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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dorlomin (01:44:14) :,
The onus is on you to produce a model prediction that disproves his claim that no model predicted the flatlining of temperatures.
Producing a quote means nothing.
Otherwise, there are 2 issues here.
1. Have the models predicted temperatures over the last 10 years?
Clearly the models haven’t been remotely close to an accurate prediction of the last 10 years temperatures.
2. Have temperatures over the last 10 years disproved in a scientific sense the climate model predictions?
Lucia at the Blackboard concludes that they have, but you should read her blog to see exactly what she says.
I have no way of knowing whether Dr. Svensmark is correct about cosmic rays and clouds but he is definitely not correct about poor harvests causing a 30% decline in Europe’s population during the Little Ice Age. That phenomenon was caused by something called the Black Death, a bubonic plague spread by flea carrying rats that started in China, spread across Asia and reached Constantinople about 1346. By 1347 it had hopped a ship to Genoa and by 1351 nearly half the population of Europe was dead. European population did not reach it’s pre-plague level until just about 1500, at which point it was about just slightly larger than the population of Europe at the height of the Roman Empire.
Nick Yates (04:45:09) :
Hmmmm…. Svalgaard, Archibald and Svensmark…. a three way conversation I’d pay to watch…. I’d pray real hard for the brains to be able to follow them….
I get tired of people saying that since solar activity “peaked” in the 1990’s and yet temperatures peaked later than that then solar activity can’t be a major factor on influencing the climate. First, as many here have said, no one is saying that solar activity is the ONLY driver of climate – only that its effect has been understated (and as a result the guesstimate of CO2 effect has been overstated). Other key factors that must be considered in trying in interpret temperature changes over the last 30 years include changes to oceanic temperature phases (PDO, AMO) and the major volcanic events such as El Chichon and Pinatubo. The other key thing to keep in mind is that climatic reaction to solar activity is not instantaneous due to the thermal inertia of the oceans. What is interesting is that if you look at cosmic ray activity from a cumulative perspective factoring in intensity changes and DURATION of these changes, it is clear that there is a strong correlation between the direction of global temperature change and solar activity (as inversely related to cosmic ray activity). The following plot shows the cumulative differential between the point-in-time cosmic ray activity at Oulu and the average over the displayed time period.
http://www.geocities.com/mcmgk/Cumulative_CR_Inverse.jpg
What is clear from this plot is that an in increase in temperature from 1960’s to the 2000’s is very evidently correlated with the cumulative inverse of cosmic ray activity, noting the temperate peak that we might have otherwise seen in the early 1990’s was wiped out by the Pinatubo event. Given that, one would expect that temperatures (other than the 1998 super El Nino) would have peaked in the 2000’s (which they have done) and would now be dropping off (which they are doing). Once the current El Nino fades, expect temperatures to continue their drop!
As to how well the CO@ur momisugly fanatics models have done:
http://theresilientearth.com/files/images/hansen_forecast_1988-2.jpg
Nick Yates (04:45:09) :
If only WUWT could get Henrik Svensmark to discuss this here with Dr Svalgaard. It would be so interesting.
I could not agree more.
rbateman (04:25:47) :
“The IPCC’s man-centered universe is as backwards as the Dark Ages”
Quote of the decade!
Mark Fawcett (04:22:26) :
And: Half of the people surveyed believed the media was too alarmist.
Half of the American public believes the Earth and the Universe is only 6000 years old.
Stephen Wilde (23:48:17) :
When the Sun goes quiet, we here on Earth experience more of the effects of Galactic influence, which is never quite totally overriden by the Sun.
The solar modulation is only a few percent, and the Galactic influence does not vary on a time scale of centuries or faster.
rbateman (04:35:31) :
Put your hand over the left side of that graph and cover up everything prior to 1990 and look again. Ask yourself a question: Where have you seen that slope recently?
http://www.puk.ac.za/fakulteite/natuur/nm_data/data/nmd_e.html
Don’t want to cherry pick data. Look at what we’ve got [and remember that you have to look at many stations as there are small variations from station to station – for many reasona, one being that it is just hard to maintain a constant calibration over decades]
Jim, too. (04:37:00) :
Leif’s summary graph has taken a subtle turn over the past months that I find interesting.
There were some activity back in May and June. That jacks up F10.7 and it takes 3 to 4 months for that to die away, which it seems to have done by now. Hence the seeming downturn.
Børge Svanstrøm Amundsen (04:42:33) :
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.
Nick Yates (04:45:09) :
If only WUWT could get Henrik Svensmark to discuss this here with Dr Svalgaard. It would be so interesting.
He won’t, as Al Gore won’t either.
Jeff Id (05:01:28) :
It’s always refreshing when things make sense
Evolution has shaped us so, that we are very good at accepting false positives: it is better [falsely] to think that those shadows in the bushes are a tiger, than to just dismiss them as ‘fluff’.
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/query.cgi?startdate=1964/08/11&starttime=00:00&enddate=2009/09/11&endtime=15:35&resolution=Automatic%20choice&picture=on
I.ve slowly become a convinced denier of AGW. I think Flanagan must definitely be allowed to stay on… he’s our best argument
Anthony, why don’t you contact Svensmark directly and ask him to respond.
This subject is too important with too many questions.
You can find his contact data and his publication here:
http://www.space.dtu.dk/English/Staff/Sun_Climate.aspx?lg=showcommon&id=38287&type=publications
There’s a general polarity opposites, between the group and the individual. When thinking about problems, people can be biased against one or the other. Some people believe poverty is the result of an unfair system, so they want to reform the group’s institutions, to make the world more fair. Sometimes people believe poverty is the result of the individual’s lack of character and fortitude, lack of ambition, lack of ethics, and so they want to change the group’s institutions to become more about rewards for success and punishment for failure.
Where the greens are allied with the socialists is in their common belief that the system is bad, the system is unfair, the system is allowing greedy individuals to harm the environment, and exploit fellow man. So they are in favor of tighter regulation, and they are in favor of strong governments that will keep greedy reckless businesses in check. And because those businesses are selling products to consumers, and those consumers for the most part don’t seem willing to abandon buying cars and eating meat, then even the principle of democracy is becoming suspect, and places like China start looking more attractive to greens, because China has the authority to make the people follow its directives.
What the greens fail to notice however, is that authoritarian “social order” can serve any number of priorities. It can serve empire building, it can serve warmongering, it can serve any group goal, really. There is nothing inherently green about being authoritarian. And groups can also organise in far more interesting ways than simply becoming authoritarian top-down power structures.
I think the greens that follow the authoritarian model are in for a nasty shock.
Robert (04:32:09) :
“As it became common knowledge that AGW would cause increased wildfires, mudslides and risk of earthquake, I moved from California to New Orleans.
After Katrina it had become obvious that AGW had caused stronger and more frequent hurricanes, so I moved again, to Maine.
But not long after that, when we learned that the seas would rise 20 feet I moved to inland Texas, on a hill.
And as it became apparent that millions would soon die from the heat, I relocated to Nome, and just in time too.
And now I suppose you think I should move to Ecuador ahead of the glaciers formed by the coming “Not so Little” ice age. Well I’m here to tell ya buddy, I’m sticking with the IPCC, and my igloo, and to hell with all your scientific data – I’m going with the models, they’ve saved me many times before”.
Very funny Robert.
I am sure you will die from “natural causes”.
@ur momisugly Scott Mandia
I looked at your website. It starts with a “wisdom”:
“What’s the use of having developed a science well enough to make predictions if, in the end, all we’re willing to do is stand around and wait for them to come true”
Aha, predictions. They are difficult, especially when they are about the future. Now let’s look who is spreading wisdom like this:
“Nobel Laureate Sherwood Rowland (referring then to ozone depletion)”
And what happend concerning all the ozone predicitions? Did you check it? Do you know that the Ozon hole is still here, and as big as always, instead the FCKW concentrations in Antarctica decreased?
What about all the people who should be fried because of the naughty hole in the sky? All the billions with skin cancer?
If people had checked the story with the Ozone hole, the climate-change story would never have happend.
Fred Lightfoot (02:44:03) : Wisdom 100% pure:
Now we get politicians (failed lawyers) offering mega $ for research to ”prove” that us humans are in charge of the climate, if these 25-39 IQ ”humans” went and experienced the world, (not visiting the local Hilton) and realized how big our planet is and how small the human presence is we would not be trying to get milk from butterflies
Well Leif, I made exactly the same comment as you concerning the absence of trend since the 50ies. But only one comment out of two gets published (at least in my case).
Dolormin. Thank you for your reply (and thanks to others who have replied for me), but I don’t think I could put it any better than Philip_B. I have been following climate change in earnest since 2003 – and have read very much on the subject. I have seen many graphs predicting (from a point back) what the coming temperatures would be up to 2000 and beyond. I haven’t seen a single graph (from a model) predicting that we would be at the anomaly right now. If you have then kindly give us all the web address, as I obviously missed it. Climate is COMPLETELY unpredictable – either way, in my opinion based on all that I have read. There are too many checks and balances and things we clearly don’t understand about how the chaotic climate system works. At this stage of our knowledge, to state that we will either warm or cool is preposterous in the extreme. I laugh every time I see a Warmist talk of future climate – and laugh also at those who say we will cool. They’re very brave, or stupid. You decide.
PS Sorry if I cannot reply quicker, but I don’t have access to my PC in my work.
rbateman (04:25:47) :
Stephen Wilde (23:48:17) :
There is really not much correlation between observed climate changes and the progression of a single solar cycle which is surprising if the cosmic ray effect is at all significant.
“The IPCC’s man-centered universe is as backwards as the Dark Ages, feeding on ignorance and fear of the place we live.
Someday, we will be able to predict both the climate and the solar cycles, but not if the IPCC manages to control science first”.
rbateman,
How right you are.
The populations of the West are brainwashed by their Governments.
People are told that we have to return to other, less ambitious and material values, eat less meat, show more respect for Government and Government Officials.
In the mean time our politicians state we have to invest more money in education.
That’s what they say, but they don’t.
Germany spend 7 billion Euro’s in a cash for clunkers project but has no budget
for education.
Billions have been invested in spin and manipulation.
Bilions more are spend to lure the corrupt leaders of the Third World countries into a the Cimate Change Scam and stop the development of their populations for decades to come and deprive them from cheap food and energy.
The skeptic opposition is infiltrated by people who take the lead in the discussions but support the insane Carbon Taxation.
This is a frontal attack on human civilization.
Fortunately most people in the West are fed up with Government Meddling and spending. Even if people lack the knowledge or even the interest for the Climate debate, they don’t want to lose their freedom.
If this hoax is stopped however, it has to be stopped in the USA.
If the USA rejects the Climate Bill, we have bought more time and time is our side.
Fred Lightfoot (02:44:03) :
Fred , The weather on my Missouri farm is tame compared to what you have seen! But I agree with you the AGW people seem to experience weather from the evening news. After years of listening to weather forcasts I greatly appreciate the improved accuracy we have today. If the weather forcast says it will be dry for three days if can cut hay and get it baled without it getting wet half the time. It used to be any forecast past 24 hours was usless. My point is this 3 day forecasts are barely accurate enought to use as aplanning tool, a weekly or 14 day forecast is a poor guide , but a 3 month forecast is judged aganst history. Anything longer is wishfull thinking.
It seems that some hearts beat secretly thanks to CO2 feedback…
@Anthony Watts, you have a “fan-website”, did you know that?
There is a guy who is whining about most articles here and calls this “blog” the funny name “open mind”
http://tamino.wordpress.com/
I can see absolutely no sign of “open mind” in this website
Stephen Wilde (23:48:17) :
The main shifts in global air temperature trend seem to occur at approximately 25 to 30 years intervals when the oceans change phase. Even on shorter ENSO type interannual time scales we see a rapid and direct response in the air to ocean SST changes.
There is really not much correlation between observed climate changes and the progression of a single solar cycle which is surprising if the cosmic ray effect is at all significant.
I wouldn’t expect to see a correlation between a single solar cycle an climate changes, but then if one looks at the oceans as a large resistor/capacitor pair and the atmosphere as a small resistor/capacitor pair, a better correlation may be possible. Let me explain, since the ocean has an enormous capacity to store energy, it cannot change very quickly, hence little correlation would be observed. A single solar cycle is simply too short a time span. The oceans serve as a low-pass filter, absorbing higher frequency events. Because of the limited surface area of the ocean (compared to its volume) it would release energy at a limited rate (the resistor). Hurricanes and tropical storms are essentially a short to the upper atmosphere, hence a higher energy release. The atmosphere has only a small capacity (small capacitor) compared to the ocean (large capacitor) and will respond to changes more quickly (high-pass filter). This would be the daily weather. How galactic cosmic rays (GCM) affect the formation of clouds, and the newly discovered interaction between the solar wind and the magnetosphere affect the weather and climate is yet to be seen.
The analogy presented above is undoubtedly overly simple, and new research is adding to our knowledge every day, but it could be modeled, probably with better accuracy than the current global climate models than the IPCC uses.
Leif Svalgaard (04:01:53) :
(2) The Sun’s magnetic field has not doubled in the last 100 years. It is now precisely where it was 108 years ago.
This is way outside my area of expertise (if indeed I even have one) but thought this might be what Dr. Svensmark was referring too? AOMF is average open magnetic field.
“We can see that both models exhibit increase of AOMF approximately by a factor of two in the first half of 20th century, confirming thereby the known results (see, e.g., Lockwood et al. 1999).”
Source: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=2&url=http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.cambridge.org%2Fproduction%2Faction%2FcjoGetFulltext%3Ffulltextid%3D288617&ei=k0mqSoynDKD8tgeywMCiCA&usg=AFQjCNHAYfOF_moOWZdQUcOI24uvwuRRgQ
mark twain (00:37:15): ” . . . ipcc explains the warming up to 1950 with natural forces, inkl. sun aktivities!”
Could you supply a reference that supports your statement?
Leif Svalgaard (04:01:53) : The Sun’s magnetic field has not doubled in the last 100 years. It is now precisely where it was 108 years ago.
Yes. However, the accumulated or integrated effect of the Sun’s magnetic field shows an increasing trend the last 100 years, and I would argue that this matters more than the instant value. If you take your HMF B data (http://www.leif.org/research/HMF-1835-now.xls) and calculates this function,
T_est = 0.007640*cumsum(HMF_B-5.7848)-0.4470;
you will see what I mean. The implication is that values of HMF B lower than 5.7848 reduce global temperature while values of HMF B greater than 5.7848 increase global temperature. The reason for the increase is that shorter cycles tend to contribute more since they usually have shorter intermediate periods where HMF_B is below 5.7848. Now, I do not take this speculative toy model literally. My main point is that any integral of solar activity (HMF B, TSI, …) may lead to the conclusion that the global temperature could increase more with solar cycle 22 and 23 than other cycles and decrease with solar cycle 14 and 15. I am not saying that Svensmark is correct, what I am saying is that we cannot say that he is wrong – he may be close.