in solar output gave forth a nearly 1.0°C drop in temperature from the MWP to the LIA.

Rebar 21:05:51
You got my vote!

Gentry Very true maybe Lief might understand and explain this.

CO2 is a trace gas so 60% increase of nearly nothing is still nearly nothing, while the sun provides almost all our energy. Now that really puts it in perspective. But of course when you say that, some warmer comes along and says something utterly irrelevant like “it only takes a tiny amount of poison to kill you”. These warmers are so chock-full of contradictions in their stories that it’s absolutely clear most of them are just making things up as they go along.

If Lockwood really wanted to get the AGW message across, he should have acknowledged that the sun might cause some cooling – then when there is no cooling he can point to the increasing effects of CO2.
As far as “painting themselves into a corner” (Robert Rust (20:52:27) : ) – what about the proponents of ‘solar cooling’, what will their position be when there is no downturn in temperatures.

A ‘quiet’ Sun certainly correlates with the little ice age minimum temperature period. But it proves as little as global temperatures increasing with increasing CO2. But we have enough empirical evidence to prove that AGW is an utter scientific blunder without relying on this hypothesis.
Furthermore, Mike Lockwood’s preemptive denial does nothing but destroy his case. But it does show how worried his is.

We’re all going to die. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Actually, sooner or later, we all will. Solar weather happens. I am glad for this site because an intelligent non-scientist like me can read it and learn. Thank you, all of you.

Molon Labe
“The measured CO2 value at Mauna Loa will be ADJUSTED to show it decreasing.”
They may try, but they are a little late. Temperatures have been dropping 10 years now – and so it will backfire and only prove that CO2 follows temps, and not vice versa. Unless of course they go back a revise the CO2 levels from 15 years ago and show it started dropping in 1995 or so.
Such brazen revisionism would require a Stalinist state.
My guess is that they’ll pull out the “aerosols are causing cooling” or “CO2 is leading to catstrophic ocean acidification” fear-mongering.

Here is a thought … recognition is finally given to Sol for this relapse of “real” AGW heating but then the models are recalibrated to actually demonstrate that the cooling has been less than a true Sol minimum event due to the effect of AGW and predictions begin for a dire catastrophic temperature rise in cycle 24.
Oh and all that extra UV … my “model” predicts new headlines: “Catlin expedition retasked to apply sunscreen to Polar Bears”

Kath (21:36:52) :
“I bet I could write some Fortran code that proves that worms are responsible for rain. Every time it rains I see earthworms on the ground. Ergo, earthworms cause rain. QED”
It’s like the wind, it must be caused by the trees waving around. Never is any wind when the trees are still.
Tim, Scarsdale, Aust.

“I think you have to bear in mind that the CO2 is a good 50 to 60 percent higher than normal, whereas the decline in solar output is a few hundredths of one percent down,” Lockwood said. “I think that helps keep it in perspective.”
OK let’s take 50%, that means that 1x + .5x = 380, or 1.5x=380. So according to him normal is around 250PPM. Is’nt that getting dangerously close to the point where plants start shutting down?

“Even if the current solar lull is the beginning of a prolonged quiet, the scientists say, the star’s effects on climate will pale in contrast with the influence of human-made greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2).”
Yeah…Right…Apart from the cooling over the past 6 to 10 years, the CO2 is doing a fine job of overwhelming the solar minimum…
What fits better?
The CO2 curve…
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/UAH_LowerTrop_12_78to11_08_CO2.jpg
Or the Schwabe Cycle Length curve…
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/UAH_LowerTrop_12_78to11_08_SSC_Leng.jpg

Claude Harvey 22:49 “You could be up to your behind in icicles and dodging glaciers, yet those folks would not acknowledge anything other than CO2 induced global warming. They don’t “leap forward” the way skeptics do, They hang right in there, no matter what the evidence might reveal. That’s just the way religion works.”
This campaign — CO2 50-60% higher than normal — is not simply a religion, but a stone-cold plan to strike terror in people’s hearts with two purposes: 1) to end the industrial advantages of the West (smarts and drive along with the cheap energy of fossil fuels); and 2) to establish permanent lush living/ jet-setting from taxes, fees, and rents of the cap-and-trade priesthood.
Anthony began the task of “re-educating” by showing that the government’s temperature measurements from which they claimed run-away global warming are largely a deception, whether from incompetence or intention. The core issue is the truth of the science, not global warming or cooling. The truth will enable us to understand and adapt to warming and cooling.
CO2 has been named as the dragon to slay re runaway global warming. Paid lobbyists for the cap-and-trade priesthood like Lockwood tout those astonishing statistics (50 to 60% higher than normal) and people’s brains see images of smokestacks spewing earth-destroying CO2 everywhere. A (temporarily) cooling earth will not save us and the earth from armageddon.
I like the idea of Lockwood’s nonsense as the quote of the week in order to show that there is no “normal” CO2 level according to geological history, that CO2 is a minor atmospheric gas, and that the physics of CO2 radiation (feedback leading to global warming) is limited. These are the issues and not the cooling globe. People must begin to trust CO2 again as an essential element for life and not the major pollutant to capture during industrialization processes. (If I am remembering correctly, I am grateful to Stephen Goddard for addressing the physics of CO2 warming. I was too ready to sneer at its having any potency of that sort.)
I have a sense that many contributers here are becoming smug about the coming cold — and the world is due a 1500-year bond event (chiefio.com)just like California is due its 150-year major earthquake. These will happen, eventually. However, to get the public to begin sensible adaptations to colder conditions, they must be disabused of their focus on CO2 and all its variations. The solar terrestrial physicist Lockwood may sound ludicrous to WUWT’s readers, but his figures keep people’s minds locked on CO2 as an object of terror.

Quoting:
“[Global warming] skeptics tend to leap forward,”
Commenting:
Skeptics tend to be cautious and methodical. Leaping forward would be like , say…predicting temperatures 100 years in the future.

“I think you have to bear in mind that the CO2 is a good 50 to 60 percent higher than normal, whereas the decline in solar output is a few hundredths of one percent down,” Lockwood said. “I think that helps keep it in perspective.”
Yes, AGW experts and Solar Change Minimizers are with a change in hat the same prevaricator.

I have a goofy question. If most of the global warming has occured in the northern hemisphere, while the southern hemisphere temps remained fairly flat, when or if a mini ice age hits, even if it only hits the Northern hemisphere wouldnt that negate the ‘global’ warming? And when it starts to warm up again.. are we going to have to hear about all this crap again??

“What will explain the not-so-incredibly-hot temps in 10 years? WHAT?!?”
Robert, I believe they will keep saying that it is in the pipeline.

“I think you have to bear in mind that the CO2 is a good 50 to 60 percent higher than normal, whereas the decline in solar output is a few hundredths of one percent down,” Lockwood said. “I think that helps keep it in perspective.”
What’s scaring me is that the man who said this is a physicist. I was an art major, for crissakes. I haven’t studied any math since high school — but I can see the howlers in his math. Why can’t he? What has happened to our scientists??

There is a host of information about measured CO2 levels over recent and longer term history here:
http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2_supp.htm
For a quick overview scroll down to the graphs.
A number of things appear clear:
1) The current level of CO2 has been exceded a couple of times during the last two centuries – and don’t forget these are direct measurements, not derived values – without triggering temperature runaway, and also ,of course, without the help of 21st century levels of emissions
2) The variations in levels over quite short periods of time show the concept of “normal” a bit difficult to grasp, and of course, comparison with a mean is not particularly helpful since choice of start and end times can be used to give you alsmost any answer you want.
3) The comparison between CO2 levels and temperatures shows yet again that CO2 levels lag temperature by 5 or 6 years:
http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/graphs.htm#proj
Since it didn’t take a lot of work to find this information, I wonder why those much cleverer than me didn’t find it – or have I missed the wamists rebuttal!

Jesu H. Christo. “Preemptive denial”. In my lifetime I’ve never seen such a large swath of the scientific establishment bound and determined to not only discredit themselves, but the very idea of “science”. A real scientist would look at this situation and positively gush about what a great opportunity this is to test for real some of the minority scientific theories on sun activity impact on climate. You know, that whole gaining new knowledge and testing theories against reality thing that scientists are supposed to be all about. . .

When I read this article I was struck by the similarity between scientists who will not budge on global warming, whether the facts support it or not and scientists who will not budge on evolution whether the facts support it or not. All scientists have a worldview and we filter everything we see and think through that worldview. Scientists who believe man is like a god and can control all of the earth’s climate can’t even comprehend how truly small we are. These same types of scientists, believing that man is a god, can’t allow in their thinking that there is a real God who is the Creator and continues to work in the lives of His people and continues to control all of the universe, including the sun and the CO2 and the water and ice bergs…
AGW scientists have made saving the planet their religion and will not be moved until they have a change of heart. Same for evolutionary scientists. I guess as a believer, I am not surprised that the researchers will ‘engage in preemptive denial’. We see it happen in other areas of science everyday.

He and other researchers are therefore engaged in what they call “preemptive denial” of a solar minimum leading to global cooling.
So the AGW crowd are now the “denialists”!
It seems to read “tongue-in-cheek” on the part of the author? Is it possible that NatGeo author had a hidden agenda with some satire couched in what superficially appears to be a pro-AGW article?

Molon Labe (22:00:23) :
@Leon Brozyna (21:04:09) :
“If they get their cap and trade, any cooling will be attributed to it.”
Not i nice thought! But Russia, India and China is in no way going to lower their CO2. On the contrary. Therefore, the human outlet being reduced markedly is not going to happend, anf thus can never be used as excuse for cooling. Fortunately. No wonder Hansen and co are so anxious to get the Co2 reductions going…

Jeremy- I read the same thing. Swiftian in it’s subtlety.Things are like it’s the Renaissance/Reformation era all over again…

“I think you have to bear in mind that the CO2 is a good 50 to 60 percent higher than normal, whereas the decline in solar output is a few hundredths of one percent down,” Lockwood said. “I think that helps keep it in perspective.”
CO2 levels were also “a good 50 to 60 percent higher than normal” in the early Holocene.
Maybe they don’t have a subscription to Science magazine?
Century-Scale Shifts in Early Holocene Atmospheric CO2 Concentration
Friederike Wagner, 1 Sjoerd J. P. Bohncke, 2 David L. Dilcher, 3 Wolfram M. Kürschner, 1 Bas van Geel, 4 Henk Visscher 1
Science 18 June 1999:
Vol. 284. no. 5422, pp. 1971 – 1973
DOI: 10.1126/science.284.5422.1971
Paleobotanical Evidence for Near Present-Day Levels of Atmospheric CO2 During Part of the Tertiary
Dana L. Royer,1* Scott L. Wing,2 David J. Beerling,3 David W. Jolley,4 Paul L. Koch,5 Leo J. Hickey,1 Robert A. Berner1
Science 22 June 2001:
Vol. 292. no. 5525, pp. 2310 – 2313
DOI: 10.1126/science.292.5525.2310
CO2 concentrations determined from air bubbles trapped in ice cores cannot be empirically tested to determine their accuracy in reflecting the atmospheric CO2 levels at the time the firn turned to ice.
Plant SI (Stomatal Index) data can be empirically tested under laboratory conditions. SI can be calibrated very closely to atmospheric CO2 concentrations. SI data suggest that warm periods in the Tertiary and Quaternary Periods routinely experienced CO2 levels of 330ppm to more than 360ppm.

“He and other researchers are therefore engaged in what they call “preemptive denial” of a solar minimum leading to global cooling.
“Preemptive denial.”??
HUH?? Galileo will be laughing in his grave.
Brings back memories, he says……
Chris
Norfolk, VA

@Leif
Could you take a second to check out the resemblance between solar energy and sea level rise / year:
http://www.klimadebat.dk/forum/vedhaeftninger/divergence.gif
As I understrand you, differences in solar anergy does not have much impact on earth? So howcome the appearing link between solar emission and sea level rise / year (And Co2 rise per year, and PDOAMO curves etc etc?)

““I think you have to bear in mind that the CO2 is a good 50 to 60 percent higher than normal, whereas the decline in solar output is a few hundredths of one percent down,” Lockwood said. “I think that helps keep it in perspective.””
Absolutely absurd statement….

Now that’s weird. OT, but April UAH is out on Dr. Spencer’s blog
http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/
and it shows a significant drop, an anomaly of only +0.09! If that’s gonna stay, then not only is it remarkably different from RSS but also does not match to anything observed on AMSU-A during the month?!
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/

“I think you have to bear in mind that the CO2 is a good 50 to 60 percent higher than normal, whereas the decline in solar output is a few hundredths of one percent down,” Lockwood said. “I think that helps keep it in perspective.”
No…this citation grossly distorts any type of “keeping it in perspective” whatsoever:
For a scientist to go on record comparing/contrasting or attempting to offset CO being “above normal” [whatever “normal” is on a 4.5 billion year timescale!] against the current decline in solar activity…seems stupid and a futile exercise from the starting gate and is like trying to compare apples….to baseball gloves.
The sun, comprising 99% of the mass in the solar system, is slightly larger [LOL] than our earth….so any slight change in the sun MAY affect us on a scale and many orders of magnitude higher than CO2 [that mechanism still unproven]
So his quote is such a bogus BOGUS juxtaposition of words even the biggest science idiot [me LOL] can see it.
Will wait for the day when they start blaming the quiet sun on CO2…but they don’t want to appear to be stark raving mad so I know they will not go that far.
Definition “lunacy”: “Archaic. Intermittent mental derangement associated with the changing phases of the moon.”
Suggest NEW term: “SOLACY”
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

Looking at AMSU-A I would have rather predicted April UAH to be +0.19 than 0.09 …

Leon Brozyna (21:04:09) :
So, before the data is in, before the cooling starts (if it starts), they’re denying it can happen. How about waiting to see what happens first? I mean, sure, the last time the sun was quiet for any length of time we had a cooler climate. Speaking for myself, it may happen again; I’m just waiting to see how the data comes in over the next few years. Maybe I’m being old fashioned but isn’t that the way science is done? At least I thought it was done that way before this global warming fad hit the planet.

Leon, Leon. Don’t you know? It’s all about the Alchemy and the Entrails of the climate models.

Sorry, one last time on this other topic. Dr. Spencer has his own explanation for the discrepancy between RSS and UAH here:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/
But I think that this still does not explain the discrepancy with AMSU-A daily data…

Preemptive denial, that’s quite a change from the usual preemptive exxageration ( 2 – 4 degrees Centigrade by 2100).
That CO2 is 50 to 60% higher doens’t mean a thing.
50 to 60% of nothing is still nothing.

I officially deny both sides of the debate. Both sides are debating the size of a knat’s ass. The most either can do (CO2 or Sun) is ever so slightly exaggerate the swings of natural oscillations. If we want to win this debate, we must continue to talk about the Earth’s oceans, trade winds, and the Coriolis. The rest just doesn’t factor into weather pattern variation to the extent that it should drive anything other than a silly argument over the size of a knat’s ass.
Here is just one official discussion of oceanic oscillations. These are the articles that deserve reprint.
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/faq/amo_faq.php

With Mexico having been all but shut down for several days, it might be interesting to see what the local CO2 levels have been surrounding the largest cities and what temps have been there. Of course, temps couldn’t be directly attributed to GHG changes since activity in general has been curatailed. Maybe rural stations would be worth looking at. Just a thought.

Uh oh. That ice just made a little uptick.

I posted earlier in another thread that weather pattern variation may be better discussed as a % risk occurrence within a certain time table in a way similar to current earthquake risk projections. So here is one such paper that does or proposes to do just that. We should be examining these papers and giving them top billing here.
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/docs/Enfield_Cid-Serrano_2006.pdf

Ian Cooper,
Many thanks for the high praise, your kind words are indeed welcome, more so coming from one with such obvious wit and intelligence(typical in Kiwis).
Best wishes to all sceptics in Gods own country.
Cassie K.

OT: Catliners re-supplied. Aircraft was able to land safely:
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/

Hansen ridiculed this solar idea as recently as this year. In a talk in Houston to a Geology professional society, he dismissed this and other problems.
There was, at one point, a .pdf of the slides he used available on the internet.
The site is no longer valid, oddly enough.

“Mark Bowlin (07:22:45) :
Preemptive denial is nothing new. My 7 year old son uses that approach regularly — it’s my cue to start looking for what he’s done wrong.”
Nice point.

Frank Lansner (06:32:52) :
Ya know, buddy, our sun is saving for its retirement, it uses to do it at Sea´s Bank, not in the Air´s Mall where it “dissipates” rapidly… (more rapidly than your wife does it)

Sven (07:04:18) :
Sorry, one last time on this other topic. Dr. Spencer has his own explanation for the discrepancy between RSS and UAH here:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/
But I think that this still does not explain the discrepancy with AMSU-A daily data
You’re right. The RSS v UAH explanation is fine, but the low anomaly should be reflected in the AMSU raw temperatures.

I have just sent an email to mike Lockwood asking him to post a reply on this blog or contact Anthony Watts with regard to making a guest post where he could expand on his obviously very confusing reported comments, may I suggest that others may like to invite Mike Lockwood to clarify his position on this site using the most diplomatic language possible of course!
His email address is m.lockwood [ -at – ] rl.ac.uk perhaps if he is invited to respond by enough individuals made in the most respectful manner he might actually take the time to post here?

J. Peden (07:56:43) :
“I think you have to bear in mind that the CO2 is a good 50 to 60 percent higher than normal, whereas the decline in solar output is a few hundredths of one percent down,” Lockwood said. “I think that helps keep it in perspective.”
So I guess Lockwood is not going to start worrying until the solar output gets to 50% lower than normal?
—
Great point. The issue that disturbs me is that, as presented like this in a mainstream publication, an astoundingly inept statement like Lockwood’s probably sounds reasonable to the average person, not realizing that he’s comparing apples with oranges…

CO2 is a good 50 to 60 percent higher than normal, whereas the decline in solar output is a few hundredths of one percent down
sorry if this is a rehash, but 50% higher CO2 has been reported to = 1.3 W/m2 of forcing. Oh the other hand, 0.1% (one tenth of one percent) of change in solar output comes out to “only”…uhm… 1.3 W/m2.
Isn’t he rebuting his own argument?

Well done, Pamela Gray (07:20:43) :
I believe your NOAA link
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/docs/Enfield_Cid-Serrano_2006.pdf
is how Dr.Jane Lubchenco (new head of NOAA) fabricated this science:
Lubchenco, “climate models are now sufficiently “robust” to help scientists know what the wind patterns will be for the next 100 years, to help businesses, elected officials and regulators make good decisions on issues like where to put buildings or roads or wind farms.”
Of course this is Lubchenco’s MO.
As an OSU professor and researcher Lubchenco reported a link between ocean dead zones and AGW when her own research team found none.
In fact her own research team
“cautioned that at this point it is unclear what — if any — link the dead zone has to climate change.
That’s Lubchenco’s own research.
Yet Lubchenco reported and propagated the fabricated link between ocean dead zones and AGW.
And immediately it was accepted around the globe without any science.
Coming full circle, this last Saturday night, our former Oregon Secratary of State Bill Bradbury, in a power point presentation, was touting Lubchenco and the link to a large group of students at Lake Oswego High school.
AGW BS travels far and wide while integrity vanishes.

I was reading National Geographics from the 1930s/40s and 50s in the local University library and it is amazing how back then the articles were interesting and didn’t appear to take sides or spread nonsense. It was about opening the eyes of people to the different places/cultures and scientific advancements that were unfolding and being discovered at the time.
Now it has been reduced to adverts and propaganda. A sad time for scientific literature indeed.
To say that “Even if the current solar lull is the beginning of a prolonged quiet, the scientists say, the star’s effects on climate will pale in contrast with the influence of human-made greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2).
“I think you have to bear in mind that the CO2 is a good 50 to 60 percent higher than normal, whereas the decline in solar output is a few hundredths of one percent down,” Lockwood said. “I think that helps keep it in perspective.”
-is probably one of the most ludicrous statements ever made in such a publication. What a shame.

It’s going to be interesting to watch the rhetoric from the great scientists among the alarmists as the realization dawns that the jig is up, and the public can see through the hoax.
Personally, I believe that a lot of these scientists were honest, and only a few corrupt from the beginning. I’d love to see a timeline sometime about when the realization dawns on them that they maybe were wrong, and when they publicly admit it.
==============================================

Mark Wagner (08:27:11) :
“sorry if this is a rehash, but 50% higher CO2 has been reported to = 1.3 W/m2 of forcing. Oh the other hand, 0.1% (one tenth of one percent) of change in solar output comes out to “only”…uhm… 1.3 W/m2. ”
No it wasn’t a rehash and thanks! I waded through dozens of comment looking for somebody to post this kind of info. This is the info that really puts it into perspective. And please note that CO2 increase is closer to 30% than 50%.
Dr. Lockwood’s comments are either deceptive or naive. Guess what my conclusion would be?

>>“[Global warming] skeptics tend to leap forward,” said Mike Lockwood, a solar terrestrial physicist at the University of Southampton in the U.K.<<
SKEPTICS Leap forward?????
Wow. That’s rich.

This may have already been said, but what of the fact that there have already been several high-latitude, new-cycle sunspots (proven by their magnetic polarity) in the past few months, hinting that while the sun is indeed in a very deep solar minimum, it is not going to last much longer. so….. the very idea that this decrease in the x-ray and UV output of the sun is powerful enough to start a little ice age, or that it has been/will be prolonged enough to do so has already kind of been shot down. spaceweather.com
Also: anyone who has lived in the same area long enough to have seen the climate change and still does not believe that it is doing so needs to have their head examined, as I believe they will find it firmly stuck in the sand of [snip].

Pierre Gosselin (03:31:00) :
QUESTION:
Why has South America been continuously projected to have cooler than normal temps, and has so for the last several months?
http://wxmaps.org/pix/temp8.html
Is it that the Pacific and Atlantic are keeping it cool?
One of the reasons is the oceans. But you must consider (as in antarctica too) two climate zones, one east and the other west of the andes mountains chain.
When winter comes, for example, all those green colored areas(in the graphic you linked), which are above 9000 ft. high (3000 meters high) some inhabited places reach temperatures down to -25°C (as in Puno, Peru).
These years we are having “friaje” (pronounced: freeahhes) “cooling” up on the sierras (highlands) during wintertime. But to clarify it to you a bit more.
Here in Lima (Peru’s capital), we now have from 22 to 24°C right now, then, if you drive one hour and a half (it will depend on traffic!) east you can reach an altitude of 15000 (fifteen thousand feet) high, where it usually snows during summertime and freezes in wintertime.

@Bob Tisdale:
Thankyou very much for info! I will try to digest your article, its seems quiet loaded with information 🙂
I hope then, that a good solar activity source is available if not Hoyt and Schatten is valid.
And by the way, thanks for many super interesting and relevant graphs every now and then!
K.R. Frank

“Putting something into perspective requires context”
Lockwood says that “decline in solar output is a few hundredths of one percent down”. Obviously he is minimizing the decline, characterized in terms of TSI. The secular variability from a given Rmax to Rmin is believed to be approximately 0.1% which he, no doubt would say justifies calling the current decline 0.05% from some Rmax, likely that of 24 still to come.
What the decline might be over a century or two has not been measured by the same standard and is therefore not in fact known.
More importantly, it has been pointed out before(and ignored repeatedly) that TSI isn’t the measurement that interests. TSI is a measure of ‘radiation pressure’, literally a count of the number of photons.
We are interested in the energy of any photons captured by the atmosphere and surface. The energy of a photon is directly proportional to its frequency. The photons received are roughly 40% IR, 40% visible light, 20% UV and small intermittent numbers of X-Rays.
The reduction in variability in the TSI measurements(note diagram of SORCE in Anthony’s recent post) is indicative of a reduction, in particular, in solar flares since the spring of 2007. During these flares UV radiation pressure can double. By contrast, solar flares continued throughout the 23 minimum of 1996.
This paucity of UV variability is responsible for the current compact Ionosphere(noted in an WUWT article last fall); there is insufficient UV to heat it to the normal doubling of its size.
Lockwood and his professional allies know all this but prefer we, the revenue source, do not.

I love it!
50% of a completely irrelevant trace gas is meaningful
But a fraction of 1% of something massively powerful is nothing
Mike Lockwood is a mathematical moron.

Leif did thusly screed:

UV and TSI vary with the sunspot cycle. There are good reasons to believe the sunspot number in the past was underestimated and that SSN (and therefore TSI and UV) in the 18th and 19th centuries was comparable to the 20th century. What influence UV can have on the Earth’s temperature would therefore have worked its magic during the 18th and 19th centuries as well as in the 20th.

Leif, I’ll review those links when I get a chance, thanks much!
I very much enjoy dropping by Jan Janssens’ Solaemon website & watch the steady progression of the spotless days evolution graph. ( http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/Spotless/Spotless.html#Evolution ). This ongoing trend established its track early & looked to start edging toward the lower 2nd SD of SC’s #10 – 15 (which it has… ;-).
Now to my layman’s eyes, Janssens’ chart has continued to speak volumes about a change in solar regime & Jan provided an excellent predictive trendcasting instrument. No hindcasting required!
Now why the heck Nat’l Geo & NASA can’t cover the sun as well as Janssens can, beats me! I know historical trendcasting isn’t the end all to be all, but by golly Janssens has kept hitting home runs with that chart.
On the other note, WRT to facular UV & the LIA, one of my quibbles with Drew Shindell’s study is the question of maritime winters. The historical record I believe shows – perhaps anecdotally – that the British Isles endured some very harsh winters during the LIA as well and yet Shindell’s study established the claim that the decline of maritime trade winds during winter had its dominant effect in continental interiors. So wouldn’t island nations have been exempt from such a modest decline in the trades?
Thanks again….

Jeremyj5000,
Isloated sunspecks/spots tell us little of when the minimum will end and to suggest that these islolated sunspecks/spots have in your words ‘shot down’ the theory of a prolonged period of cooling is perhaps premature to say the least, the phrase ‘shot down’ could be used IF solar activity suddenly ramps up quickly but not before I think.
You seem keen on telling us that your local area has seen changes proving man made global warming yet you omit to tell us what these local changes consist of, many here have noticed the very opposite of warming in their own areas and yet you seem to accuse them all of being wrong while you are right?
The climate changes, it has always changed and it will always change, we exist and thrive in a state of change, the earth does not recognise climate stasis and neither do we.
The earths regions heat up and cool down, they experience often drastic changes then revert back to previous states, the planet enjoys what may be termed a natural cyclic climate variation based on its cyclic cosmic journey round the sun which travels round the galaxy which travels through the universe. There is still no solid proof that a trace gas in the atmosphere has any effect on earths climate and even the IPCC has not found the causal link.
The fossil record is full of clear evidence of huge changes in earths climate and there is some evidence that solar minimums and maximums have a direct correlation with warming and cooling cycles, you mention in passing that anyone who doesnt see the world through your eyes has their ‘heads in the sand’?
Can you follow the accusation with some facts to back up your case please, would you care to expand on your theory of local changes proving AGW/MMCC and would you expain further as to why you feel confident that the current solar minimum will soon end?
You seem to pronounce that anyone who doesnt see the link between natural climate cycles and a supposed man made runaway global warming caused by the emission of a harmless trace gas is somehow mentally ill “needs their heads examining”? Are you a mental health professional with suitable qualifications to pronounce who is mentally ill based on their opinions on issues of science?
May I ask you to reconsider your position and return with a more reasoned and rational argument please, if you have evidence then please present it so we may consider your wisdom and make our own free choices as what to believe.

AGW spin
(from Windmills of your mind)
Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning
On an ever-spinning reel
As the images unwind
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Jeremy, I could not agree more. I was taught in my high school civics class that what made free societies superior to totalitarian regimes is that we believed “the end does not justify the means”. It appears that this civic lesson has been long lost on our recent crop of scientists and journalists. Does anyone in the AGW community have the courage to stand up and do what is right?
I doubt it would be Gavin Schmidt who censors comments when they are too logical to dispute and run contrary to his agenda. It certainly looks like it will never be Mr. Lockwood either.

Alan the Brit (09:54:30) :
Sorry no direct link for me either.
Try going back on to climaterealist.com. The first page should have a You Tube clip of Senator Inhofe running for 23min 13 secs. Scroll down to bottom of page & click on p2. There are a series of mini clips of several of the speakers, but there is one that says ‘watch the hole thing’!
Hope it works but it is there.
Alan,
I managed to work out a direct link:
http://www.33igc.org/coco/EntryPage.aspx?guid=1&PageID=5100&ContainerID=11823&ObjectID=12520
I have not yet managed to see it all (it lasts some 66 minutes), but as Henrik Svensmark was one of the speakers I will surely see it through (I had to resort to Windows to see it, it would not show on my Linux box).
Let me know how you get on!
The environment minister is not the Norwegian one. It is the Danish environment minister Connie Hedegaard.
The very last speaker (last 5 minutes) is Dr. Eystein Jansen from the Bjerknes Center for Climate Research in Bergen, Norway
http://www.bjerknes.uib.no/pages.asp?pid=47&kat=5&lang=2
(I don’t care too much for what he said….)

“Also: anyone who has lived in the same area long enough to have seen the climate change and still does not believe that it is doing so needs to have their head examined, as I believe they will find it firmly stuck in the sand of [snip].”
Jeremyj5000, I think if you stick around for a while you will find very few people here of any persuasion who don’t believe that climate changes. The disagreement is not about whether it changes — of course it does, no matter what we see anecdotally. The disagreement is about how much, if at all, that change is influenced by man.

Lockwood’s comments in this National Geographic piece are extremely depressing. Track back to an outstanding scientist willing to stand up and report excitedly on the results from the Ulysses Mission about startling recent changes to solar magnetic fields, etc. and speculating on their poorly understood influence on the Earth’s climate. It remains very poorly understood. He should be factoring that in to these statements but perhaps when elevated to senior academician status with such humdrum chores as managing budgets one has a different perspective.

>In my opinion, I wouldn’t play with things I don’t know.
Thats an odd opinion for a scientist. If you don’t play with it, how are you going to learn how it works?

“I think you have to bear in mind that the CO2 is a good 50 to 60 percent higher than normal, whereas the decline in solar output is a few hundredths of one percent down,” Lockwood said. “I think that helps keep it in perspective.”
—————Quoted 28 times so far.—————
There are bright lights shining on Dr. Lockwood’s (latest) distortion.
I am generally suspicious of what I call “the .00001mm trick”.

Mick:
A comment: Hansen used this graph in 1988 before congress:
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/wp-images/Hansen88.GIF
(His 1988 data was wrong).
You don come in congress over night, so since the start of temperature rise in 1977-78 Hansen only heitated very few years to claim global warming.
Now on the other hand, RSS and UAH shows approx 12 years of temperature stagnation. But this is way to fast tro say anything, we hear.
Most important: Lower solar activity, PDO shift etc makes the current stagnation and temperature fall fit in a solid scientific pattern. Therefore this development in temperature is likely to be more than random.
Finally, even more important:
The alarmist say : “You cant say that the cold will continue! because the cold could be temporary!”.
But their position is weak. They themselves claim that we will soon see warming. But they dont have the last dekade of data to support their belief.
Only the skeptics has the last decade of temperature data to support their case.

Pamela Gray wrote: “I officially deny both sides of the debate. Both sides are debating the size of a knat’s ass. The most either can do (CO2 or Sun) is ever so slightly exaggerate the swings of natural oscillations.”
NO. There are no “both sides debating the size of a gnat’s ass” here.
It is irrational and wrong to juxtapose the lowly CO2 against the sun, as if they were both in the same league.
They are in leagues worlds apart.
Science will most likely prove, Pamela, that you are right that the oceans are the primary driver.
As for the sun, Leif thinks maybe 10% max.
Now 10% may not be primary….or even secondary…or tertiary.
But it is not a gnat’s ass either.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

Mick (14:52:21) : On Science Daily today………
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090504141047.htm
Worth a comment?
________________________________________________________________
Mick, I had to laugh at that article. It’s all about cherry picking the current decade to show a stable or cooling trend. What’s funny is the cherry picked start date (1975) of the graph that’s displayed.
I sent my daughter a graph of San Antonio temperatures (raw data) from
1975-2008 showing a trend of +17°F / Century, and asked her what was wrong with the graph.
I later sent her another graph of San Antonio temperatures from 1886-2008 showing a 0°F / Century trend.

Stop being rude about Mike Lockwood and his colleagues. They have wives and children to support and they know that if they promote the “wrong” theory they will become unemployed (and unemployable).
He has gone as far as he can to tell the truth and yet still keep his job. Give him some support
We have found ourselves in a position where the “Inquisition” will destroy all those who do not hold the correct views. Let him put forward his tentative hesitations about the perceived dogma and support him as he does so.

I haven’t read ALL the comments yet, so I hope no one else has said this:
Carbon dioxide has ranged from a low of ~220ppm to an estimated 7000ppm during the pre-Cambrian period. If you subtract 220 from 7000, you get 6780. Half of that would be 3,390. That’s a “mean”, not an average. To get an average you’d have to have reasonably accurate measurements at relatively equal periods from the earliest possible date until now. Sum the measured levels together, divide by the number of measurements, and you can get a reasonable assumption of an “average”. From data I’ve seen on this site and several others, that number would be significantly higher than 300ppm – probably closer to 1000ppm to 1500ppm. That knowledge ALONE would destroy the foundation of AGW – that human-emitted carbon dioxide is going to send the planet into an “irreversable” catastrophe if CO2 levels “double” (from approximately 350ppm). For me, the simple fact that CO2 levels have been as high as 7000ppm, and yet never LOWER than ~220ppm shows that it’s politics, not science behind the push for reducing the CO2 level.
Something that’s really going to put a lot of scientist’s knickers in a bind is that if we truly do enter into a Maunder-type minimum, CO2 levels MAY rise even more rapidly. Today, more than half the CO2 created by burning fossil fuels is sequestered. During a Maunder-type minimum, such sequestration would be far less: plants won’t grow as fast, and some areas that now support plant life will no longer be able to because of the local temperature, and less CO2 can be absorbed by the oceans. There may be other factors that would affect the amount of CO2 sequestration that I’m not aware of. A series of truly massive volcanic eruptions could send us through the floor, temperature-wise, and we’ll be neck deep in a new ice age.
We, indeed, live in “interesting” times.

Leif Svalgaard (17:23:55)
“Every complex systems has random fluctuations.”
Do you have any objection to modifying this to include “chaotic fluctuations” (which are fundamentally different)?

Mike Abbott (18:01:06) :
Hot debate, as in cold sweaty palms and nagging doubt.
Some of them are looking at the Sun, looking at the proposed Warmist countermeasures, and are getting quite nervous. What if AGW’s wrong? What if this backfires? What if the Sun dims out?
Are you warmists absoultely sure of what you are proposing to do?
What could possibly go wrong?
Instead of the Gaia of Eden, you might end up with Hell Freezes Over.