UPDATED: This opinion piece from Professor Henrik Svensmark was published September 9th in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Originally the translation was from Google translation with some post translation cleanup of jumbled words or phrases by myself. Now as of Sept 12, the translation is by Nigel Calder. Hat tip to Carsten Arnholm of Norway for bringing this to my attention and especially for translation facilitation by Ágúst H Bjarnason – Anthony
Translation approved by Henrik Svensmark
While the Sun sleeps
Henrik Svensmark, Professor, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen
“In fact global warming has stopped and a cooling is beginning. No climate model has predicted a cooling of the Earth – quite the contrary. And this means that the projections of future climate are unreliable,” writes Henrik Svensmark.
The star that keeps us alive has, over the last few years, been almost free of sunspots, which are the usual signs of the Sun’s magnetic activity. Last week [4 September 2009] the scientific team behind the satellite SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) reported, “It is likely that the current year’s number of blank days will be the longest in about 100 years.” Everything indicates that the Sun is going into some kind of hibernation, and the obvious question is what significance that has for us on Earth.
If you ask the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which represents the current consensus on climate change, the answer is a reassuring “nothing”. But history and recent research suggest that is probably completely wrong. Why? Let’s take a closer look.
Solar activity has always varied. Around the year 1000, we had a period of very high solar activity, which coincided with the Medieval Warm Period. It was a time when frosts in May were almost unknown – a matter of great importance for a good harvest. Vikings settled in Greenland and explored the coast of North America. On the whole it was a good time. For example, China’s population doubled in this period.
But after about 1300 solar activity declined and the world began to get colder. It was the beginning of the episode we now call the Little Ice Age. In this cold time, all the Viking settlements in Greenland disappeared. Sweden surprised Denmark by marching across the ice, and in London the Thames froze repeatedly. But more serious were the long periods of crop failures, which resulted in poorly nourished populations, reduced in Europe by about 30 per cent because of disease and hunger.
It’s important to realise that the Little Ice Age was a global event. It ended in the late 19th Century and was followed by increasing solar activity. Over the past 50 years solar activity has been at its highest since the medieval warmth of 1000 years ago. But now it appears that the Sun has changed again, and is returning towards what solar scientists call a “grand minimum” such as we saw in the Little Ice Age.
The match between solar activity and climate through the ages is sometimes explained away as coincidence. Yet it turns out that, almost no matter when you look and not just in the last 1000 years, there is a link. Solar activity has repeatedly fluctuated between high and low during the past 10,000 years. In fact the Sun spent about 17 per cent of those 10,000 years in a sleeping mode, with a cooling Earth the result.
You may wonder why the international climate panel IPCC does not believe that the Sun’s changing activity affects the climate. The reason is that it considers only changes in solar radiation. That would be the simplest way for the Sun to change the climate – a bit like turning up and down the brightness of a light bulb.
Satellite measurements have shown that the variations of solar radiation are too small to explain climate change. But the panel has closed its eyes to another, much more powerful way for the Sun to affect Earth’s climate. In 1996 we discovered a surprising influence of the Sun – its impact on Earth’s cloud cover. High-energy accelerated particles coming from exploded stars, the cosmic rays, help to form clouds.
When the Sun is active, its magnetic field is better at shielding us against the cosmic rays coming from outer space, before they reach our planet. By regulating the Earth’s cloud cover, the Sun can turn the temperature up and down. High solar activity means fewer clouds and and a warmer world. Low solar activity and poorer shielding against cosmic rays result in increased cloud cover and hence a cooling. As the Sun’s magnetism doubled in strength during the 20th century, this natural mechanism may be responsible for a large part of global warming seen then.
That also explains why most climate scientists try to ignore this possibility. It does not favour their idea that the 20th century temperature rise was mainly due to human emissions of CO2. If the Sun provoked a significant part of warming in the 20th Century, then the contribution by CO2 must necessarily be smaller.
Ever since we put forward our theory in 1996, it has been subjected to very sharp criticism, which is normal in science.
First it was said that a link between clouds and solar activity could not be correct, because no physical mechanism was known. But in 2006, after many years of work, we completed experiments at DTU Space that demonstrated the existence of a physical mechanism. The cosmic rays help to form aerosols, which are the seeds for cloud formation.
Then came the criticism that the mechanism we found in the laboratory could not work in the real atmosphere, and therefore had no practical significance. We have just rejected that criticism emphatically.
It turns out that the Sun itself performs what might be called natural experiments. Giant solar eruptions can cause the cosmic ray intensity on earth to dive suddenly over a few days. In the days following an eruption, cloud cover can fall by about 4 per cent. And the amount of liquid water in cloud droplets is reduced by almost 7 per cent. Here is a very large effect – indeed so great that in popular terms the Earth’s clouds originate in space.
So we have watched the Sun’s magnetic activity with increasing concern, since it began to wane in the mid-1990s.
That the Sun might now fall asleep in a deep minimum was suggested by solar scientists at a meeting in Kiruna in Sweden two years ago. So when Nigel Calder and I updated our book The Chilling Stars, we wrote a little provocatively that “we are advising our friends to enjoy global warming while it lasts.”
In fact global warming has stopped and a cooling is beginning. Mojib Latif from the University of Kiel argued at the recent UN World Climate Conference in Geneva that the cooling may continue through the next 10 to 20 years. His explanation was a natural change in the North Atlantic circulation, not in solar activity. But no matter how you interpret them, natural variations in climate are making a comeback.
The outcome may be that the Sun itself will demonstrate its importance for climate and so challenge the theories of global warming. No climate model has predicted a cooling of the Earth – quite the contrary. And this means that the projections of future climate are unreliable. A forecast saying it may be either warmer or colder for 50 years is not very useful, and science is not yet able to predict solar activity.
So in many ways we stand at a crossroads. The near future will be extremely interesting. I think it is important to accept that Nature pays no heed to what we humans think about it. Will the greenhouse theory survive a significant cooling of the Earth? Not in its current dominant form. Unfortunately, tomorrow’s climate challenges will be quite different from the greenhouse theory’s predictions. Perhaps it will become fashionable again to investigate the Sun’s impact on our climate.
–
Professor Henrik Svensmark is director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at DTU Space. His book The Chilling Stars has also been published in Danish as Klima og Kosmos Gads Forlag, DK ISBN 9788712043508)
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“tallbloke (08:20:53) :
Patrick Davis (07:33:36) :
“tallbloke (07:16:12) :
Leif Svalgaard:
“According to calculations by British scientists, the strength of the Sun’s magnetic field has doubled during the Twentieth Century alone.”
Those same scientists now know that the doubling didn’t happen.
Quite right Leif. They now estimate that it was a 79% increase rather than a 100% increase.”
And that is still an estimate. Estimates are like “golbal average temperatures”, they are meaningless.
Estimate was a poorly chosen word. The difficult process of gaining useful and valid information from the data is still a worthwhile effort, despite uncertainty.
Unless you are of the opinion that we should throw our hands in the air and sit down in ignorance?”
In terms of trying to work out if “nature (The Sun)” or “man” is driving “climate”, then yes, sit down and worry about much more important things.
“Ron de Haan (08:05:49) :
Patrick,
I can not speak for the Brits, but the latest EU parliament election has been devastating for the left.
The upcoming elections in the Netherlands will wipe the current ruling parties of the map.
Believe me, people are fed up and the genie is out of the bottle.”
I’m a British and New Zeland citizen, living in Australia, so it’s been a while since I’ve lived in the UK/EU (And I have lived as well in Ireland and Belgium). I am not sure about the fact there is a swing from the left in the EU, it maybe true (It does appear to coinside with a swing to the left in Aus/NZ). But, it’s not the puppets you vote for who “have” power, it’s the hoards of “coat tail taggers”, those you don’t see (In Australia we did see recently with the KRudd747 Utegate “scandal”. We got to see, on TV at least, the sorts of people that are “driving policy”. Anorack wearing types, you know what I mean?). There is a great British TV show called “House of Cards”, and it sums up the situation between the elite and the rest of us well in a satiricle sort of way.
My main point is parliament, gummint, “democracy” are all “smokescreens” giving the unwashed masses, like myself, the illusion we have a say. The only way, as I see it, we have a say is if we do what the French did on Bastille day. Trouble is, DeadEnders, Coronation St, Footy is on TV, KFC and MacChunders is open 24hrs, no-one cares we’re being royally shafted (Excuse my Anglosaxon).
E.M.Smith (14:26:36) :
“Can explain why you think it is hotter “globally”. Hint: It has to do with putting a lot of thermometers on the tarmac on tropical islands during the growth of the Jet Age then using them to say that the surrounding water is the same temperature.”
The expectation for September is based on satellite measurements at least by me (AMSU-A).
We meteorologists in Holland checked whether warming was larger on airport stations like Rotterdam vs. places with increased urbanization in the vicinity of 5 km like De Bilt vs. rural places like Eelde or Terschelling Island. No difference, warming everywhere.
Which can be witnessed by those who had ice skating as a hobby – and have lost it (like me) – winters have become so much warmer as to produce ice once every four years instead of simply every year (as of 1988).
“sweetpea1221 (01:35:57) :
global warming be stopped would be a good experiment. My wondering here is that what if the cooling keeps coming down to earth? Is it another Ice Age? I don’t know much about earth, I mean planets. Im kind of superstitious. Like I believed in that Maya calender predicted ending of the world in 2012. Now I see this article about cooling comes instead of global warming. Such thing happens suddenly. I would like to believe in sciences. Anyway, cooling down is not a bad thing. As long as it’s good for us, for this planet.”
No. It’s just the the Mayan calendar ends in 2012 (Our calendar), NOT the end of the world. A fallacy like AGW.
Heh, Scott, the list of those banned from ‘Open Mind’ constitute an honor roll of honest scientists. JeanS, Svalgaard, lucia are just at the head of the list. It is an echo chamber over there, just as is Real Climate.
Scott, you really ought to investigate in depth the Ian Joliffe fiasco over there. Tamino, he who sees as through a glass darkly, defended Michael ‘Piltdown’ Mann’s crooked hockey stick statistics by appealing to the work of a known statistical expert, Ian Joliffe. Months later, Joliffe caught wind of Tamino’s ploy and debunked it on Tamino’s site. Frankly, I’m amazed that Tamino allowed it to stand. His usual technique is to either ban a protaganist from the fight, or disarm him, tie his hands behind his back with editing of comments, and then let his disgusting pack of commenters kick the poor devil into submission.
You have some hints of being a reasonable, and persuadable believer in AGW. You have got to come to a real understanding of how narrow, prejudiced, and ultimately unscientific those two most prominent alarmist sites are.
==================================
Leif Svalgaard (22:52:04) :
Harold Ambler (05:22:10) :
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/
As I have pointed out so many times, one must look at many stations [just as with temperature]. Showing just one [or a cherry picked bunch] is quite meaningless. Figure 1 of http://neutronm.bartol.udel.edu/reprints/2007bieber.pdf shows some more stations. Including South Pole. From the article: “[1] The count rate recorded by a neutron monitor at South Pole, Antarctica, displays a long-term decline over the 32-year span from 1965 to 1997. “.
If this is an argument, it is not a good one. The decline you reference from 1965 to 1997 is consistent with the oft-referenced prolonged solar grand maximum of the period, as well as with consequent ocean heating. It is also consistent with the gradual decline in SSTs and atmospheric temperature since the El Nino of 1997-1998, with the seas’ thermal inertia buffering any sudden drop in temperature today. Again, if you are trying to discount any GCR-induced climate forcing, you have more or less neatly supported the opposing side’s position.
With regard to Oulu Neutron Monitor, are you suggesting that it is poorly calibrated? Are you suggesting that its current reading is not indicative of the most prolonged and deepest solar minimum since the station was put into operation?
Chris Schoneveld (01:12:29): Since Svensmark posted here his approved translation on WUWT, he must be aware of Leif’s persistent criticism of his theory and it would be appreciated by everybody if he and Leif cross swords at this forum.
Yes! In these interesting times it is curious with so much brilliant and solid input from Danish scientist. I would argue that Leif Svalgaard, Henrik Svensmark and Ole Humlum, all of them Danish, have so many different and interesting opinions, that a discussion (written or live) between these would be of immense value for us.
RR Kampen said “We meteorologists in Holland checked whether warming was larger on airport stations like Rotterdam vs. places with increased urbanization in the vicinity of 5 km like De Bilt vs. rural places like Eelde or Terschelling Island. No difference, warming everywhere.
Which can be witnessed by those who had ice skating as a hobby – and have lost it (like me) – winters have become so much warmer as to produce ice once every four years instead of simply every year (as of 1988).”
—–
It’s always interesting to see anecdotal evidence from around the world. My own anecdotal contribution is that all the anecdotes from single lifetimes add up to far more heat than the 0.8C that is claimed for the Earth in a century.
The oft-reported warming of the Arctic, which is much greater than the global average, must ( one would think) make it harder for other places to claim warming much greater than the average.
You’re sure that winters have become so warm that ice comes but once in four years. How about the summer? It must be a lot warmer, too, isn’t it? Or, maybe, it’s colder and that’s how you can make the averages make sense. You’d have trouble doing that here in British Columbia, where all the warmer anecdotes are exactly off-set by the colder anecdotes and our carbon tax is another funny story.
yeah…weather is really unpredictable. Here in the philippines, the weather is insane, Sometimes it is too hot, sometimes it rains too hard and non stop. So some of the province here are experiencing floods…read my blog post about it…
http://wp.me/pDpXL-c
Phil,
“Jumping the gun a little, for example why do the nuclei supposedly generated by the Forbush events take a week to build into clouds whereas those released from jet engine exhausts produce clouds in a matter of seconds? Also the cloud cover decayed away measurably in a couple of days when air travel over the US was shut down 8 years ago.”
And this has what to do with the discussion??
If you shut off cosmic rays their contribution stops. If you stop flying jets, their contribution stops.
A better question is why specific altitude ranges are better for the creation of clouds from jet exhaust as opposed to other stimulus!!!
The causes of clouds at different altitudes and conditions are DIFFERENT!!! The types of clouds at different altitudes and conditions are DIFFERENT!!!
The effects of clouds at different altitudes and conditions are DIFFERENT!!!
Please try to reason past your bias.
Dear Dr. Svalgaard,
In most climate models it is being assumed that our climate is extremely sensitive to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Another possibility is that the climate is extremely sensitive to the output from the sun. Assuming that latter, I have demonstrated that the time integrated magnetic field of the solar wind (HMF B) can be reasonably well fitted to the global temperature anomaly (HADCRUT3). The equation is:
T_est = 0.007640*cumsum(HMF_B-5.7848)-0.4470;
The plotted results is,
http://i25.tinypic.com/fb97ph.jpg (moderator: please include figure)
The reason I integrate HMF B is that the governing equation for the global temperature is a differential equation,
m•cp•dT/dt = Qin – Qout
Thus we must integrate anything that contributes to climate change to determine how the temperature is being influenced. What is fascinating about the time integral of HMF B is that it fits quite well both with the cold period in the beginning of the previous century and the rapid temperature increase in the last decades of that century. Obviously other factors influence climate as well and the deviation is particularly large in 1910 and in 1940. Although I have fitted two parameters only, this is clearly a toy model. Still I argue that we cannot say that it is a coincidence that the weak solar cycles 14 and 15 came simultaneously as the cold period in the beginning of previous century.
What do you think about this “coincidence”?
[Certainly the correlation in the toy model implies that our climate is extremely sensitive, but I argue that this sort of sensitivity may be in concord with the assumption that our climate is sensitively dependent on the initial conditions as Lorenz told us in 1963.]
Dear Mr. Watts,
I found your presentation of Professor Henrik Svensmark’s piece so riveting that I couldn’t resist continuing the activity you performed on the Google translation. My notion is that the better and more grammatical the English version is the less likely the piece is to be dismissed (irrational but all too common). Therefore I will try to cut and paste my fine-tuning of your fine-tuning of the Google translation below. Whether or not this succeeds you are encouraged to email me so that I can send my version to you as a formatted attachment.
Thanks for the good work.
Bill Mullen
Prof. William Mullen
Dept. of Classics
Bard College
Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504
Watts Up With That, 11 September 2009
This opinion piece from Professor Henrik Svensmark was published September 9th in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Translation is from Google translation with some post translation cleanup of jumbled words or phrases.
WHILE THE SUN SLEEPS
HENRIK SVENSMARK, Professor, DTU, Copenhagen
Indeed, global warming has stopped and a cooling is beginning. No climate model has predicted a cooling of the Earth, only the contrary. This means that projections of future climate cannot be carried out with predictive power, writes Henrik Svensmark.
The star which keeps us alive has had over the last few years almost no sunspots, which are the usual signs of the sun’s magnetic activity.
Last week, the scientific team behind the SOHO satellite (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) reported that the number of sunspot-free days suggest that solar activity is heading towards its lowest level in about 100 years’. Everything indicates that the Sun is moving into a hibernation-like state, and the obvious question is whether this has any significance for us on Earth.
If you ask the International Panel on Climate Change IPCC, representing the current consensus on climate change, the answer is a reassuring ‘nothing’. But history and recent research suggests that it is probably completely wrong. Let us take a closer look at why.
Solar activity has always varied. Around the year 1000, we had a period of very high solar activity, which coincided with the Medieval Warm Period. It was a period when frosts in May was an almost unknown phenomenon and of great importance for a good harvest. Vikings settled in Greenland and explored the coast of North America. For example, China’s population doubled over this period. But after about 1300, the earth began to get colder, and that was the beginning of the period we now call the Little Ice Age. In this cold period all the Viking settlements in Greenland disappeared. Swedes were surprised to see Denmark to freeze over in ice, and the Thames in London froze repeatedly. But more serious were the long periods of crop failure, which resulted in a poorly nourished population; because of disease and hunger population was reduced by about 30 per cent in Europe.
It is important to note that the Little Ice Age was a global event. It ended in the late 19th century and was followed by an increase in solar activity. Over the past 50 years solar activity has been the highest since the Medieval Warm Period for 1,000 years ago. And now it appears that the sun returns and is heading towards what is called ‘a grand minimum’ of the kind we saw in the Little Ice Age.
Many have tried to explain away the coincidence between solar activity and climate through the ages as just that– coincidence. But it turns out that almost no matter what time one studies, not just the last 1000 years, there is a correlation. Solar activity repeatedly over the past 10,000 years has fluctuated between high and low. Actually, the sun has been spending over the past 10,000 years in a sleep mode, approx. 17 pct of the time, with a cooling of the Earth to follow.
One might wonder why the international climate panel IPCC does not believe that changes in the sun’s activity has no effect on the climate. The reason is that they only include changes in solar radiation.
Radiation alone would be the simplest way by which the sun could change the climate. A bit like turning up and down the brightness of a light bulb.
Satellite measurements of solar radiation have shown that the variations are too small to cause climate change, but this finding has closed our eyes to a second much more powerful way the sun is able to affect Earth’s climate. In 1996 we discovered a surprising influence of the sun – its impact on Earth’s cloud cover. High energy accelerated particles of exploded stars, the cosmic radiation, are helping to form clouds.
When the Sun is active its magnetic field shields better against the cosmic rays from outer space before they reach our planet, and thus by regulating the Earth’s cloud cover the sun can turn up and down the temperature. High solar activity has produced fewer clouds and the earth is getting warmer. Low solar activity provides an inferior shield against cosmic radiation, and results in increased cloud cover and hence a cooling. Since the sun’s magnetism has doubled its strength during the 20th century, this natural mechanism may be responsible for a large part of global warming during this period.
The mechanism also explains why most climate scientists are trying to ignore this possibility. They prefer the idea that the 20th century temperature rise is mainly due to human emissions of CO2. If the sun has influenced a significant part of warming in the 20 century, it means that CO2’s contribution must necessarily be smaller.
Ever since our theory was put forward in 1996, it has been through a very sharp criticism, which is normal in science.
First it was said that a link between clouds and solar activity could not be correct because no physical mechanism was known. But in 2006 after many years of work we managed to conduct experiments at DTU Space, where we demonstrated the existence of a physical mechanism. The cosmic radiation helps to form aerosols, which are the seeds for cloud formation.
Then came the criticism that the mechanism we have found in the laboratory was unable to survive in the real atmosphere and therefore had no practical significance. But theatcriticism we have just emphatically refuted. It turns out that the sun itself is doing what we might call natural experiments. Giant solar flares can cause the cosmic radiation on earth to dive suddenly over a few days. In the days after the eruption cloud cover falls by about 4 per cent. And the content of liquid water in clouds (droplets) is reduced by almost 7 per cent. Indeed, you could say that the clouds on Earth originated in space.
Therefore we have looked at the sun’s magnetic activity with increasing concern since it began to wane in the mid-1990s.
That the sun could fall asleep in a deep minimum was suggested by solar scientists at a meeting in Kiruna in Sweden two years ago. As Nigel Calder and I updated our book “The Chilling Stars” therefore, we wrote a little provocative suggestion: “We recommend our friends to enjoy global warming while it lasts.”
Indeed, global warming has stopped and cooling is beginning. Last week, it was argued by Mojib Latif from the University of Kiel at the UN World Climate Conference in Geneva that cooling may continue through the next 10 to 20 years.
His explanation was natural changes in North Atlantic circulation and not in solar activity. But no matter how they are interpreted, natural variations in climate penetrates more and more into our total picture.
One consequence may be that the sun itself will show its importance for climate and thus test the theories of global warming. No climate model has predicted a cooling of the Earth, only the contrary.
This means that projections of future climate cannot be made with any real predictive power. A forecast that says it may be warmer or colder for 50 years is not very useful, since science is not able to predict solar activity.
So in many ways, we stand at a crossroads. The near future will be extremely interesting and I think it is important to recognize that nature is completely independent of what we humans think about it. Will Greenhouse Theory survive a significant cooling of the Earth? Not in its current dominant form. Unfortunately, tomorrow’s climate challenges will be quite different from Greenhouse Theory’s predictions, and perhaps it will again becomes popular to investigate the sun’s impact on climate.
Professor Henrik Svensmark is director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research at DTU Space. His book “The Chilling Stars” has also been published in Danish as “Climate and the Cosmos” (Gads Forlag, DK ISBN 9788712043508)
Leif,
“As I have pointed out so many times, one must look at many stations [just as with temperature]. Showing just one [or a cherry picked bunch] is quite meaningless.”
Then why do we measure CO2 at only specific, carefully chosen, sites??
Because they are looking for only specific, carefully chosen, results??
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
CO2 is alledgedly measured in areas to minimise the fluctuations of direct anthropogenic increase. Temps appear to be measured to ENHANCE the fluctuations of direct anthropogenic increase.
So, which is the Cherry Pick???
Joel:
A) Even the “deniers” have predicted a warming spike, which would correspond with past trends during an El Ninio, and
B) We’re not even to mid September yet. There’s a long way to go. Man, are you counting your chickens before they hatch, or what?
C) When we see a similar spike, but it goes in the opposite direction (i.e. a cooling spike), well, then everyone on your side of the AWG fence waves their arms and lectures us….. “It’s just weather”. I always found that awfully convenient.
Nick Yates (21:57:45) :
Phil’s Dad (09:44:49) :
“I accept the cowardly label – I use a pseudonym here because even being seen to consider “skeptical” views can affect my job as a European politician with an environment brief”.
“So much for free speech and democracy in Europe”.
Nick,
I only agree with half of your remark.
This attitude effects and undermines democracy, but free speech is not suppressed in Europe.
It is the doctrine of a consensus to “correct politics” that undermines our systems.
This also is a proof of the “power” of the AGW doctrine.
If people involved in the Governmental Process are afraid to speak out (because it will harm their career or cause a breach of the party line, there will never be a healthy discussion about, what I believe is the most important subject of our times, with devastating consequences.
Politicians who are afraid to speak out and don’t defend their opinion commit betrayal to their and constituents and themselves and only make matters worse.
There is no oppression of freedom of speech in Europe.
There is no body who can stop a politician to speak out, tell the truth and present his arguments.
The President of the Chech Republic, Vaclav Klaus spoke out and those who did not agree walked out on him.
This only increased his popularity and today the Check Republic has the highest number of people with a skeptic attitude towards the Climate Hoax.
The moment a politician has to suppress his own opinion, he should go.
At this moment we are fully depending on the USA to reject the Waxman Marley Bill
and hopefully this rejection will encourage European Politicians to speak out.
But at this moment in time, Europe is lost.
Leif Svalgaard (00:00:28) :
So, if someone took two or 3 signals out of a choice of a dozen, superimposed them by addition, the training of scientists does not allow them to unravel.
Is this true?
This is just another of those scurrilous ad hominid attacks (to the Mann).
Mark Serreze doesn’t think so:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/6176989/German-ships-sailing-through-North-East-Passage.html
He says that the recovery of the ice is ‘not a recovery’, merely a ‘result of weather conditions’.
I note no data whatsoever backing up Mr Serreze’s claims on when in history the NE Passage has been open on a century-scale, since Mr Serreze is clearly only interested in the past 30 years.
He may be right, he may be wrong, but his statements are not those of a scientist – they are those of a politician.
Kim and Bill P (10:05:42) – Ha! Excellent.
william mullen (08:36:36) :
Henrik Svensmark himself posted a comment in this thread with a translation from Nigel Calder.
Scroll up to this comment :
Henrik Svensmark (15:01:28) :
Please try again…
Bill P (10:05:42) : It was his “hockey stick” his own inflicted “ad hominem”, not to count his “trains”.
Oliver Ramsay (08:16:51) :
“You’re sure that winters have become so warm that ice comes but once in four years. How about the summer? It must be a lot warmer, too, isn’t it? Or, maybe, it’s colder and that’s how you can make the averages make sense. ”
—
We have a continuous temperature record going back to 1706, with some breaks it goes back to 1634.
The eighteen warmest years on the list are all 1988 or after.
2009 is going into the top ten (again) and will kick 1934 to 19th.
The two hottest years since at least 1634 are 2006 and 2007. They put us in an almost Mediterranean climate, e.g. Bergerac in France.
Three of the summers since 1988 (including ’88) were cooler than normal (but nothing exceptional). Three more were average. The rest was hot, with 6 in the top ten and 6 more (including 2009) in ranks 10-20. All nine summers this century were far above average.
July 2006 was by far the hottest month since 1634. Statistical analysis put the return time of such a month at about 4000 years.
Autumn 2006: hottest since at least 1634.
Winter 2007: same thing, it was like a normal april.
Spring 2007: same thing.
Statistical analysis on the record since 1706 ‘proves’ this impossible. You’d have as much chance of tunneling quantumwise through a wall. I know non-mathematicians wouldn’t accept it, but this simply proves climate change.
These are the largest cherries. They swim in a sea of cherries. Flora and fauna are a-changing here. O well, last winter was a little colder than normal. April and spring made second hottest since at least 1634 (it must be cooling since 2007!).
Let’s look at daily Tn, Tx, Taverage-records since 1901. Here’s the graph, until autumn 2006. Realise the years after 2006 put the bar for highs about 70% higher -> http://nlweer.com/img/17sep2006.PNG . Absurd, isn’t it. But so true. We can feel it.
tallbloke (00:43:46) “how much of the late C20th warming attributed to co2 was actually due to the positive phases of those same oceanic cycles?
I’v asked this question many times of proponents of the AGW hypothesis, but have never recieved a reply. It’s an issue they seem to avoid like the plague. I don’t expect a properly quantified answer. An acknowledgement that at least some of the warming attributed to co2 was due to cyclic oceanic behaviour would be a start.”
—
I’ll be checking back to see if Joel Shore gives you at least a partial answer &/or basic acknowledgement. Good question. The comment I would add: Let’s not limit our focus to oceans – (see Yu.V. Barkin).
Harold Ambler (07:03:27) :
With regard to Oulu Neutron Monitor, are you suggesting that it is poorly calibrated?
I’m pointing out that different stations show slightly different counts, for several reasons:
1) calibration is hard to keep constant over time. Not ‘poor’ just difficult
2) the Earth’s magnetic field changes with time and differently at different stations.
Here is something on calibration: http://dpnc.unige.ch/ams/ICRC-03/FILES/PDF/850.pdf
The typical uncertainty is of the order of 0.2%
Thule [near the north pole] should be very sensitive to the cosmic ray flux. Here is its variation http://www.leif.org/research/CosmicRayFlux4.png
and so on. Just picking Oulu because is happens to fit whatever one wants to argue is not good science.
Are you suggesting that its current reading is not indicative of the most prolonged and deepest solar minimum since the station was put into operation?
I’m suggesting [and data shows] that there is very little modulation at solar minimum and that it does not matter how long the minimum is, you can’t get less than no spots and no modulation, so one would expect about the same GCR count at every minimum.