Habibullo Abdussamatov, Dr. Sc. – Head of Space research laboratory of the Pulkovo Observatory, Head of the Russian/Ukrainian joint project Astrometria – has a few things to say about solar activity and climate. Thanks to Russ Steele of NCWatch
Key Excerpts:
Observations of the Sun show that as for the increase in temperature, carbon dioxide is “not guilty” and as for what lies ahead in the upcoming decades, it is not catastrophic warming, but a global, and very prolonged, temperature drop.
[…] Over the past decade, global temperature on the Earth has not increased; global warming has ceased, and already there are signs of the future deep temperature drop.
[…] It follows that warming had a natural origin, the contribution of CO2 to it was insignificant, anthropogenic increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide does not serve as an explanation for it, and in the foreseeable future CO2 will not be able to cause catastrophic warming. The so-called greenhouse effect will not avert the onset of the next deep temperature drop, the 19th in the last 7500 years, which without fail follows after natural warming.
[…] We should fear a deep temperature drop — not catastrophic global warming. Humanity must survive the serious economic, social, demographic and political consequences of a global temperature drop, which will directly affect the national interests of almost all countries and more than 80% of the population of the Earth. A deep temperature drop is a considerably greater threat to humanity than warming. However, a reliable forecast of the time of the onset and of the depth of the global temperature drop will make it possible to adjust in advance the economic activity of humanity, to considerably weaken the crisis.
Full Study is here. (PDF patience, takes a bit to load)
maksimovich (11:25:10) :
Is there a trend in TSI,it seems Froehlich thinks so.
“Conclusions. The long-term trend of TSI is most probably caused by a global temperature change of the Sun that does not influence the UV irradiance in the same way as the surface magnetic fields”
He is not quite ready to throw in the towel. He is in the process of recalibrating his composite. PMOD has been drifting down compared to SORCE [which has the best calibration]. If you scale the two so that they match around 2008.0, you can see how PMOD is still drifting downwards: http://www.leif.org/research/Comparison%20SORCE%20PMOD%20since%202008.png the drift in a year-and-a-half being about 0.1 W/m2. This has to be resolve, before any conclusions can be drawn.
Bill Livingston has carefully measured the global temperature of the Sun and showed that it has no solar cycle variation and that it has been constant the past 35+ years.
rbateman (12:00:08) :
Chicken-little has declared the sky to be …
The West and Russia’s Chicken-littles declare opposite disasters…
Abdusammatov has been consistent in his opinions as to what drives climate change – not so the rest of the Russian science establishment. Until 2004, they were pretty sceptical – but then Putin saw the advantages of joining the carbon credit schemes and selling the carbon dioxide they were not emitting because of a failing economy to the West. For a while, academicians like Yuri Izrael, Vice Chair of IPCC for a while, would state their views – like – ‘the main driver of global warming has been natural cycles’ until Putin had a quiet word and persuaded Yuri as to the virtues of controlling the climate and preventing global warming – with a nice fat grant to Yuri’s institute. He reported last month in Russian Hyrdrology and Meteorology on the results of his study: of all the control techniques, injecting sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere is the preferred technology – simple and relatively cheap.
I have read Abdusammatov’s paper – also wondering how it fitted with Leif’s analysis – but wish it had a peer-reviewed source!
Gene Nemetz (12:43:55) :
The Met, UK, predicts winter 2009-10 in the UK near or above average temps, with 1 in 7 chance of a cold winter.
Piers Corbyn, using the sun as the leading component for making forecasts, says 85% chance of a cold winter in the UK with some very cold spells.
Warmer than average at the moment though. What Piers Corbyn and the Met have in common in those predictions is that neither can be wrong.
Phillip Bratby (13:26:08) :
OT, but the Science Museum count has suddenly gone to :
* 778 counted in so far
* 5317 counted out so far
Have they removed multiple entries?
It’s natural variation and the ‘counted in’-s will take over soon.
Adam from Kansas (12:42:47) :
It’s just an impression, just my opinion, but does Leif himself believe in other credible solar scientists?
Almost all solar scientists are credible. And scientific disagreement is not a sign of not being credible. Claus Froehlich is actually a very good friend of mine, and is very credible. One can be credible and still be wrong.
Joe Public often thinks in terms of ‘credibility’ when it is inappropriate.
When I disagree with a fellow scientist, I show my evidence for everybody to see, to accept or reject as they like.
chillybean (12:53:22) :
Therefore I would say that the exact opposite is closer to the truth.
I think that kind of paranoia is not helpful
Peter Taylor (13:28:58) :
I have read Abdusammatov’s paper – also wondering how it fitted with Leif’s analysis – but wish it had a peer-reviewed source!
It probably would have died in a competent review for the reasons I stated.
Leif Svalgaard (09:01:08) : The fundamental conclusion of the paper is based on the top panel of their Figure 3 which shows TSI reconstructions the last 400 years. This plot is WAY out of date and its use basically invalidates the rest of the paper…
..the TSI reconstructions have moved with time from the large variation to almost flat. They are nicely approaching my graph here: http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-LEIF.png.. All in all, this paper cannot be taken seriously.
For the moment we just have your word that your reconstruction of the TSI is correct and Dr Abdussamatov’s is wrong.
When I have time I will review (I cannot peer review since I am not your peer) your reconstruction and see if I can make any sense out of it and if it should be believed rather than Dr Abdussamatov’s.
However I rather suspect that though we will really not know definitely either way the balance of evidence falls with Dr Abdussamatov’s reconstruction.
I think that his paper must be taken seriously because one thing I know from our history warming has caused us no harm, but rather on the balance great benefit, and cooling has been disastrous for us.
The ice core records show there have been coolings as well as warmings during the past 10,000 years. So I will go with Dr Abdussamatov.
PMOD source:
http://www.pmodwrc.ch/pmod.php?topic=tsi/composite/SolarConstant
“”” Sophistry in politics (11:59:50) :
Forget about average global temperatures. Forget about ice caps melting and Polar Bears floating across the Atlantic on ice cubes. Forget about rising sea levels, droughts, increased hurricanes, floods and on and on. Also forget about sunspot cycles or El-Nino and La-Nina, or whatever the hell else has been thrown into the mix as a distraction because none of it matters, none of it is relevant. All we have to do is drill down and focus on one thing only.
That one thing is CO2. “””
Well SIP, it seems you don’t have a very good understanding of what “heat” in the atmosphere really means. The temperature of gases is determiend by the mean energy (due to mechanical oscillations) of the individual molecules in the gas. In effect, every single molecule is one of Mother Nature’s (Gaia) thermometers. That mechanical energy is kT/2 per degree of freedom per molecule, which we can also represent as (mv^2)/2 for a particle velocity of (v).
A GHG molecule such as CO2, constitutes one out of every 2577.3 atmospheric molecules, and in the wavelength range from 13.5 to 16.5 microns or thereabouts, CO2 molecules can capture photons, which excite a particular bending mode of oscillation in the excited molecule. But the CO2 molecule is surrounded by about 13.7 layers of ordinary atmospheric molecules, mostly N2, O2, and Ar, so the excited CO2 molecule is likely to encounter one of these ordinary gas molecules, and as a result the excitation energy is going to get distributed in collisions with the ordinary gas molecules, and that will result in a general increase in the temperature of the ordinary atmospheric gases.
Only at very high altitudes does the mean free path get long enough compared to the mean lifetime of the CO2 excited state, so the molecule can spontaneously re-emit a photon containing the exciting energy.
So you are correct, that we cannot trap the LWIR energy and stop it from escaping; but we sure can harass it and delay that escape. For however long, we manage to delay the escape of a LWIR photon from earth into outer space, the sun continues to pour in more solar energy, which results in raising the temperature; and the longer we delay the outgoing radiation, the higher the temperature rise due to additional solar heating. I know that is not the traditional way of viewing the “Greenhouse” effect; but it is a perfectly valid way to represent the consequences of molecular absorption spectra.
The atmospheric gases in turn, by reason of their non zero (K) temperature, also emit LWIR radiation, which also will follow approximately the T^4 total spectral emittance of the black body radiator model.
So it is not productive to deny that resonant spectral absorption by certain molecules present in the atmosphere, even in small amounts, can and does result in increasing the local temperature of that gas.
If a dove hunter stands in a field, and only shoots the doves that he sees take to the air within the effective range of his shotgun, it isn’t wise to assume that dove hunters don’t have any effect on the dove population because they are few and far between, and their capture range is limited.
I have no idea what the capture crossection of CO2 is for 15 micron
(82.7 meV) LWIR photons; but it isn’t zero by a long shot.
The question is not whether CO2 can capture LWIR energy; it can; but is that significant compared to that captured by H2O molecules, which are much more plentiful; and can it prevail over the propensity of H2O to form clouds, which block sunlight from reaching the ground, and so results in surface cooling.
If the earth’s atmosphere contained no H2O molecules, this planet would be a frozen ball, even with its present 388 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere.
But if it was the CO2 that was completely absent; I suspect the only difference we would note other than the absence of life on earth, would be that the average global cloud cover would be a little bit lower. The temperature would not be much differnt, since it is fully regulated by the physical properties of H2O, the Sun’s TSI, and the present earth orbit.
Richard (13:56:00) :
However I rather suspect that though we will really not know definitely either way the balance of evidence falls with Dr Abdussamatov’s reconstruction.
He hasn’t reconstructed anything: he’s used an existing – likely obsolete – reconstruction.
“Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought”
Vincent (11:17:41) :
“Russian science is policy driven. Kind of like Western science”.
I often wonder if the entire AGW scam is designed as pay back for the Russians losing the Cold War twenty years ago!
Yarmy (14:17:14) : He hasn’t reconstructed anything: he’s used an existing – likely obsolete – reconstruction.
Dr Abdussamatov’s reconstruction = the reconstruction he has used, whether done by himself or others.
On what basis do you say “likely obsolete”
Here is a link to Abdussamatov’s research plans and instrumentation (scroll to bottom) and a repeat of the above paper plus a bit more:
http://www.gao.spb.ru/english/astrometr/index1_eng.html
his photo: http://www.gao.spb.ru/english/astrometr/abduss07.jpg
Gene Nemetz (08:51:26) :
gary gulrud (08:30:05) :
Its surprising the quality of work Russian scientists
They beat the USA with Sputnik. Now they’re beating the USA in study of the sun.
(I am also aware of the many science disasters in Russia. The US has had far less of them. That in itself is a wonderful victory for the US.)
Yes, but if the US under Obama is going to shut down it’s economy they will emerge as the winners of the Cold War. All they have to do is transfer their political system to communism again, a process that already is underway.
Stalin is polished up again and the Old Empire rising.
How about them apples.
Peter Taylor (13:28:58) :
until Putin had a quiet word and persuaded Yuri as to the virtues of controlling the climate
Did Putin also speak with the Mayor of Moscow?
“Moscow Mayor Promises a Winter Without Snow
…the mayor of Moscow promises to keep it from snowing…the mayor’s office will hire the Russian Air Force to spray a fine chemical mist over the clouds before they reach the capital, forcing them to dump their snow outside the city…Controlling the weather in Moscow is nothing new…The plan was unsurprisingly rubber-stamped this week by the Moscow City Council…The air force will use cement powder, dry ice or silver iodide to spray the clouds from Nov. 15 to March 15…”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20091017/wl_time/08599193082200
“….world temperatures are mainly controlled by solar activity, or in particular geomagnetic activity, and its modulation by the plane of the moon’s orbit…. We’ll say a bit more about world climate developements at the Weatheraction special conference on Wewdnesday, the 28th of October…”
Ron de Haan (14:34:07) :
Stalin is polished up again and the Old Empire rising
More surprinsingly would be the return of Monarchy.
See:
http://mat-rodina.blogspot.com/
PS
Leif Svalgaard (09:01:08) : The fundamental conclusion of the paper is based on the top panel of their Figure 3 which shows TSI reconstructions the last 400 years. This plot is WAY out of date and its use basically invalidates the rest of the paper…
Does it invalidate the rest of the paper according to Lief?
I just had a look at Figure 3 and here is what it says: Fig. 3. Variation in the TSI drawing on the data reconstruction of Lean, J.L (2000) and Wang Y. – M., Lean J.L., Sheeley N.R. (2005) up to 1978, sunspot activity of the Sun from 1611, and changes forecast by us after 2008 (dotted lines).
Not all that ancient.
If that graph agrees with the temperature reconstructions it needs to be taken seriously. I’ll go with that.
I’ve had a quick read through his paper. It certainly does not merit that quick dismissal that Lief gave.
Another thing – Lief forecasts no drop of temperature in the near future, Dr Abdussamatov forecasts a drop.
We shall soon see. I think we will soon have Leif Svalgaard’s forecasts and opinions put in cold storage.
PPS
Leif Svalgaard (09:01:08) : They are nicely approaching my graph here: http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-LEIF.png.. All in all, this paper cannot be taken seriously.
Can yours? When your graph TSI-LEIF.png. cannot even be found on the server?
“We can’t drive our SUVs, and eat whatever we want, and keep our homes at 72 [degrees] all the time, whether we live in the desert or the tundra, and keep consuming 25% of the world’s resources with just 4% of the world’s population… That’s not going to happen.” Pres. Barack Obama, campaigning
Sounds like a Royal to me.
Sorry found it and “your graph” contains both Lean and Wang which Dr Abdussamatov uses.
And what I note is THE SHAPE of the graphs are very similar. So this would CERTAINLY NOT invalidate any of Dr Abdussamatov’s conclusions as he is discussing how temperature VARIES with the TSI
Richard (13:56:00) :
For the moment we just have your word that your reconstruction of the TSI is correct and Dr Abdussamatov’s is wrong.
You have the graph of reconstructions on the Poster I referred to:
ftp://ftp.pmodwrc.ch/pub/Claus/IAMAS-2009/iamas-poster_SABF.pdf
There are several papers in the last three years showing the same thing. That is the evidence. My graph is not. I was just noting with some satisfaction that the newer reconstructions were converging on mine.
On page 13 of http://www.leif.org/research/Froehlich-Sofia-2008.pdf you can see how Foehlich is struggling with the old Lean 2000 reconstruction, eventually deciding it is wrong. Even Lean herself expresses doubt that long-term variation occur: http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-LEAN2008.png
This one shows the last 100 years: http://www.astro.phys.ethz.ch/papers/haberreiter/Schoell_subm2007.pdf note how the latest reconstructions are converging to musc less or no long-term trend. I could go on with several more.
Abdussamatov is not quite honest in the Figure, where he claims that it is also based on Wang et al. 2005. This is untrue. You can see the Wang et al. 2005 on my graph: http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-LEIF.png
More modern reconstructions: http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-recon3.png
They all show that the Lean 2000 is no good. Had Abdussamatov been honest, he would have included some of these and warned the reader that there was a progressive consensus towards much less variation over time. Since his paper is a ‘position’ paper designed to convince, he obviously did not do this. If you decide to ‘to go with Abdussamatov’, you are also just cherry picking, because his conclusion jives with your preconceived notion.
What will the warmists say against it?
Well, one response might be … In particular, the notion that climate is one-dimensional — which is to say, that it is totally described by some fictitious global mean temperature and some single gross forcing a la increased CO2 — is grotesque in its oversimplification. I must reluctantly add that this error is perpetuated by those attempting to ‘explain’ climate with solar variability. Unlike greenhouse forcing, solar forcing is so vague that one can’t reject it.
However, acting as though this is the alternative to greenhouse forcing is asking for trouble.
Oh, wait, that was Richard Lindzen.
How about “His views are completely at odds with the mainstream scientific opinion,” said Colin Wilson, a planetary physicist at England’s Oxford University. Amato Evan, a climate scientist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, added that “the idea just isn’t supported by the theory or by the observations.”
or more succinctly from Charles Long, a climate physicist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratories in Washington
“That’s nuts,” Long said, “It doesn’t make physical sense that that’s the case.”
Zeke the Sneak (15:06:27) : “We can’t drive our SUVs, and eat whatever we want, and keep our homes at 72 [degrees] all the time, whether we live in the desert or the tundra, and keep consuming 25% of the world’s resources with just 4% of the world’s population… That’s not going to happen.” Pres. Barack Obama..
No thats not going to happen NOT because thats the way you should live – it is – but because you will be broke thanks to his asinine policies. You wont be able to afford to do that – the average American or westerner. Wont apply to American Presidents or Al Gore though.