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

Leif Svalgaard (14:17:00) “[…] and why did you lament that there are no decent scientists participating?”
The preceding is misrepresentation.
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Leif Svalgaard (14:05:19) “Not if they are good. It is just that they are not good, meaning their ‘R’ is low [or rather their Rsquared values].”
Statisticians sometimes tear such statements to shreds.

The Sun is the constant on those planets. The planetary atmosphere is the swirly variable. We are so used to seeing towards “out there”, instead of being out there and seeing towards “in here”, that we forget to notice the TREMENDOUSLY variable and thick atmosphere we have.
There is NO reason it can’t be both….with the “swirly highly variable” “in here” taking the significant majority FIRST PLACE.
In no way is the “sun the constant” when it too is affected by its 500,000 MPH jaunt through space…passing through arms (“spiral bands”) of the Milky Way over the eons and interstellar dust clouds and God knows what else.
Svensmark was on to something.
And YOU are on to something about the Oceans being the king.
Most logical people, when they see two or three or more good theories (or even models) will most likely opt for a blend (not necessarily equal) of all of them.
It really is tiring (and disappointing) to hear some of the world’s great scientists talking in black in white.
There are innumerable shades of gray…..
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

When I and my brothers and I were very very young, we used to have verbal fights:
“You are an idiot”
“You are twice and idiot”
“You are three thousand times an idiot with a patent”
“You are a million million times an idiot with a cone hat and a patent.”
When we learned how to write, the wooden door of our fire wood storage basement became the recipient in writing, which stayed there for years and years until the demolition of the house and the raising of an apartment building.
Some of the conversation on this thread somehow reminded me of this.

“Pamela Gray (07:13:35) : If we want to win this debate, we must continue to talk about the Earth’s oceans,”
Why?
To do that would be using the same tactic the other side uses, i.e., trying to convince people of something with an argument that doesn’t embrace the whole picture. It’s ok to talk about the sun.
The earth is cooling. That is winning the debate anyway. Science sounds like “blah, blah, blah” to most people. But the earth cooling when global warming is supposed to be happening makes the average person shut off to Al Gore and any scientist on his side. PDO, AMO, el Nino, la Nina, Jet Stream, graphs in journals, peer-review, blah, blah, blah.
The earth is cooling. End of story.

“REPLY: Umm I think you mean “snippers” – Anthony”
I think I also mean it smarts when you get the business end. But he does it for good reason 😉

Leif Svalgaard (14:05:19) :

leebert (12:18:59) :
Shall I take this to mean that when it comes to science that apparent correlations should be generally off the menu?
Not if they are good. It is just that they are not good, meaning their ‘R’ is low [or rather their Rsquared values].

Yet here we have the AGW researchers one year to the next claiming strong correlations only to go back to the drawing board. In my original native field of Psychology lots of research appeared backed by strong Rsquares but a lot of it turned out to be bunkum.
With regard to solar grand minima & historic cool spells on Earth, are the apparent correlations strong enough to claim some evidence of a causal link? Or is this evidence more of an anecdotal trend?

Well, you can’t keep the media from reporting flimsy stories, but you can try to educate the public [and our politicians – if possible]. But all too often, people, including many on this blog, will revel in a flimsy story if it happens to reinforce their views.

You know, you deserve some kind of prize for wading through all the barycentric nonsense that erupts time to time. You’re to be commended for your patience & indulgence … but if you haven’t already it’s probably time Leif Svalgaard wrote his definitive FAQ on barycenters & other solar bunkum (bunka?).
As a layperson I don’t have access to the lit sources, so when I stumble upon older research like Shindell’s UV study I don’t see the subsequent followups that would show his reconstructed UV source data was later invalidated.
Making matters worse, when a passing comment from a scientist crops up about the shrinking stratosphere & 3/10th degrC cooler stratosphere, I have to wonder if there’s really consensus on UV data. Scientists make claims and counterclaims all the time.
But the science reporting in the media is even worse than my own personal muddlings. Science reporting ranges from either shallow and brief or extremely arcane and deep, with little in the middle.

That is the problem, but since it is human nature, perhaps it is hard to avoid, hence the need for continual elucidation.

There is no cure for human nature. People are largely addicted to believing for any number of reasons – for aversion to threat or need for certainty (social or otherwise). A favorite William James quote is “A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.” We are such products of our experiences!
Even a movie like “What the do we know?” falls short on a fuller insight while promoting some grooviness that has little to do with science & more to do with a faddish new age tent evangelism. Lots of bright, curious & educated friends were all abuzz about it. I watched it & got quite annoyed.
Al Gore’s movie is riven with blatant contradictions, controversial data & plain old falsehoods .. the “coincidence theorist” side of me thinks, yes, but it has made for such splendid marketing for his Cap & Trade arbitrage firm!
To lift popular and political culture out of the mire of competitive pablum will require a new style of intervention. The media thrives on contrived dialectics and spoon feed it to a willing audience 24 hours a day. Maybe people will start to burn out on the glut of garbage being thrown at them, I don’t know. A maturing population might be more responsive to such efforts. I often wish I knew whether we have hit rock bottom yet — just when I think we have something new comes up to remind me that we have a little further to go…. 🙂