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
“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
=============================================
Looking at the entire spectrum is the key. What do the changes in output across the entire solar bandwidth do to the Earth – geophysically, climatologically, and biologically?
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?
The TSI/UV question keeps coming up.
In 2001Drew Shindell (NASA / GISS) published a study showing a link between the LIA & the Maunder minimum, the causal source being lower UV heating of the stratosphere & upper troposphere, slowing maritime trade winds that moderate inland winters. Leif Svalgaard & I have debated this one, Leif indicated that studies of historical UV levels suggest UV variance has been too small relative to the -0.3 to -0.4 degrC amount required to drive the LIA.
But in a recent article (sorry, I can’t find the citation) Hathaway said something to the effect that the net decrease in TSI may be in the range of -0.3 degrC, predominantly from a cooler stratosphere due to decreased UV-B & UV-C. This reinforces other researchers who have indicated a -0.1 degrC decrease in UV heating since the mid 1990’s.
However one of NASA’s recent articles also indicated an ongoing 0.02% decrease in visible TSI, which in terms of Kelvin would be -.055 degrC (273 * .0002). That’s in addition to the cooler stratosphere, bringing us to an ongoing -0.155 degrC effect.
During the same period global temperatures have stabilized – global warming has stalled. Could it be that a -0.15 degrC TSI change is offsetting the same amount of greenhouse gas heating while at the same time Co2 levels increased dramatically? If the sun’s slackening is predominant in causing this temperature plateau, then a 1.5 degree/century equivalent GHG effect is no apocalypse.
However if aerosols are masking more than a few tenths of a degree C, then the total net negative offset from lower TSI & aerosols could bring us closer to 1.7 – 2.0 degree/century equivalent GHG effect being masked.
If increased cosmic rays (CR) somehow play some role in cloud cover then we have another variable that changes our interpretation of both other factors and current trend. If CRs are also lending to an ongoing temperature plateau it could indicate how much more dominant the sun is — in both rising temperatures in the last century as well as moderating GHG effects now.
I’m not very AGW – I haven’t seen sufficient evidence of a CO2 apocalypse while noting a great deal of climate model invalidations – but this is the kind of reasoning and explanations we need to be getting from NASA, Nat’l Geo & the rest. What warming CO2 causes is going to saturate and so far we haven’t seen evidence of an a significant water vapor feedback / climate sensitivity in the seas or air.
What we need are better data and analysis on TSI levels, cosmic rays effects & aerosols, not facile statements about keeping the climate vigil, etc.
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 have been following solar output since i was working with NASA in the late 1960’s and was predicting an upturn in temperature when Hansen, et al were predicting a new ice age. Now i am predicting a solar minimum of little ice age proportion or worse and I will be very happy to be proven wrong because it would be hell to live thru.
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.
“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 a disingenuous manipulative liar.
CO2, as a percent of the atmosphere, is up a mere one-one hundredth of one percent, from 300 to 400 PARTS – PER – MILLION.
Put that in your perspective and smoke it!
Even the “is a good 50 to 60 percent higher than normal” statement is total bull malarky.
This Lockwood guy should be fired.
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.
==============================================
The Sun is quiet …. but the Earth is STILL spinning out of control!
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?
I am curious if it would upset you if you were to learn that Mike Lockwood intentionally misrepresented the facts to your reporter when he stated:
“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 suggest that Mr. Lockwood should have provided you with this more accurate perspective:
As a percentage of the total number of molecules in our atmosphere, CO2 has increased (in rough numbers) from 300 to 400 parts per million. Therefore CO2 has increased by 100 parts per million which is equal to a one one-hundredth of one percent higher concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere.
(If you do not believe me, please follow the math.)
A. 400 ppm – 300 ppm = 100 ppm
B. 100 ppm / 1,000,000 ppm = .0001 (one one-thousand)
C. .0001 / 100 = 0.01 Percent = one one-hundredth of one percent
Therefore, a “few hundredths of one percent down” in solar output and “one one-hundredth of one percent up” in CO2 atmospheric concentrations are relevant comparisons and are reasons for further scientific study.
It is a sad and tragic state of affairs when scientists and the media conspire to withhold the truth in order to further their “noble and just cause”. It is one of the signs that our society has decayed. If “the end justifies the means” in climate research, should it not also hold true say when interrogating terrorists, or when prosecuting criminals or for just about any cause that is just and noble in the eyes of those who are in power?.
From my many years of experience with similar matters, I am quite certain that your organization will do nothing to further investigate, retract, or clarify Mr. Lockwood’s misrepresentation, because to do so would run counter to your strong desire for a CO2 based AGW scenario. Please prove me wrong.
I can only hope that someone in your organization has the integrity and the courage to seek the truth rather than to promote an agenda by using deception and lies.
Sent to National Geographic – nothing will likely come out of it, but I feel a lot better for expressing my concerns!
>>“[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.
It is fascinating to watch a new cycle taking hold. Just like Leif’s graphs show: spots of new interest, appearing sporadically in the greater latitudes, gradually consolidating, gaining prominence, and quickly gravitating to the center where they at first overlap, then completely replace the old cycle events. Who could have predicted? Maybe in a year or two there will be just just a few faint, desultory remnats of the old cycle to remind us…
And no, I’m not talking about solar cycles 23 and 24.
That National Geographic is running this article is incredibly sweet, however small and meek their observation that the sun might be affecting Earth’s climate:
But there is also all that audible teeth-gnashing going on…
– in the article itself
– In a nearby link: “Get the facts about Global Warming”, like a lifeline to tow us back to more comfortable, familiar National Geographic fare – industrial smokestacks, melting glaciers, and dire warnings of species extermination, rising seas and rampantly northward-spreading disease.
– and in the side-bar articles of the editors.
National Geographic should be ashamed to make any claim upon scientific objectivity.
Other ages took note of similar transitions in thinking, comparing them to the movement of a spot on the rim of a wheel, rising and falling as it tracks across the horizon. It would seem certain big ideas have a life like this, ascending and falling out of favor. Hopefully AGW has seen its ascendancy.
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].
WOW, very intreuging especially seeing how I leardned this in physics class this semsters, as to pertain to the maximas and minima in Youngs Double Blind Experiment, as well as the Little Ice Age. Which I aslo happened to learn in Ecology class, which was for 350 yeras. Climate has been relativley cooloer the past 1000 years and This may have to do with global warming. Oh I love my field!!!
leebert (08:32:57) :
The TSI/UV question keeps coming up.
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. Apart from my own work on this [e.g. http://www.leif.org/research/Napa%20Solar%20Cycle%2024.pdf ]
you might take a look at the independent confirmation fro Ca K-line measurements initiated by Peter Foukal:
http://www.leif.org/research/Foukal-F107-Rz.pdf
Luca Bertello and I are giving a presentation on the Mt Wilson Ca K data and the sunspot number calibration at the upcoming Solar Physics Division [SPD] of the AAS meeting:
(Leif Svalgaard, Luca Bertello [MWO], Ed Cliver)
Three independent datasets support the finding that a discontinuous change of ~20% was introduced in the Zurich Sunspot Number, Rz, when Max Waldmeier took over the production of Rz. The range of the diurnal variation of the geomagnetic field (the East-component) is controlled by the EUV-induced conductivity of the dayside ionosphere and indicates a 23% increase of Rz from 1946 on. The Greenwich Sunspot Areas (and the Group Sunspot Number derived from the Greenwich data) indicate a 17.5% increase of Rz. A CaII K-line index derived from recently digitized Mount Wilson Observatory spectroheliograms indicates an 18.5% increase in Rz. Friedli [2005] notes that “The new observer-team in Zurich was thus relatively inexperienced and Waldmeier himself feared that his scale factor could vary”. We suggest that his fear was not unfounded and that the Zurich Sunspot Number be increased by 20% before 1946.
——
We take this in small steps. We already know that the Group Sunspot Number is too low by some 40% before ~1880 based on the geomagnetic data that the above abstract validate. Ken Schatten and I are looking into a joint paper on this.
It has been suggested that I do a post of this. It would be good to wait until after the SPD meeting [it is June 14-18] so we can have some reactions from whatever ‘reactionaries’ might come out of the woodwork.
Carsten Arnholm, Norway:-)
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.
Let me know how you get on!
AtB
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.
ER Smith
“And ozone being the major (and nearly only) thing blocking the 9-10 micron IR band. So the IR windowshade is going up…”
I am having trouble verifying your contention that ozone blocks IR [I do not see it in Wckipedia], could you please give me a source ?
Many thanks.
@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
I have been trying to figure out what the dramatic drop in UV and x-rays could do to the radiation balance of the upper atmosphere.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/16/earths-ionosphere-drops-to-a-new-low/
One thing that would happen is that the upper atmosphere contracts and becomes more dense. This would mean more molecular collisions and sharing of the thermal energy. A CO2 molecule in the ground state could be excited by a collision with a N2 molecule and the upper atmosphere would effectively radiate more energy because N2 is a poor radiator compared to CO2. Okay now I need a (shudder) model to estimate the net effect.
Perhaps it acts like insulation. The fluffier it is, the greater the insulation value. A denser atmosphere is more conductive. Normal insulation limits conduction and convection. I do not know if it works for radiation, but the collisional effect would be real. I would love a reference. This is fascinating stuff.
“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.
Gary P (10:38:52) :
One thing that would happen is that the upper atmosphere contracts and becomes more dense. This would mean more molecular collisions and sharing of the thermal energy.
The upper atmosphere has a density 1/1,000,000 of the air density at the surface, so can expand and contract as it wants without much effect lower down.
Frank Lansner (10:36:55) :
I hope then, that a good solar activity source is available if not Hoyt and Schatten is valid.
Frank, there some better ones at my website http://www.leif.org/research. Scroll down to:
770 TSI (Reconstructions).xls (TSI Reconstructions 1700-present, 2008) [as text, as PDF]
then download your preferred format.
Slightly O/T
A dairy company in Garstang, UK, a few miles from where I live, has been granted planning permission for a 127m high wind turbine:
http://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/blackpoolnews/Cheese-firm-smiling-after-turbine.5233719.jp
This monster will be almost as high as Blackpool Tower (158m):
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ec/Blackpool_tower_from_central_pier_ferris_wheel_.jpg/800px-Blackpool_tower_from_central_pier_ferris_wheel_.jpg
This comes at a time when a Cumbrian wind farm (about 60 miles away) is about to be uprooted and replaced with a proposed nuclear reactor because, let’s be honest here, wind turbines are not very efficient and cost a fortune.
We allready have several large windfarms in the Lancaster/Wyre/Fylde area including a very large one just offshore at Fleetwood. None of them were operational during the recent cold snap making them less than useless.
Companies are allowed to erect these monsters to offset their carbon footprint and therefore pay less for carbon credits. Of course, they will still be churning out just as much CO2 as ever they do to say nothing of the methane produced by the cows whose milk they process into butter, pasteurised milk, cream and cheese. Naturally, having the bloody thing in the middle of a rural (officially greenbelt) location won’t damage the area at all.
Of course, there will be a huge grant from the taxpayers to build the thing adding insult to injury. So in effect, taxpayers will actually be footing a major part of the bill in order to allow a private company to reduce its carbon tax. Does that make sense to you?
Me neither.