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
Leif Svalgaard (13:31:52) : said,
As I have noted, there are good reasons to believe that solar activity [and geomagnetic activity] in the past (e.g. 1845-1875, or back in the 1770-1780s] was as vigorous as during the 20th century. Most people [and researchers] believe that the temperatures in the earlier periods were considerably lower than during the 20th century, so perhaps the solar connection is not so strong as assumed by many [especially as counterweight to AGW].
Or perhaps you learned experts have not as yet discovered the solar, earth, Mars link, odd that a lack of sunspots appears to bring on cooling. Maybe a lack of sunspots is just a visual indicator or not. Like Becks CO2 data Leif does not trust the early observations as it does not fit his theory which appears to be in the AGW camp.
What caused the earlier coolings ans warmings if not the sun.
“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”.
I know that this has probably been said better.
If everything that Al Gore and Chu say is 100% true and every doomsday scenario they portray is upon us, trying to fight the good fight of a real global warming catastrophe with the impotent weapons of collectivism is STILL a very stupid idea.
Does no one remember the story of Jamestown?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2120669/posts
Does anyone remember that WWII was won because of the releasing of capitalism that brought us from the great depression?
No matter what weather/climate we face, capitalism is the weapon of choice. I hope we won’t be thrown into a fight unarmed.
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.
Frank,
Of course there will be warming in the future, and then there will be cooling, then warming, then cooling. The natural variability and cycles are what we all here are explaining. The Hockey Team insists that the warming will always exceed the cooling, until a ‘tipping point’ is reached that depends on water vapor being a positive rather than a negative feedback.
BTW: it is claimed the drop in oil prices is due to drops in consumption due to the poor global economy. If so, then the CO2 concentrations should not have continued increasing. Can we get a comparison between fossil fuel consumption over the past 20 yrs vs CO2 concentrations?
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
“Between Earth eccentricity and solar output varying from minimal to maximal over a 100,000 year period, this perfectly explains the long term Ice Age cycle”
Then please “perfectly” explain a couple of things, if you have the time …
Just before the last period of glaciation, temperatures went from the coldest of the entire glacial period to the warmest of the Holocene … in a VERY short period of time. Orbital changes are gradual. Changes from glaciation to interglacial is fast, often within the span of a single human lifetime. The switch back to glacial conditions is even faster, within a period of a decade or two.
Also, the periods of glaciation in this ice age have generally been getting longer and colder. Interglacials have also been getting cooler. This interglacial is cooler than then last one was, for example, though it has been a little longer.
So why does it go from maximum cold to maximum warmth? Why do we “miss” opportunities to come out of glaciations yet never seem to miss opportunities to go into one? It seems that orbital dynamics is only one of the conditions required to come out of a glacial period though seems reasonable to be what tips the balance to go into one.
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.
Mike Lorrey (15:39:57) :
Jupiter and Saturn’s tidal influence on the Sun are the main influences on long term variations in solar cycle output, as those planets orbital eccentricity varies from 0.01 up to as much as 0.09 over 40,000 and 100,000 year periods (these planets are in 5:2 resonance).
No matter what variations in the orbits, the planets raises only a very small tide [a fraction of a millimeter (1/25 inch = 1 mm)]
They are also the primary influences on the changes in Earth’s orbital eccentricities over the same period. Between Earth eccentricity and solar output varying from minimal to maximal over a 100,000 year period, this perfectly explains the long term Ice Age cycle
These changes would happen even if the Sun’s output was absolutely constant.
You are confusing changes to the Sun with changes in how the solar input to the Earth is distributed over the surface of the Earth and the seasons.
Rob (15:45:44) :
Like Becks CO2 data Leif does not trust the early observations
The early observations are very good, it is our modern calibration of them that is incorrect.
as it does not fit his theory which appears to be in the AGW camp.
You have not grasped the AGW position. It goes like this [so listen up!]. Either there has been no climate change in the past [the Hockey Stick – no LIA, no MWP] or they accept there has been ‘climate change’. If we discount the first position as silly, then the group that accepts climate change is even more rabid in their insistence, that the sun is the driver, because ‘what else could change the climate if not the Sun’ at a time when there was no CO2 driver.
So, discounting the lunatics [‘no climate change in the past’], the remainder of the AGW crowd need the Sun badly, as they even bring forth the argument that sunspots and temps went together before ~1980, but not after [thus proving AGW].
If you want to attack AGW, do it coherently [not all that hard] and understand what the position of the enemy is beforehand.
What caused the earlier coolings and warmings if not the sun
Every complex systems has random fluctuations. Oceans store 300 times as much heat, so their currents and behavior can be substantial.
Mike Lorrey (15:39:57) :
Jupiter and Saturn’s tidal influence on the Sun are the main influences on long term variations in solar cycle output, as those planets orbital eccentricity varies from 0.01 up to as much as 0.09 over 40,000 and 100,000 year periods (these planets are in 5:2 resonance).
No matter what variations in the orbits, the planets raises only a very small tide [a fraction of a millimeter (1/25 inch = 1 mm)]
They are also the primary influences on the changes in Earth’s orbital eccentricities over the same period. Between Earth eccentricity and solar output varying from minimal to maximal over a 100,000 year period, this perfectly explains the long term Ice Age cycle
These changes would happen even if the Sun’s output was absolutely constant.
You are confusing changes to the Sun with changes in how the solar input to the Earth is distributed over the surface of the Earth and the seasons.
Rob (15:45:44) :
Like Becks CO2 data Leif does not trust the early observations
The early observations are very good, it is our modern calibration of them that is incorrect.
as it does not fit his theory which appears to be in the AGW camp.
You have not grasped the AGW position. It goes like this [so listen up!]. Either there has been no climate change in the past [the Hockey Stick – no LIA, no MWP] or they accept there has been ‘climate change’. If we discount the first position as silly, then the group that accepts climate change is even more rabid in their insistence, that the sun is the driver, because ‘what else could change the climate if not the Sun’ at a time when there was no CO2 driver.
So, discounting the lunatics [‘no climate change in the past’], the remainder of the AGW crowd need the Sun badly, as they even bring forth the argument that sunspots and temps went together before ~1980, but not after [thus proving AGW].
If you want to attack AGW, do it coherently [not all that hard] and understand what the position of the enemy is beforehand.
What caused the earlier coolings and warmings if not the sun
Every complex systems has random fluctuations. Oceans store 300 times as much heat, so their currents and behavior can be substantial. The AGW people have their own answer to what caused the present warming… and will say that it takes 30 years to make a trend…
Frank Lansner (16:22:49) Tanks for Hansen’s 1988 graph, another one for the archives. It is strangely flat in the middle, about 1925 to 1978ish. I thought would compare it to his recent works, 1999 and 2007 for the 1880 to 1990 periods, keeping scale as accurate as possible. TSeems the guy just can’t keep his numbers straight.
http://i39.tinypic.com/2mzleg3.jpg
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.
The bottom line is that Hansen and his fellow travelers never predicted the decline in global temperatures beginning in 2000 to today. So their GCM are full of bovine excrement. The declining global temperatures have blind sided them and they’re now doing damage control.
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.
Mick (14:52:21) : On Science Daily today………
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090504141047.htm
Worth a comment?
——————————————–
It’s a wildly pro-AGW article and the mantra of the AGW crowd is that the debate is over. Yet the article begins with “In the hotly debated arena of global climate change…” Maybe the author’s admission that the issue is “hotly debated” is a sign of progress??
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)?
So pre-emptive denial…does that include defying the Sun?
Most people when put on a treadmill face against the direction of travel, i.e. – they compensate.
What do you think will happen when someone goes the opposite way?
They’ll be thrown to the floor.
Cooling, happening right now, combined with massive ‘efforts’ to reduce Global Warming will throw the climate to the cellar.
Yeah, some of them, they’re starting to sweat, cold sweat.
About time the lump formed in their throats.
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.
“‘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.’”
From that “perspective,” CO2 doesn’t have much warming effect in light of the fact global climate is cooling. I have noticed the temperature always goes down every night when the sun goes down, CO2 or no CO2! From that “perspective,” a “few hundredths of one percent” decrease of the sun’s power would seem to have a correspondingly massive effect on earth’s climate with hardly a budge from even a massive increase of CO2.
Uh-oh, someone’s not reading their AGW Handbook over at Nat Geo: “Over 200 New Amphibians Found in Madagascar” is their homepage headline. Hey, Nat Geo: AGW destroys species…we don’t find NEW ones!
Paul Vaughan (18:01:27) :
“Every complex systems has random fluctuations.”
Do you have any objection to modifying this to include “chaotic fluctuations” (which are fundamentally different)?
Yes, [and I’ll not tell you what they are]
Nic Lonsdale (17:38:55)
“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).”
Some of the anger relates to the fact that a lot of professors have nearly-absolute job security (while most others do not) …
… For example, I remember a professor bragging – almost goadingly – to a classroom full of students about just how hard it would be for him to get fired. It was clear that he considered losing his job so next-to-impossible that he was barely able to speak at moments as tremors of humor rippled across his efforts to convey that for which he could not find adequate words. He was clearly in a state of tickled-marvel.
Another factor in the anger: The misleading statements damage other families’ security & interests; this should not be taken lightly.
Paul Vaughan (18:01:27) :
“Every complex systems has random fluctuations.”
Do you have any objection to modifying this to include “chaotic fluctuations” (which are fundamentally different)?
Having replied the Paul Vaughan way :-), I’ll now revert to my usual mode:
Yes, as not every complex system is chaotic. The climate may be, but plate tectonics [to mention one example] may not be.
Leif Svalgaard (18:33:14)
“[…] every […]”
Glad you addressed the importance of this word – I had considered doing so, but wasn’t eager to ‘rock the boat’.
Paul Vaughan (18:42:59) :
Glad you addressed the importance of this word – I had considered doing so, but wasn’t eager to ‘rock the boat’.
Wish I could be equally glad from obtaining answers, but, as you point out, cultural differences may preclude me ever getting one.
In general, comments should not be about ‘rocking the boat’, but rather concerned with making positive contributions [sharing when one can] or clarifications, assuming [of course] that the point being commented upon is not garbage [in which case one best simply leaves it alone – being ignored is the best cure against unfounded postings].