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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Flanagan,
When you close your mind to logic, you lose power to persuade. Read it several times and think about what is wrong with the following statement logically in terms of the climate and space weather as a whole. I can’t make you see it.
“again, there’s no proof that cosmic rays substantially influence the composition of clouds over long periods of times,” – Flanagan
The more I read on Tamino’s blog “feeble mind” (sorry for more publicity for this), the more I question his physical knowledge:
“Global temperature responds to changes in the energy flow of earth’s climate system. When more energy flows through the system the planet heats up; with less energy flow the planet cools down
Changes in the energy flow constitute climate forcings. We know of many, including greenhouse gases, solar changes, ozone, snow albedo, land use, aerosols (both from volcanoes and from industrial processes), etc.
By adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere more energy flows through the system?? The energy flow through the system is not changed by greenhouse gases. There is a diagram on Wikipedia with the energy flows through the atmosphere, there everybody can see, that the greenhouse effect doesn’t change the energy flow at all.
tallbloke (09:41:12) says “I won’t be accepting ‘control’ from politicians anytime soon, especially when I see they don’t ‘control’ themselves. Human beings, whatever their numbers, are a natural part of the Earth scene, and attempting to ‘control’ their taking breaths or their steppings on blades of grass on the back of a dud theory is asking for an ass kicking”
You make my point for me. What some have set out to control just doesn’t want to be controlled.
A different plan for the future is required. (Suggestions on a post card…)
“Phil’s Dad (08:59:07) :
the butterfly effect (see how I did that) means that all of us effect the climate every time we step on a blade of grass, eat a morsel or take a breath. Everyone in this country and on every nation on earth. Including those who are not talking to us at the moment. That – times about 7billion – is what we need to “control” to moderate anthropological effects. While we are waiting for that to happen – prepare for the worst (either way) and live with it.”
Crikey,that’s a far more alarmist position than that of even the most enthusiastic CO2 acolyte !!!
No wonder politicians of that ilk leap upon alarmist theory as a godsend to help with a far more aggressive and concealed agenda.
Not content with limiting our CO2 emissions this politician thinks the world is so sensitive to the presence of humanity that we are looking over a precipice to destruction with every breath.
Where did these guys come from ?
They don’t represent anyone I’ve ever met in daily life yet they got elected somehow.
If the real problem is population, pollution and resource depletion (and it is) then let them be honest about it and not hide behind the irrelevance of CO2 emissions.
Smokey – “Have I tapped Tamino’s beehive hard enough with those statements? Should I be worried about Tamino’s response? Nah. He’s a wuss.”
Nice response to Mandia re: Tamino. But I think I’d like to add just one thing: If one refers to someone they disagree with as a “petulant child” – well then doesn’t that say all you really need to know? I mean, who talks like that (aside from the Burns character in the Simpsons)?
RR Kampen (08:53:46):
“The rise in [CO2] is not the only thing driving global temperature. It is only by far the most important.”
Mr Kampen goes on to say that we would all be freezing if not for increased CO2. But that doesn’t logically follow at all.
It is an example of an argumentum ad ignorantiam: the fallacy of assuming something is true simply because it hasn’t been proven false. In this case, it is a baseless assumption — unless you take the UN/IPCC’s sensitivity number as being real. But the UN’s number has been consistently wrong, as even they admit in each new assessment report. It is illogical to take it as a fact that CO2 forcing is the biggest cause of global warming. What about the Sun? And the oceans? Does a minor trace gas trump their effects?
Every subsequent IPCC Assessment Report has ratcheted down their assumed climate sensitivity number. But as of AR-4, their number is still way too high. You don’t have to believe me; the planet herself is telling us that.
CO2 has been well over ten times higher than it is now, for hundreds of millions of years at a time. During much of that time temperatures were the same as today, and sometimes lower.
Carbon dioxide may have a minuscule effect on temperature, but that tiny effect is overwhelmed by other effects. If that were not the case, there would be some proven correlation between CO2 increases and temperature increases. But as we know, CO2 rises after temperature rises. That wouldn’t happen if CO2 was causing global warming.
@ur momisugly George E. Smith (08:49:21)
“…So sad that basic problem solving logic skills aren’t taught in school any more.”
OT, but I wanted to encourage you…my child is taking “advanced studies” in junior high and they are spending a lot of time this semester learning to use logic. I have seen 2 or 3 “matrix logic” assignments that quite impressed me.
Smokey (09:03:01),
Brilliant!
To Scott Mandia:
there is a little test of whether there is a heat print detectable in the atmosphere at night. When thermal imaging cameras are used to detect persons, it shows them as packets of light, in human form of course. Anything that doesn’t emit radiation doesn’t show up,. The re-radiation of heat from earth is exceedingly small. This is the re-radiation that we are told is captured by c02. What is captured is a nearly non-existent pool of heat, and by no means all of that heat. just a small fraction of it. Climatically, its pretty irelevant. There may be acase for cloud cover keeping in heat at night and keeping temperatures cooler in the day. In physics, the radiation re-emitted by a body is determined by its temperature only, so normal temperature objects, don’t give off radiation (which is why the print doesn’t show up on thermal imaging cameras).
It would be a different matter if the earth, like us, could radiate low level heat for co2 to trap. At present it doesn’t. Even if c02 were the all powerful forcing that its made out to be, there’s precious little heat for it to trap
Mandia, I for one would prefer that you took your patronising attitude on to one of the AGW echo chamber sites like Open Mind and Real Climate where it’ll be appreciated far more than it is by me at least. We have the ability on here to think. If you want to convince us that AGW is real please explain why in the past we have had CO2 levels far in excess of todays without runaway warming, why we have had cooling for long periods last century and again now when CO2 has risen apace, why there is no tropical mid tropospheric hot spot and why Antarctica isn’t warming. How about why the AGW religion has developed only on the back of predictions from models that have the predictive capabilities of astrology and on theoretical CO2 forcings that are patently not replicated in the real world that some of us live in. The AGW house of cards is falling down and maybe your real reason for coming here is to reposition yourself for this and to be seen to be on the sensible side of the debate? Please, start educating us on why we have got it so wrong.
addendum: ie. the 2nd law of thermodynamics
Did you know that our little friend Scott Mandia is a denier of the Medival Warming Period? He seems to like little jokes, isn’t he a funny guy.
Ron de Haan (08:21:37) :
Ron, I’m usually in agreement with you, but don’t try splitting hairs with me on this one. The Black Death had nothing to do with poor harvests or the Little Ice Age. Europe’s population was not reduced gradually by worsening harvests and debilitating diseases, but rather 40% died in a span of less than five years from a vicious disease. In killing it made no distinction between the well-fed and the starving. If Dr. Svensmark wants to prophecy doom, he needs to find more accurate examples. In 1347 Europe’s population was approximately 75 million. By 1351 it was 40 million. By 1400 it was 45 million
Scott A. Mandia (07:39:41)
“You will likely be coming to a gun fight armed with a knife.”
perhaps a sharpened hockey stick will suffice instead…
got to be careful which buttons I click on…. to finish this rant… by 1500, in a mere century, the population nearly doubled to about 80 million. This is NOT the picture Dr. Svensmark paints, so don’t insist that because he mentioned disease he was accurate…. sheesh, Ron, you’re picking up some of Flanagan’s bad habits.
Tamino says:
“Global temperature responds to changes in the energy flow of earth’s climate system. When more energy flows through the system the planet heats up; with less energy flow the planet cools down.”
Now if we were to amend that to read ‘changes in the RATE of energy flow” Tamino would be mighty close to my analysis but then he would have to consider two new parameters namely:
A varying rate of energy flow from ocean to air
and
A varying rate of energy flow from surface to space.
Then he would have to compare the change in rate of flow effected by a little more CO2 with the natural changes in rate of flow created within the oceans and within the air.
He would see that the CO2 effect is truly miniscule in comparison to the natural changes in rate of flow.
Finally he would have to consider whether a change in the rate of flow limited to the air alone could possibly have any effect on the rate of flow coming naturally from the oceans and he would have to accept that it cannot because air cannot heat water due to the process of evaporation which ensures that any attempt of air to heat water just increases evaporation which is a net cooling process.
I won’t hold my breatrh.
@ur momisugly Johnny Honda (08:21:17) :
Everything that Tamino in his blog “Narrow Mind” does (but I didn’t read all his stuff), is using Hansen’s corrupted GISS temperature to “proof” that WUWT is wrong.
Lucy’s post showing Arctic temperature plots includes this statement about the data: All data comes from NASA GISS or CRU originally.
So do we use GISS or not?
@ur momisugly Sandy (08:36:31) :
You state: All that Tamino cites as peer-reviewed sources are peer-reviewed by the same old cronies…
You could certainly accuse ME of doing that but not true for Tamino. Tamino is brilliant at analyzing and interpreting data. As an example, see his analysis of arctic warming that appears to starkly contrast Lucy Skywalker’s assertions about no warming trend.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/arctic-analysis/
Yes, Tamino does not mince words but his data analyses are hard to ignore and he justn’t just talk the talk – he walks the walk. Regarding the civility of his comments, I think Tamino’s words are certainly nicer than a few regular posters here.
@ur momisugly sonicfrog (09:36:38) :
Thanks. Most comments to me here have been fairly civil. It is appreciated and much more constructive than emotional outbursts.
John Silver (03:23:22) :
“Svenskerne overraskede Danmark med at gå over isen”
should not be translated to:
“Swedes [were surprised to see Denmark to freeze over in ice]”
It is this thing that he refer to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_across_the_Belts
Typical of the LIA.
Hardly typical since your cite refers to it being the “coldest winter in living memory”, and had it been typical perhaps the Danes wouldn’t have been taken by surprise?
Stephen Wilde (10:02:13) jumps to a conclusion which I am perhaps guilty of leading him to.
He says “Not content with limiting our CO2 emissions this politician thinks the world is so sensitive to the presence of humanity that we are looking over a precipice to destruction with every breath.”
I do believe that everything we do has consequences but I do not for one minute think that they need to be destructive.
The point I was trying rather back-handedly to make is that it is unrealistic to think that we can control enough climate forcing parameters to pin-point a desirable world temperature and enforce it.
Just controlling mankind is impossible over any meaningful timescale – let alone the other factors which may well be more relevant.
My position is nearer to your later statement “If the real problem is population, pollution and resource depletion (and it is) then let them be honest about it and not hide behind the irrelevance of CO2 emissions.”
To be clear; I do not think the policies currently in place or being proposed have any realistic chance of controlling world temperatures. Nor am I sure it would be desirable even if they were. Far better to be prepared to adapt to what actually happens.
@ur momisugly Barry Foster (05:59:33) :
Well said, Barry.
As a mere geologist, I have learned a heck of a lot recently about climate and weather, mainly by following WUWT. There has been an awful lot to learn and much of it rather difficult physics (for me). I have moved from being a sceptic to being a ‘coolist’ to being an ‘I’m really not too sureist’ – in fact, I believe that most of us here might say that the more we’ve learned the less we know about the complex relationships that exist between the various potential drivers of climate except for one thing – IT AIN’T CO2. Get used to it, Al!
thank you very much mr fred lightfoot
Your description of reality is really the essence of the climate-discussion ,are we humans capable of changing the world that we are living in ? Are we so powerful that we are able to change the circumstances given by the cosmic order or how else you wish to describe this phenomenon ?
I do believe the agw-crowd has fallen prey to the temptation to be able to control the power of mother nature or any other description of forces that are well beyond our control ! It is comparable to childish dream to be the centre of the universe and to be the master of your fate or fortune . In essence everything we possess was once given to us and can always be taken from us . life is a gift and the climate we are living is also a gift and to declare ourselves so important that we are creating our own climate is an insult , where humbleness and gratefulness should be more approriate.
In life everybody is kept more or less accountable for his deeds , why shall the agf-crowd not be kept accountable for their actions to curb the private life of so many of their fellow-men ?
I know that what i am saying is not completely applied science , but i do believe that the real climate discussion is neither applied science and i thank you alexander for your efforts to bring it back on track !
Some day you will succeed .
Good luck
SOHO-23: Understanding a Peculiar Solar Minimum.
http://www.soho23.org/
The SOHO Science Working Team has scheduled the twenty third in the series of successful SOHO workshops to focus on the topic of the unusual minimum of solar activity that has persisted in 2007, 2008 and 2009. SOHO-23 is scheduled for 21-25 September 2009, at the Asticou Inn in Northeast Harbor, Maine.
Is anyone that posts to this blog going to this conference? I am very interested in a summary of the presentations.
Fred Lightfoot: Thank you for your observations. Your experience with the water gap and 100 year waves made me laugh. I suspect it might say more about research and engineering standards than climate though.
As a Kiwi, this reference may not mean much to you, but I think Jerry Jones has the same problem with Cowboy Stadium.
Barry Foster (09:27:24) :
Dorlomin. I have no time for error bars – they are too wide. If we cannot say with ANY certainty what the temperature will be then why bother? As a layman, I find such error bars a nonsense, and didn’t realise until a while ago that science worked on such things
—————————
Words fail me. Do you really have such a limited grasp over the basics of studying physical systems.
Martin Mason (10:14:31) :
Mandia, I for one would prefer that you took your patronising attitude on to one of the AGW echo chamber sites like Open Mind and Real Climate where it’ll be appreciated far more than it is by me at least. We have the ability on here to think
————————————
So you thin you are not an echo chamber? And you think that you are so much more gifted than many of the worlds most famous scientists?
Listen mate, the history of science is chock a bloc full of controvosies where very intellegent people looking at the same evidence came to different conclusions. Try out of africa vs multiregional evolution or wave vs particle in classic physics, big bang vs steady state or the host of alternative models in physics at the moment.
The people on the wrong side of those debates were not stupid, following religous cults or falsifying evidence for grant money.
They were sincere, hard working and often brilliant. Just like the people who won the debates.
“If you want to convince us that AGW is real please explain why in the past we have had CO2 levels far in excess of todays without runaway warming,” Try the lifecycle of stars, they get hotter as they get older.