Excerpts printed below, see full story here (h/t to David Archibald)
Anne Minard for National Geographic News
May 4, 2009 A prolonged lull in solar activity has astrophysicists glued to their telescopes waiting to see what the sun will do next—and how Earth’s climate might respond.
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.
…
But researchers are on guard against their concerns about a new cold snap being misinterpreted.
“[Global warming] skeptics tend to leap forward,” said Mike Lockwood, a solar terrestrial physicist at the University of Southampton in the U.K.
He and other researchers are therefore engaged in what they call “preemptive denial” of a solar minimum leading to global cooling.
…
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.”
…
Changes in the sun’s activity can affect Earth in other ways, too.
For example, ultraviolet (UV) light from the sun is not bottoming out the same way it did during the past few visual minima.
“The visible light doesn’t vary that much, but UV varies 20 percent, [and] x-rays can vary by a factor of ten,” Hall said. “What we don’t understand so well is the impact of that differing spectral irradiance.”
Solar UV light, for example, affects mostly the upper layers of Earth’s atmosphere, where the effects are not as noticeable to humans. But some researchers suspect those effects could trickle down into the lower layers, where weather happens
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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.
I love that analogy of percentages, puts the argument very well. After all, despite having respect for Lockwood as a physicist, I have made my point about him before, but he is the one who said recently that if there was going to be a cooling effect we would have seen it by now. COuld somebody at Southampton University – I won’t ask my daughter who is a nurse – tell about all four major temperature metrcis showing said cooling since 2002? Put him out of his misery, somebody!
I was very impressed by the vidoe clip showing the geology conference round from Oslo on Climaterealist.com. It was wonderful to see several real geologists very sceptical of the AGW argument, even one or two honourable pro AGW statements by others, 66minutes of it, but who was that last guy with his sycophantic grovelling with his head so far up the Norwegian Environemnt Minister’s errr………….she was rather attractive you pick it, bacause if he wanted a date why didn’t he do something really romantic & ask her out in front of everyone…………..but that appalling piece of rudenss he displayed, a classic churlish put down, when he referred to the last speaker by saying that he disagreed with his viewpoint, with a comptemptuous “whoever he was” slating, just very poor show & very disrespectful.
@ur momisugly 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.
At what global average temperature does the AGW argument fail?
For example, if the average temperate drops below any possible forecasted value, does this value equal a ‘false’ in any logic treatments that the AGW theory is based on?
Or … can it keep cooling for 30 years, and the AGW argument still be valid?
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!
“The visible light doesn’t vary that much, but UV varies 20 percent, [and] x-rays can vary by a factor of ten,” Hall said. “What we don’t understand so well is the impact of that differing spectral irradiance.”
So we have the primary driver of ozone formation down by 1/5 with X-rays even more. Ozone presently very low:
http://exp-studies.tor.ec.gc.ca/e/ozone/Curr_allmap_g.htm
with anomalies of -10 to -20% (coincidence?)
And ozone being the major (and nearly only) thing blocking the 9-10 micron IR band. So the IR windowshade is going up…
And we’re getting colder…
Gee, it must be CO2 doing it /sarcoff>
And they didn’t even mention the solar mag field being down tens of percent and the increased cosmic ray / cloud formation connection. Having been under very unusual clouds and drizzle for the last week in “sunny” California, I think they are missing something…
OK, I’m going to indulge in some “preemptive denial”: I deny that they have a clue. Any clue. Someone needs to tell them what a Bond Event is and remind them that we’re one volcano away from a year without a summer…
The only good news is that as someone with the “redhead gene” giving me nearly transparent skin I’m really happy at any reduction in UV ! If no sunburns is what it means: Bring On Bond Event Zero!!
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/04/06/bond-event-zero/
…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.
Anthony, you know that by putting an article up about solar activity/sunspots, you will surely provoke the sun and it will show a sunspot shortly in the next few days… maybe!
“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.
“There are many uncertainties,” said Jose Abreu, a doctoral candidate at the Swiss government’s research institute Eawag.
“We don’t know the sensitivity of the climate to changes in solar intensity. In my opinion, I wouldn’t play with things I don’t know.”
Good idea ! why play with changes in solar intensity ?,you may even burn your fingers!
I had more fun staring at the two suns and forming a 3D sunspot superimposition on the March 2009 Sun.
Perhaps I should get out a bit more.
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.
Numbers taken out of context or without relation are dangerous and can falsely prove anything and nothing.
The article states that CO2 level is “50 to 60 percent higher than normal”. Assuming that all the global heating of the last 200 years is due to CO2 (ignoring possible contributions from the solar shift from a Maunder Minimum of the 16th Century to the Grand Maximum of the 20th Century), then that would be significant. The article states that the solar output (I guess they mean irradiance) is “a few hundredths of one percent down”. Also, Lockwood states “I think that helps keep it in perspective.”
Well, try this one. The sun has finally started to turndown after the Grand Maximum of the later 20th Century. We may be going back into a Dalton or even Maunder type solar minimum. If the earth’s albedo increases due to a 1% increase in low cloud formation, the amount of additional cooling is 3 times greater (and opposite sign) to the AGW hypothetical warming of CO2 level at 100 percent higher than “normal” (and that effect is a hypothesis, not a theory or a law).
Just as less than 100 years ago, we had no idea or proof that there were galaxies beyond the Milky Way, soon we may find that a quiet versus active sun has other effects besides just irradiance.
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?
“I think you have to bear in mind that the CO2 is a good one molecule in 10,000 higher than normal, whereas the decline in solar output is a few hundredths of one percent down,” Lockwood should have said. “I think that helps keep it in perspective.”
Yes that looks better.
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.
John in NZ (22:50:49) :
…
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.
Absolution – go forth and purchase Carbon Credits from the Profit Al Gore and your sins will be forgiven.
All hail the Green($$$).
just to add to the above comment. http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7a.html
“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.”
Others have worked the math. The CO2 contribution is so minimal that the delta CO2 is less significant than the delta Intensity/sq m of the sun. Plus, the potential multipliers are not considered.
This person has made a belief statement, not a scientific statement. This person considers the religious beliefs to be more important than the anticipated scientific observation.
What a shame on this thought/belief vs. observation.
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.
Lockwood: 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).
Lockwood seems to have forgotten or ignored that the climate has been cooling since 2000 and CO2 has continued to rise. I wonder what excuse he’ll give when the sun’s quietness continues for several decades and the temperature continues to decline as CO2 continues to climb. In fact, I’d bet CO2 will start to decline as the oceans, being colder, will sequester more CO2.
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.
Rebar (21:05:51) :
““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.”
This has to be “Quote of the Week” and it’s a definite contender for “Quote of the Year””
I agree with you, more than a 100 percent.
“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.
The article claims current CO2 levels are 50-60% higher than normal. That brings up the question of “what is normal”? If you take Al Gore’s famous chart showing the commensurate rise and fall of global temperature and CO2 over the past 450,000 years, you will find that during the past four temperature maximums (we’re now in the fifth such maximum) atmospheric CO2 levels rose to approximately 280 ppm at temperatures comparable to today’s. The logical explanation for the rise and fall of natural atmospheric CO2 with global temperature variations is that it is driven by temperature induced variations in the solubility of CO2 in the oceans. This time, at temperatures comparable to the past four maximums, we have risen to 380 ppm of atmospheric CO2. It would seem reasonable to assume that the additional 100 ppm was man-made and that 280 ppm would be “normal” for the current global temperature. That would bring the additional CO2 amount “above normal” to 36%.
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?