NASA Study Acknowledges Solar Cycle, Not Man, Responsible for Past Warming
Report indicates solar cycle has been impacting Earth since the Industrial Revolution
From the Daily Tech, Michael Andrews. (h/t to Joe D’Aleo)
Some researchers believe that the solar cycle influences global climate changes. They attribute recent warming trends to cyclic variation. Skeptics, though, argue that there’s little hard evidence of a solar hand in recent climate changes.
[NOTE: there is evidence of solar impact on the surface temperature record, as Basil Copeland and I discovered in this report published here on WUWT titled Evidence of a Lunisolar Influence on Decadal and Bidecadal Oscillations In Globally Averaged Temperature Trends – Anthony]
Solar activity has shown a major spike in the twentieth century, corresponding to global warming. This cyclic variation was acknowledged by a recent NASA
study, which reviewed a great deal of past climate data. (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Now, a new research report from a surprising source may help to lay this skepticism to rest. A study from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland looking at climate data over the past century has concluded that solar variation has made a significant impact on the Earth’s climate. The report concludes that evidence for climate changes based on solar radiation can be traced back as far as the Industrial Revolution.
Past research has shown that the sun goes through eleven year cycles. At the cycle’s peak, solar activity occurring near sunspots is particularly intense, basking the Earth in solar heat. According to Robert Cahalan, a climatologist at the Goddard Space Flight Center,
“Right now, we are in between major ice ages, in a period that has been called the Holocene.”
Thomas Woods, solar scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder concludes,
“The fluctuations in the solar cycle impacts Earth’s global temperature by about 0.1 degree Celsius, slightly hotter during solar maximum and cooler during solar minimum. The sun is currently at its minimum, and the next solar maximum is expected in 2012.”
According to the study, during periods of solar quiet, 1,361 watts per square meter of solar energy reaches Earth’s outermost atmosphere. Periods of more intense activity brought 1.3 watts per square meter (0.1 percent) more energy.
While the NASA study acknowledged the sun’s influence on warming and cooling patterns, it then went badly off the tracks. Ignoring its own evidence, it returned to an argument that man had replaced the sun as the cause current warming patterns. Like many studies, this conclusion was based less on hard data and more on questionable correlations and inaccurate modeling techniques.
The inconvertible fact, here is that even NASA’s own study acknowledges that solar variation has caused climate change in the past. And even the study’s members, mostly ardent supports of AGW theory, acknowledge that the sun may play a significant role in future climate changes.
NOTE: for those that wish to see the original NASA Goddard article which sparked both the Daily Tech and Science Daily news stories referenced above, you can read it here:
http://erc.ivv.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/solar_variability.html
– Anthony
Nasif Nahle (23:20:06) :
Judge by yourself:
http://www.biocab.org/HSG_and_TSI.jpg
Looks like a spectacular failure to me. Especially the leftmost data point.
@Leif…
Before you tell me something about the series of TSI, I’ve included your database in the graph:
http://www.biocab.org/HSG_and_TSI.jpg
The green line was plotted from your database. As you can see, the correlation between TSI and HSG is clear. I have the complete databases on iron stained grains and other proxies. If you wish I can send them to you via E-mail. 🙂
Leif Svalgaard (23:27:48) :
Looks like a spectacular failure to me. Especially the leftmost data point.
Not my fault… As I’ve told you, TSI database is incomplete and solar physicists are responsible upon the failure, not me. I have the database for 10-Beryllium. You can verify that I didn’t cherry picked any figure.
Nasif Nahle (23:47:27) :
The green line was plotted from your database. As you can see, the correlation between TSI and HSG is clear.
No, it is a complete failure as far as the leftmost data point is concerned, f.ex.
My email address is well known: leif@leif.org
Thanks, Leif. I already had your address; I’d just like to know if you wish that I send you the databases.
Nasif Nahle (00:10:23) :
Thanks, Leif. I already had your address; I’d just like to know if you wish that I send you the databases.
I collect stuff.
Sorry to interrupt, but would you like a new idea to debate? There is a new article in Journal of Geophysical Research
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2008JD011386.shtml
which is commented on at physicsworld.com
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/39381
“Cosmic rays offer clue to lightning”
It doesn’t quite say this, but maybe cosmic rays have a direct effect on the amount of lightning produced. And it certainly doesn’t say there is any link with weather and/or climate, but would that be possible?
Leif
You missed the point about Damon & Laut. Regardless of the merit of Laut’s snarky criticism (and yes snark breeds snark), there must be a right to reply and the reply should have been sought and published by the journal and also mentioned by anyone who quotes D+L as a definitive refutation. Otherwise it is merely an underhand smear tactic. F-C, S and L (who wrote the 1st draft of that comment) clearly rejected in the strongest possible terms the accusations and innuendo of Laut yet nobody is ever made aware of this. Once we are aware of the reply it is then up to us to decide who is more correct and/or honest. That Laut used the phrase “further investigation reveals” when the investigation consisted of merely reading the paper where the technique was described is certainly not to his credit.
Smoothing is obviously an issue with everyone in the climate and solar debates so the point is how significant is the smoothing to the final result and how do people react to the critiques. It’s noticeable to me that S and F-C were thereafter careful with their use of smoothing and calculated correlations on raw data. Most of the detractors of F-C and S are just prone to iffy data handling but unlike F-C and S they largely haven’t tried to improve.
Leif
In defense of Geoff Sharp, “only Jupiter matters” is not in the least implying anything about the laws of Physics only applying to one planet. It is merely noting that other contributions are relatively negligible. By contrast it is unscientific to use a strawman argument.
JamesG (03:26:57) :
In defense of Geoff Sharp, “only Jupiter matters” is not in the least implying anything about the laws of Physics only applying to one planet. It is merely noting that other contributions are relatively negligible.
Except that they are not, as he knows [and if he does not …]. The AM is mass*distance*speed. In this little table I compare Jupiter and Saturn, using units that are easy to remember (Mass wrt Earth, distance AU, speed km/sec):
J: 318 5.2 13; AM = 21500
S: 95 9.6 9.7; AM = 9125
The AMa are in a ‘strange’ unit, but their relative sizes are independent of units, and you can see that Saturn’s is almost half of Jupiter’s so not ‘relatively negligible’.
JamesG (03:04:57) :
You missed the point about Damon & Laut.
Regardless of the snarkiness and politics, DL’s argument is scientifically valid. The reply was concerned with publication procedure and did not try to argue that the science was correct. the mixture of smoothed and raw data is bad science.
Leif Svalgaard (07:46:08) :
“Except that they are not, as he knows [and if he does not …].
J: 318 5.2 13; AM = 21500
S: 95 9.6 9.7; AM = 9125
U: 14.5 19.2 6.8; AM = 1890
N: 17 30 5.4; AM = 2750
Sum of S,U,N is 13765 or 64% of J, so not ‘relatively negligible’.
Is spin orbit coupling debunked, or still in search of a mechanism?
Does a Spin–Orbit Coupling Between the Sun and the Jovian Planets Govern the Solar Cycle?
I. R. G. WilsonA,C, B. D. CarterB, and I. A. Waite
http://www.publish.csiro.au/?act=view_file&file_id=AS06018.pdf
Apologies, if you were already aware of the paper. As to mechanisms, I believe I’ve read analyses that tried to attribute it to the asymetry introduced by the Sun’s equatorial bulge, or the deviation of the Sun’s equatorial plane from that of the solar system’s overall, but I can’t find those sources currently.
africangenesis (10:22:03) :
Is spin orbit coupling debunked, or still in search of a mechanism?
they believe in the correlations [and that is OK to a point – the statistics is weak], but the authors themselves admit:
“we are unable to suggest a plausible underlying physical cause for the coupling”
africangenesis (10:22:03) :
Is spin orbit coupling debunked, or still in search of a mechanism?
On this page (in the green box) I have explained why spin-orbit coupling is not possible, and thus not happening.
http://arnholm.org/astro/sun/sc24/sim1/
We should look elsewhere to find the driver(s) of solar activity.
Carsten Arnholm, Norway (12:19:00):
We should look elsewhere to find the driver(s) of solar activity.
But… How if the Sun is almost all Hydrogen-made? Just a question. 🙂
Carsten,
Thanx for the link. Naturally my question is, how accurate is your gravitator using newtonian gravitation. How well do the positions of the Jovian planets correspond with past records, say at the time of the discovery of Neptune? How accurate does it have to be to account for or rule out the angular momentum changes hypothesized for the solar internal dynamics?
One of the standar assumptions is that the Sun is spherical and can be approximated by a point mass. Apparently the oblateness of the Sun can account for some of the precession of the orbit of mercury although general relativity accounts for most of it. I would expect a reciprical effect on this solar asymmetry even under newtonian gravitation.
I note your plots are of the magnitude of angular momentum as a scalar, although in your text you mention a 3D vector formulation, so I wonder how useful the scalar plots are, other than eyeballing that the results are plaussible.
Based on what you have provided, am I correct in assuming that you don’t take into account solar oblateness, nor any possible reciprocal effects? I think some error calculations on your methods and their size relative to the phenomenon of interest would be needed to seal any claim that spin-orbit coupling has been falsified.
Nasif Nahle (14:52:45) :
But… How if the Sun is almost all Hydrogen-made? Just a question.
It is not, a quarter of the Sun is helium, with a smattering of the stuff that makes you up.
africangenesis (16:03:23) :
Apparently the oblateness of the Sun can account for some of the precession of the orbit of mercury although general relativity accounts for most of it. I would expect a reciprical effect on this solar asymmetry even under newtonian gravitation.
The oblateness of the Sun is so small that it does not influence the orbit of Mercury to any measurable degree and is completely negligible for the outer planets, so need not be taken into account. It was once thought that the Sun had a rapidly rotating core which would introduce several arc seconds difference with the effect of General Relativity (43 arc second/ century). Very precise measurement of solar oblateness by the RHESSI instrument has recently showed that there is no such fast rotating core, i.e that the measured oblateness of 0.010 arc seconds [out of 960] is just what be expected if the Sun had the same rotation throughout [subject to a small difference between the convection zone and the radiative interior]. so, solar oblateness can safely be neglected.
africangenesis (16:03:23) :
Apparently the oblateness of the Sun can account for some of the precession of the orbit of mercury although general relativity accounts for most of it.
From
http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/pdf/Archive/Sci/sci.space.news/2008-10/msg00012.pdf
“”These results have far ranging implications for solar physics and theories of gravity,” comments solar physicist David Hathaway of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. “They indicate that the core of the sun cannot be rotating much more rapidly than the surface, and that the sun’s oblateness is too small to change the orbit of Mercury outside the bounds of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity.”
Leif Svalgaard,
It isn’t the impact of the solar oblateness (gravitational quadropole) on the planets that I am considering. That does fall off as the cube of the distance. It is the opportunity that the solar oblateness provides for the gravitational quadropole of the solar system to impact the solar oblateness or related rotational dynamics. I don’t know how the r-cubed component factors in there. For instance, can the quadupole be thought of as located at the solar system center of mass? If so, the sun is nearly two orders of magnitude closer to that than mercury. That solar system center of mass varies from being within the solar radius to up to two solar diameters outside of it.
My sense is that Carsten’s result of zero for missing orbital angular momentum is not accurate enough to rule out angular momentum exchange with solar rotation that might be significant enough to influence its internal mass flow and magnetic dynamics. However, I am just exploring this from first principles.
africangenesis (17:41:14) :
For instance, can the quadupole be thought of as located at the solar system center of mass?
No, nothing is located at the solar system center of mass. There is a gravitational force between the sun and each planet that determines how the two move relative to one another. The center of mass is just the resulting sum of all the mass-weighted distances to the planets because gravity obey the superposition principle. Since the gravitational forces are between bodies very far apart, the tiny oblateness is negligible.
africangenesis (10:22:03) :
My sense is that Carsten’s result of zero for missing orbital angular momentum is not accurate enough to rule out angular momentum exchange with solar rotation
‘Sense’ does not beat hard, cold calculation. According to the paper you referenced:
http://www.publish.csiro.au/?act=view_file&file_id=AS06018.pdf
The required change in rotational speed is of the order of 0.015 microradians/sec [their Figure 8]. Since the Sun’s rotation is 3 urad/sec, the effect is a 1/200 part of the whole. Assuming that the Sun’s mass [for this calculation] is at a point 1/4 of the radius from the center, the AM is 1.75E41 [SI units]. Carsten calculates the AM to an accuracy many thousand times better than this and the numbers agree with what JPL [and ‘Carl’] calculates, so there is not doubt that the effect sought [1/200 of 1.75E41] is well within reach of the accuracy of the calculation. Carsten could give you more precise numbers, although at this point it doesn’t matter how many thousands of times better the calculation is: it is simply good enough. Carsten’s calculation was really not necessary [although helped him to see the effect] as simple physics [as evidenced in the paper by Shirley I referred to – Shirley used to be a fervent advocate of the AM spin-orbit coupling, but no more] shows that there can be no exchange between rotational and orbital AM [aside from inconsequential millimeter-sized tides].
Leif Svalgaard,
Due to its distribution of mass, the solar system would definitely have a gravitational quadrupole moment viewed externally, and since the invariable plane is tilted 6 degrees to the suns axis of rotation, the quadrupole moment would be offset from that due to the rotation of the Sun.
You are implying that the superposition principle wouldn’t allow the gravitational quadupole to also be at the center of mass, when experienced internal to the solar system. When all the jovian planets are on one side of the sun, the external layers of the sun on the far side can be analyzed as if they are outside the solar system. At times at least, there must be torque. These have to be analyzed quantitively, in association with the solar dynamo, whether it is done with a synthesized solar system quadrupole time series or the planets individually. I don’t see how a gross newtonian calculation calculation can rule out a level of angular momentum transfer that might be significant to solar dynamics.
Nasif Nahle (23:47:27) :
As you can see, the correlation between TSI and HSG is clear. I have the complete databases on iron stained grains and other proxies.
I’ve plotted something similar but although there is a similarity of 10Be flux to TSI there is little similarity between HSG and either a 70 year average or yearly average TSI (Leif’s data)
http://img387.imageshack.us/img387/3388/tsihsg10beg.jpg
africangenesis (19:12:24) :
At times at least, there must be torque.
For a torque to work there must be a lever arm and there is none.
I don’t see how a gross newtonian calculation calculation can rule out a level of angular momentum transfer that might be significant to solar dynamics.
Newtonian calculations work very well in the solar system. They are not gross. If you doubt the result, you have to quantify what transfer to expect and by which mechanism. Just saying that you don’t get it and can’t see it is not good enough. I have quoted Wilson et al. as to what change in AM they require and it is plain that such changes do not happen within Carsten’s accuracy [which is not a ‘gross’ calculation, but a very careful integration of the basic equations]
The very accurate orbit calculations put very strict [and small] limits on effects not covered by them. Perhaps you should visit JPL’s site at http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/?horizons and look at the level of precision with which Newtonian mechanics works. Carsten’s is not quite that good, but almost [as the Sun & planets are the major planets].