An article in the New Scientist says:
But Dr. Leif Svalgaard, one of the worlds leading solar physicists and WUWT’s resident solar expert has this to say:
Solar max is a slippery concept. One can be more precise and *define* solar max for a given hemisphere as the time when the polar fields reverse in the hemisphere. The reversals usually differ by one or two years, so solar max will similarly differ. The North is undergoing reversal right now, so has reached maximum. The South is lagging, but already the polar field is rapidly decreasing, so reversal may be only a year away. Such asymmetry is very common.
Here is a link to the evolution of the polar fields as measured at WSO:
http://www.leif.org/research/WSO-Polar-Fields-since-2003.png
And here’s data all the way back to 1966, note there has not been a crossing of the polar fields yet in 2012, a typical event at solar max:
http://www.leif.org/research/Solar-Polar-Fields-1966-now.png
Here is a link to a talk on this: http://www.leif.org/research/ click
on paper 1540.
Dr. Svalgaard adds:
Solar max happens at different times for each hemisphere. In the North we are *at* max right now. For the South there is another year to go, but ‘max’ for a small cycle like 24 is a drawn out affair and will last several years. To say that max falls on a given date, e.g. Jan 3rd, 2013, at UT 04:15 is meaningless.
From Jan P Perlwitz on September 28, 2012 at 7:02 am:
(Note: you have a goof on the CO₂ trend line, it should start at 1960 with the other plots instead of 1950.)
For one thing, be careful using SSN, as the SSN isn’t really the actual sunspot count, as groups count as ten spots no matter how many are really visible in any particular group, then individual spots are added in. So four visible spots with three in one group scores an 11.
Well then, by what you’ve presented, clearly it’s an inverse relationship.
WFT-GISTEMP LOTI-CO2-SSN*(-5)
Looks about as good a match to global temperatures as CO₂. So clearly the relationship is decreasing sunspots to increasing temperatures.
Without scaling and still using normalized data as you selected, clicking on “Raw data” shows GISTEMP LOTI has a slope of 0.0157099 per year, the SSN is -0.00236535 per year, so the real multiplier is −6.64168. To really match up the trend lines takes an offset to the SSN of -0.8181. Graph.
Voila, perfection.
Good job, Jan. By showing the importance of linear trend lines, and the inverse relationship, you now have all you need to do some real science.
Since lower sunspot numbers correspond with lower solar activity thus presumably lower amounts of particles from the Sun (less solar wind), and such particles could cause atmospheric nucleation thus clouds, I’d suggest seeing if declining solar activity corresponded with decreased cloud cover leading to increased insolation which lead to global warming. You might want to work with Dr. Roy Spencer who already showed how a mere 1-2% lessening of the cloud cover could account for all of the late 20th century “anthropogenic” global warming.
Don’t forget to mention my help in your Nobel acceptance speech. Unless it’s the Peace prize, which has been given to lots of unworthy morons lately, so you can take all the credit for that one.
richardscourtney wrote in
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/28/dr-leif-svalgaard-on-the-new-scientist-solar-max-story/#comment-1093423
What are you talking about? This paper is not about the magnitude of the whole aerosol forcing, it’s about the magnitude of the forcing due to the indirect aerosols effect. The conclusion of the paper is that satellite derived estimates of the forcing due to the indirect effect of aerosols are too low. How is this paper supposed to support anything what you assert here about sinister “manipulations”? There nothing in there that supports your assertion.
That sounds about right. Aerosol exert a real forcing on climate, which is net negative, although some aerosols also exert a positive forcing. Therefore, taking aerosols out of the equation would mean that an important factor that influences climate significantly would not be taken into consideration. Climate model simulations that don’t take this effect into consideration necessarily “run hot”. That is to be expected. But where is the supposed “manipulation” here? It is correct to include aerosol forcing. Are you advocating to ignore important climate drivers willingly and totally subjectively, because you don’t like the results, when they are included?
As for the Kiehl paper:
You assert, referencing this paper:
and
You use the Kiehl paper for your assertion that an aerosol forcing is externally prescribed subjectively to fudge the climate response of the climate models to get an agreement with the observed global temperature variability. However, your assertion is not the same what the Kiel paper says. Instead, the Kiel paper states something else:
In many models aerosol forcing is not applied as an external forcing, but is calculated as an integral component of the system. Many current models predict aerosol concentrations interactively within the climate model and this concentration is then used to predict the direct and indirect forcing effects on the climate system.
The aerosol forcing is not prescribed in climate simulations with state of the art climate models. Aerosol forcing is calculated like the forcing by greenhouse gases is calculated, or the effect of clouds on the radiation field. Aerosol concentrations are interactively calculated and the aerosol forcing is calculated by applying Mie-theory or T-Matrix. Thus, there are feedbacks between aerosol concentrations and the forcing aerosols exert on climate.
So, you wrongly reference the Kiehl paper for your assertion that there was some sinister “manipulation” of the aerosol forcing. Once more, you use scientific publications as alleged support for your assertions, but if one does some fact checking what the papers really say then they don’t support your assertions.
You have not provided any actual evidence for the alleged sinister “manipulations” in climate model simulations using aerosol forcing.
D Böehm wrote in
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/28/dr-leif-svalgaard-on-the-new-scientist-solar-max-story/#comment-1093180
Well, D Böehm, this is a common talking point used by fake skeptics, but the endless repetition still doesn’t make it scientifically valid.
If the fact that finding a time period (15 years, 10 years, 2 weeks, 2 days, whatever) for which the increase in the temperature anomaly wasn’t statistically significant was sufficient to conclude that there was no physical process of global warming ongoing, then this would lead to absurd additional conclusions with necessity. Because following is true: For any point in time over all of Earth’s history one can find a time period between another point in time and that point in time, for which the temperature increase wasn’t statistically significant. One only has to choose the time period short enough to find temperature changes that are not statistically significant. There is always a time period, without any exception, for which this is valid. So if this is valid for any point in time then there is no point in time, not a single one, at which a process of global warming could have taken place. The same is true for global cooling. There can never have been any global cooling ever, and there never can be any global cooling in the future. There can never have been any climate change in all of Earth’s history ever, and there will never be any climate change in the future. No Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum or no ice ages. And there can’t have been any Medieval Warm Period, or any Little Ice Age. Or there can’t have been any global warming due to natural causes since the Little Ice Age. And “global cooling” announced frequently here to be right around the corner, can never ever happen.
The “argument” by D Böehm is not scientifically valid. It’s nonsense. There is a difference between statistical detectability of a physical process and presence of a physical process. Lack of statistical significance, e.g., of a trend, only allows the conclusion that the process can’t be sufficiently distinguished from noise on the given time period. It does not allow the conclusion that the process behind the suspected trend is not there.
Looking at global warming through the atmospheric temperature anomaly alone is a very narrow viewpoint anyway. Only a small fraction of the additional energy available due to the perturbation in the energy balance by anthropogenic greenhouse gases goes into the troposphere and increases the tropospheric temperature and the temperature at the surface. Most of the additional energy goes into increasing the heat anomaly of the oceans. Another part goes into melting the ice in the Arctic and Antarctic, glaciers and snow. The ocean heat anomaly continues to increase (Levitus et al, GRL, 2012; doi:10.1029/2012GL051106), and the ice is melting both in the Arctic and the Antarctic. The melting of the Arctic sea ice is accelerating. If this continues like this it won’t take long anymore, and the Arctic sea will be ice free in summer.
george e smith says:
September 28, 2012 at 3:25 pm
Any fly fisherman knows that when you cast a fly line, you have to make the cast in such a way, that the linear momentum, and angular momentum, are both of the same sign, either both positive (forward cast) or negative (backward cast), and if you launch it with crossed up momentum signs, you get a tailing loop mess; every time..
= = = = = =
george e smith,
For casting a fly line, you must have a time lag after your back or forward false cast for the fly line to become approximately straight before you reverse your false cast in another direction. The key is that time lag judgment by the fisherman.
John
D Böehm wrote in
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/28/dr-leif-svalgaard-on-the-new-scientist-solar-max-story/#comment-1093317
I see, D Böehm is making libelous accusations again. Someone with integrity should be able to back up accusations of wrongdoing against another person with evidence. I suppose, this is nothing one could expect from someone like “D Böehm”, though.
What is “public time”?
D Böehm says:
using following link:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997/plot/rss/from:1997/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1997/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997/trend/plot/rss/from:1997/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1997/trend
As I just have explained. One always can find a time period, in which a physical process, that reveals itself as a trend over a longer time period, can’t be distinguished from the noise. One only has to choose the time period short enough. So, showing this graphic is no scientifically valid evidence for the assertion that there is no global warming.
D Böehm also says:
using following link:
http://www.duke.edu/~ns2002/scafetta-forecast.png
Scafetta uses the one-sigma interval of the model simulations. That is, he rejects the Null-hypothesis that the observed temperature curve belongs to the statistical population, to which the model simulations belong, with a probability of about 32% that this rejection is erroneous, assuming normal distribution.
Using 95% of the model simulations, the observed temperature curve is well within the uncertainty range of the model simulations:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/02/2011-updates-to-model-data-comparisons/
BTW: For a proper evaluation of the model skills one also would have to account for the divergence in the forcings between real world and model simulations since the year 2000. For instance, for future projections it was assumed that the solar cycle is always the same. In reality, cycle 23 had a deeper minimum, which was also more prolonged than prescribed in the model. Aerosol concentrations haven’t been necessarily the same either, comparing real world and the scenarios.
http://cache1.intelliweather.net/imagery/IntelliWeather/sat_goes8fd_580x580_12.jpg
Pretty obvious that the ice has already arrived!!! 🙂
Jan P Perlwitz:
Your post at September 28, 2012 at 4:04 pm is plain wrong based on ignorance or – more probably – deliberate misrepresentation.
Your entire premise is based on your assertion which says to me
I did NOT “wrongly reference the Kiehl paper”. I quoted the pertinent sections of it verbatim and linked to its Figure2,. And that paper finds the same as my paper which I also referenced but my earlier paper only investigated one climate model and his investigates 9 climate models and 2 energy balance models.
I ask everybody to “do the fact checking” because – yet again – you are spouting falsehoods. Indeed, one only has to read the direct quotes in my post to see you are spouting falsehoods. Or do you wish to pretend I have misquoted? Anybody can check I have not.
Richard
Jan P;
Many current models predict aerosol concentrations interactively within the climate model and this concentration is then used to predict the direct and indirect forcing effects on the climate system.
>>>>>>>>>
You really don’t get it, do you? That this represents perfectly circular reasoning? An iterative calculation done from within the model that adjusts the aerosol parameter is called what?
Adjusting a fudge factor, that’s what.
Now, back to the original point, which you seem to have completely missed. Regardless of the method used to calculate aerosol forcing, each of the models has dramatically different values. There is only one “right” number for aerosol forcing. If one of the models has it “right”, then by default, all the other models have it wrong, and that means in turn that if they get close to emulating actual observations properly, it is only because they have OTHER things wrong that get cancelled out by the wrong aerosol forcing value.
In the best case scenario, only one model can have it right. In the worst case scenario, they all have it wrong. How to tell? Make predictions and see if they come true. No, I don’t mean load the data from 1990 and run it forward to 2012 and see if they match. Once you’ve added all your adjustments from your iteratively calculated fudge factors for aerosol forcing (and others I suppose) the only possible outcome is for ALL the models to get 2012 right. That’s what fudge factors are, they are a way of matching the data you have to the theory you have.
Now make the prediction out to 2020 based only on the data and fudge factors that you have TODAY. The ONLY model that can POSSIBLY get it right is the one that is using the proper fudge factors in the first place. Since all the models use DIFFERENT fudge factors, the only possibilities are that one is right and the others wrong, or that they are all wrong.
If you’re up to a wager, I’ll take “all wrong”.
I note that despite all the appeals to authority, and the noble cause corruption, and the argumentum ad ignorantium fallacies employed by Perlwitz, the planet has the last word. And Planet Earth — the ultimate Authority — is falsifying all of the CO2=CAGW nonsense emitted by the self-dealers at GISS.
Sea levels are not accelerating, they are decelerating. Global temperatures are on the same long term trend line that they have been on since the end of the LIA. The Antarctic has been cooling and gaining ice for decades.
Mother Earth is falsifying all the false alarms being sounded by GISS. Honest scientists would admit that, since none of their scary predictions have panned out, their CAGW conjecture is wrong.
But these self-serving bureaucrats are riding the grant and big government gravy trains, so the truth gets jettisoned. Money and position trumps honesty. Despicable.
D Böehm asserts in
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/28/dr-leif-svalgaard-on-the-new-scientist-solar-max-story/#comment-1093419
1. No, it doesn’t. Correlation does not imply causality.
2. The detrended covariability between CO2 change and temperature change on an interannual time scale does not refute logically or empirically that carbon dioxide has become the dominant climate driver in the second half of the 20th century, which causes the statistically significant long-term increase in the globally averaged temperature anomaly.
John F. Hultquist, I suggest you read my comment more carefully, till you understand that what I find odd is that no-one believes Svalgaard.
D Böehm says:
September 28, 2012 at 1:27 pm
Sure, GISS is corrupted. But, all of the temperature sets show a pretty good match. So, no harm in hanging them by their own data.
On your chart, you see the 90 deg phase lag in CO2 clearly. This is indicative of an integration. Plotting the derivative of CO2 shows the correspondence even more clearly. Basically, since 1958, the relationship is
dCO2/dt = k*(T – To)
where k and To are constants* to be determined.
* probably actually time varying, but since 1958, constants are good enough to see the obvious relationship.
george e smith says:
September 28, 2012 at 3:25 pm
“…so you point your thumb in the positive angular rotation or velocity, or angular momentum direction and your fingers wrap around the vector direction in a clockwise direction…”
Use your other right hand. Or, get a new clock 😉
jimmi_the_dalek says:
September 28, 2012 at 2:36 pm
“Dr. Leif Svalgaard, one of the worlds leading solar physicists and WUWT’s resident solar expert ” it says at the top.
And he probably is.
Except when he says that the variations in the sun’s output is not great enough to cause the variations in the climate, then nobody believes him. Odd isn’t it ?
Tim says:
Whoever this jimmi_the_dalek guy is one thing for sure. He is funny. No one believes Leif? You don’t count? I suspect that you and others are happy to hear what he says about climate. Even though the good Doctor doesn’t study know all of the links of the sun to the climate. No one does. The good Doctor doesn’t even think there are links between the suns activity and the climate. Even though there are papers that have pointed out statistical evidence of links of the sun’s activity to changes in Earth’s climate. Just like Dr. Leif is when he avoids talking about glaciation that has been happening for the last few thousand years and still is. After all Antarctica is still being carved and shaped by glaciers. Just like almost all of the AGW crowd is when attempts are made at reasonable discusion. We’re told we need to be educated. I guess the good Doctor and you think you have all of the answers. I know I don’t. One thing I do know, trying to talk to (most) AGWs is a waste of time and energy. They don’t want to think.
I see we have the usual sterile debate going on between those who think all changes are due to CO2, represented by Jan P Perlwitz at the moment, and those who think it is all due to natural causes.
Why cannot it be both?
The temperature record looks very like a slow cycle of approximately 50-60 years, upon which is imposed a general upward trend. Different factors can have different causes.
“Aerosol concentrations are interactively calculated and the aerosol forcing is calculated by applying Mie-theory or T-Matrix.”
Are real world aerosols measured? Are the measurements inputted into the models like CO2 measurements? If not, you have no leg to stand on.
John Whitman is making very good points.
D Böehm says:
September 28, 2012 at 4:34 pm
I note that despite all the appeals to authority, and the noble cause corruption, and the argumentum ad ignorantium fallacies employed by Perlwitz, the planet has the last word. And Planet Earth — the ultimate Authority — is falsifying all of the CO2=CAGW nonsense emitted by the self-dealers at GISS.
Sea levels are not accelerating, they are decelerating. Global temperatures are on the same long term trend line that they have been on since the end of the LIA. The Antarctic has been cooling and gaining ice for decades.
Mother Earth is falsifying all the false alarms being sounded by GISS. Honest scientists would admit that, since none of their scary predictions have panned out, their CAGW conjecture is wrong.
But these self-serving bureaucrats are riding the grant and big government gravy trains, so the truth gets jettisoned. Money and position trumps honesty. Despicable.
Tim replies:
Good job of pointing out the truth. Too bad some people have one hand over their eyes and the other over their ears. They do not want the truth.
Bart,
Thanks for that interesting chart covering the past 54 years. I notice that no one ever posts a chart showing CO2 leading temperature. I wonder why that is, since they are so certain CO2 causes measurable global warming.
Tim Walker,
I am glad you have a sense of humour.
However, you and others appear to have an irony deficiency – I was pointing out the contrast between Dr Svalgaard being described at the top of the article as “one of the worlds leading solar physicists” and the way he is lambasted here every time he tries to tell you something. Is that not ironical?
Jan P Perlwitz says:
“The IPCC doesn’t do any of these things, you claim here, because the IPCC itself doesn’t do climate research or climate modeling.”
This is semantics in that the IPCC very much does provide guidance on modeling, review the model outputs, and then interprets/reports on the result in the ARs. Yes, the IPCC does not actually run the models, but I never claimed they did. Your assertion represents the straw man fallacy.
“You also seem to confuse two issues. The quote from the IPCC report in the second paragraph is about radiative transfer processes in the atmosphere and at the surface for a given solar radiation incoming at the top of atmosphere and uncertainties with respect to modeling those radiative transfer processes.”
I fail to see the confusion. The quote references acknowledgement by the IPCC that uncertainties remain in the representation of solar radiation in climate models (i.e., should solar radiation be modeled as a constant or a variable). Naturally, then, this leads to uncertainties in the forcing associated with solar radiation throughout the transfer process including surface flux. If a starting point is incorrect, it’s likely that dependences on it will also be incorrect – possibly by magnitudes (label it the joy of forcing). Your assertion represents the ad hominem tu quoque fallacy.
“…[T]he following paragraph you quote then has nothing to do with the issue of modeling correctly those radiative transfer processes. Instead, in the paragraph you quote, the IPCC report talks about the issue what the variability is of the amount of energy that is coming in from the sun at the top of the atmosphere. There, newer research is quoted that revises this variability down compared to previous research.”
Read the section in its entirety and it’s revealed that in spite of research which reports increased variability, the IPCC favored modeling with decreased variability (i.e., a presumed solar constant), “…Solanki et al. (2004) suggested that the current level of solar activity has been without precedent over the last 8 kyr. This is contradicted by a more recent analysis linking the isotope proxy records to instrumental data that identifies, for the last millennium, three periods (around AD 1785, 1600 and 1140) when solar activity was as high, or higher, than in the satellite era (Muscheler et al., 2006).”
No rationale is presented in this section by the IPCC as to why it asserts the decreased variability other than the studies are newer. There are newer studies that confirm the increased variability detailed in the older TAR studies/models. And how else do you calculate an input variable for model use unless you study it? Thus, the reference to the rationale (or inadequacy) of the IPCC in how it addresses these uncertainties in the models – it cherry picks its favorite. Your assertion is again the straw man fallacy.
“The previous paragraph was about what the magnitude and variability of the solar forcing is. This quote here is about what the magnitude of the response is, whatever the exact number is of the magnitude of the solar forcing… You are confusing things.”
I’ll assert a straw man argument against you. I see that you’re asserting that the solar radiation magnitude and variability are independent of any solar forcing, rendering the discussion of its magnitude irrelevant. Unless you’re actually asserting that (which I don’t believe you are), you fail to confirm that the two issues – solar radiation and solar forcing – are linked intimately. If you fail to model the former accurately, it will likely affect the latter. Your assertion reflects the fallacy of begging the question.
“The issue in the middle partial sentence, and the issues in the other two partial sentences are separate issues, which you wrongly link with each other.”
Your sentence is confusing to follow. Are you asserting that the IPCC does NOT promote (as in reviews all but highlights the more likely or accepted) models that incorporate solar forcings with sufficient variability to address the absence of predicted warming?
“And the IPCC report doesn’t ‘presume’ anything.”
Hmmm… Where only one example is needed to prove the absolute of “anything” false, please note the following statement from Section 5.4.5.1, “By contrast, models often presume larger fertilisation effects: Sohngen et al. (2001) assumed a 35% NPP increase under a 2 * CO2 scenario. Boisvenue and Running (2006) suggest increasing forest-growth rate due to increasing CO2 since the middle of the 20th century; however, some of this increase may result from other effects, such as land-use change (Caspersen et al., 2000),” – http://tinyurl.com/cbc9nek (link to IPCC FAR). The IPCC, the entity that provides guidance on modeling, reviews the model outputs, and then interprets/reports on the result in the ARs, incorporates model presumptions in its compilation. As a result, the IPCC can only make presumptions where these models have been incorporated.
“The IPCC can only report what has been published. It can’t just make up things, according how you would like to have it.”
Like any accomplished debater, though, the IPCC can emphasize or promote some models and/or studies over others. These actions are even more apparent in the “nuancing” of the condensed Summary for Policymakers. You can disagree with that statement but common sense alone dictates that the complex issues detailed in the AR will lose something in the transcription – this occurs if only for the fact that the summary is not the report.
“What changes in solar radiation’ and what physical mechanisms based on what scientific evidence published in what peer reviewed scientific literature should be taken into account by the research groups who actually do the climate modeling, which has not being taken into account so far, which are as important as you claim?”
Using the reference I made regarding the treatment of the Soon and Baliunas paper, do you see their work referenced in the FAR – http://tinyurl.com/ch3e3e6 (link to IPCC FAR – References to Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis)…?
.
“So what the ‘CAGW skeptics’ say with respect to this matter is all only assertion then?
I don’t believe I asserted this – your assertion (once again) is the straw man fallacy. My concern is the nuancing of the IPCC in the Summary.
“And on what basis should mere assertion being taken into consideration?”
I believe never, but you have certainly made a number of fallacious assertions in your response to my comment. So, I’m confused as to the reason for your asking this question.
“What do you mean with ‘willing chose subjectively manipulate aerosols’? I ask you to back up this assertion of the this (sic) allegedly sinister ‘manipulation’ by providing evidence for it.”
Please refer to NOAA’s GFDL climate models (CM3 – http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/coupled-physical-model-cm3 ) and its treatment of aerosols compared to NASA’s GISS global climate models – http://tinyurl.com/cunbszb (link to NASA GISS) and incorporations of the aerosols. The models all use different variables for aerosols – a wide range of values – to produce outputs that mimic current observations. There’s nothing sinister about the variable but it is odd that the models seeming “work” yet use a number of different values.
Furthermore, it has been noted that significant uncertainties exist (in IPCC speak this permits the use of a wide-range of values) with respect to accounting for aerosol modeling in the Lessons Learned from IPCC AR4 – http://tinyurl.com/cahay9a (link to Lessons Learned from IPCC AR4).
“explain the absence of predicted warming”
In the words of Khan Noonien Singh to Admiral Kirk in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, “He tasks me! He tasks me, and I shall have him! I’ll chase him round the Moons of Nibia, and round the Antares Maelstrom, and round Perdition’s flames before I give him up! Prepare to alter course!” Please read this regarding the absence of model predicted warming – http://tinyurl.com/c7mmbbg (link to Lindzen 2007 – Taking Greenhouse Warming Seriously). And please don’t assert the ad hominem fallacy in any response to the paper, rather debate the paper’s points and conclusions.
The observed temperature record has been fully within the range of the predictions from the climate model simulations of the AR4 IPCC report.”
The “observed” temperature record – Pray tell, what actually IS the observed temperature given the frequent homogenization of temperature data? I’m genuinely curious in your response to this question.
“Your assertion that the solar irradiation has been assumed to be constant in the climate model simulations is false anyway. Instead, those model simulations used a variable solar input, based on data derived from measurements of this variability and from proxies.”
So, you’re asserting the use of a changing variable for solar radiation in the different climate models. Well, as you asked of me, please provide examples for the incorporation of a changing variable in the climate models.
Tim Walker says:
September 28, 2012 at 5:01 pm
“John Whitman is making very good points.”
I agree, and they are not being answered. Most everyone else here is making good points, too. Only one commenter is out of step.
I didn’t notice any difference between what Dr.Leif said and what NewScientist said.
And the graph upthread does look the mirror image of itself, as said already.
2pesos.
D Böehm says:
September 28, 2012 at 5:47 pm
Just wanted to point out that we are still waiting for Mosher to respond to davidmhoffer.
Ian W
Thank you for the those websites, particularly the animation in the second one. Though it is a pity they let the trajectory fade out over time, as you would see something very interesting if they had kept it so you could see the pattern over a very long time.
However I do in fact know something about how extraterrestial planets are detected, and when people go on about barycenters and how the sun wobbles, it leads me to say “So what”.
What is the affect of such a motion on a planet?
You say planetary orbits change from “nearly circular” to “highly eccentric”. Would you care to quantify that? How circular? How eccentric?
And you say ” there will also be measurable angular momentum and length of day changes.” OK so how much? Why does this not show up with atomic clocks (other than the occasional ‘leap second’)? Do you think fracitons of a second matter?
jimmi_the_dalek
Why cannot it be both?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I don’t think anyone said it wasn’t. The questions are the order of magnitude of each and the sign and magnitude of feedbacks.
I get a real charge out of people like Jan P who explain how hard it is to tease the warming signal out of the noise, yet insist that it is the dominant factor. I have no problem accepting that it exists, but anytime it is hard to find the signal amongst the noise, the logical conclusion is that the signal is too weak to be significant.