Pierre Gosselin writes:
Amazon is now showing that Fritz Vahrenholt’s and Sebastian Lüning’s controversial book Die kalte Sonne (The cold sun), released in German last year, is now coming out worldwide in English.
The title of the English version: The Neglected Sun, and the publisher is Stacey International in London.
Their book created quite a stir in Europe, especially in Germany. The warmist establishment pretty much had seizures over it.
Fritz Vahrenholt, chemistry professor, is also the author of the 1986 book “Seveso ist überall” (Seveso is everywhere), a book on the deadly risks of chemical pollution. That book made him one of the fathers of Germany’s modern environmental movement. Until just a couple of years ago Vahrenholt was a big believer in anthropogenic global warming, and accepted the IPCC gloomy reports as the final word on the subject – until one day he began taking a closer look at the real data. He couldn’t believe some of the shenanigans going on in the science, and so together with geologist Dr. Sebastian Lüning, he co-authored Die kalte Sonne.
Despite a massive orchestrated campaign by environmental activists against Die kalte Sonne, it soared to No. 1 on the Spiegel bestseller list. That success has obviously served as the springboard to the English edition. Now it’s going to be hitting bookshelves worldwide.
According to Amazon, the book will be available on September 1 and it can already be pre-ordered. Interestingly its release is right before the IPCC’s 5th assessment report. Talk about timing. The Neglected Sun can be pre-ordered at any bookshop.
Here are some reviews on the original “Die kalte Sonne” version from German media outlets:
“Author’s high profile assures there’s going to be a debate”.
– Jochen Marotzke, Director, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg (Spiegel 06/2012, p-134)
Book’s assertions “challenge the results of climate science and the IPCC.”
– Süddeutsche Zeitung, 13 September 2012,
“With his book, the departing CEO of RWE Innogy, Fritz Vahrenholt, has rekindled the climate debate in Germany.”
– Cicero, 27 February 2012,
“A book co-authored by environmental activist and RWE manager Fritz Vahrenholt revitalizes the debate: ‘Die kalte Sonne’ will bring us cooling.”
– Die Presse Österreich, 10 February 2012
“Commotion over Fritz Vahrenholt’s clams on climate change. But our society needs to accept maverick thinkers. The head is round so that we can think in all directions. In Germany blockheads govern all too often.”
– Hamburger Abendblatt, 20 February 2012
“New fracas erupts in the climate crusade. … A book attacks international climate science. … ‘Die kalte Sonne‘ has stormed the bestseller lists.“
– Bild der Wissenschaft, 07/2012
“This book is a must for those who cherish the value of scientific research.”
– getabstract, 2012
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William Astley says:
July 15, 2013 at 3:38 am
So the sunspot number is not a good indicator of solar activity, and using the sunspot number leads to the under-estimation of the role of solar activity in the global warming.
The cosmic ray flux is strongly correlated with the sunspot number, so the cosmic ray flux is then also not a good indicator of solar activity…But it really doesn’t matter as the is no evidence that the cosmic ray flux has any influence on climate: “the current satellite cloud datasets do not provide evidence supporting the existence of a solar-cloud link.” http://www.leif.org/EOS/swsc120049-Cosmic-Rays-Climate.pdf
The current density-cloud hypothesis appears to explain solar cycle effects on winter storm dynamics as well as the dayto-day changes of Wilcox and Roberts Effects
As a co-‘discoverer’ of the Wilcox effect [ http://www.sciencemag.org/content/180/4082/185.short ] I note that it appears that the ‘effect’ was spurious and did not hold up when more data was added.
William Astley says:
July 15, 2013 at 3:38 am
deviation of the global temperature long-term trend from solar activity as expressed by sunspot index are due to the increased number of high-speed streams of solar wind on the declining phase and in the minimum of sunspot cycle in the last decades.
There has been no increase on geomagnetic activity since 1844 http://www.leif.org/research/Ap-1844-now.png so it is hard to ascribe the increase of global temperature to a non-existent increase of geomagnetic activity.
I’m preordering as we speak. Some day I might get round to ordering it.
Thanks Leif.
Look forward to William Astley defending his corner and bringing the evidence.
William Astley says: July 14, 2013 at 7:11 pm
WA does a good job of addressing specific complaints by the warmists. But, like the complaints by the skeptics, the debate/disagreements won’t go away yet. You would think the debate etc. would be resolved by now, what with so many “fingerprints” being mentioned. The problem is that the so-called unique signatures of global warming by CO2 are much softer than the non-technical, socially sensitive eco-green thinks, and the data less determined.
The skeptics think that CO2 as a problem must still be proved; the warmists think that it is proved “enough” that the reverse case must be proved, i.e. that CO2 is not a problem. But the softness of the signatures allows each side to interpret them differently; there is no “one” interpretation of what the temperatures are of the midl-troposphere, for example. So one side’s definite sign is the other’s indefinite. Then the data: temperatures are either very high or not so high dependent on the quality or reasonableness of adjustments. In fact, like proxies, much of the “data” is not data but calculations. This includes temperature “anomalies”, satellite “observations” of sea-level rise, glacial mass changes, TSI changes, and oceanic energy content (especially deep ocean). If the calculations are even off a minor amount, the conclusion is off a large amount, as the actual changes since 1975 are small, despite what they look like when put on a graph with a large Y to X ratio.
I will read the book when it comes out in English, but by now there should be a large review collection out there in German or in English from those who read the German orginal. Where is the post that collects all this? I’m always suspicious when an obvious point, like the opinions of the German-speaking world are not clearly available – by both sides, if I see the blogosphere correctly! It seems that the warmists are not jumping all over pre-English availability with a mainstream attack based on the German-only version. I see this situation (both sides) as indicative of my main points, that the “signatures” are soft and the fundamental data/calculations are less solid and deep than either side would like at this time.
I’ve said many times that 2015 is the critical year. The public accepts a period of uncertainty exists within a system such a climate that has considerable variability. The period can’t be too long, especially since the IPCC/warmists say that the science is settled etc. on CO2-as-global-assasin. I cannot imagine how anyone would argue that since 2001 there has been no rise in temperatures consistent with a linearly-forced rise in CO2, however. That same anyone might concede, however, that the first few years were in a “warmer” period of variability, with the later ones, in the “cooler” portion, so that overall a rise still existed, hidden in natural variability. Yet such a position would mean that, being in the cooler part now, a reversion to the warmer portion of a natural cycle will cause temperatures worldwide to ramp up suddenly. This is where my thoughts about 2015 come in.
By 2015, a minimum of 14 years will have passed since temperatures last had a signficant upwards rise (excluding El Nino of 1998). If temperatures are actually down in 2015, the position those of the Quiet Sun set must hold, the trend will be definitely going the wrong way, and CAGW will be in big trouble as proposed. If temperatures are actually following CO2, by 2015 they could be expected to be up from today another 0.2C or more as a reversal of cooling to warming doesn’t just suppress a rise but positively enhances it. The two positions are diametrically opposed in what should be going on within a “reasonable” period of natural variability, with a difference of perhaps 0.4C. Even the IPCC’s AR5 Fig. 1.4 of Scenarios will show it: cooling has observation below Scenario C and outside the lower 5% outcome probability, while warming will be solidly back into the range of Scenario B.
Not long to wait.
P.S. It all comes down to a “reasonable” period of time. Warmist or skeptic, there is a date at which temperatures have to ‘behave” for the theory to be validated. On top of that, there is a public tolerance for any +/-. No recent government puts out more than 5-year plans because the unexpected is too powerful to allow longer term planning. 2015 will be more than twice a 5-year span of uncertainty. I figure that will be enough.
In reply to the resident supporter of the ‘solar magnetic cycle modulation of planetary cloud naysayer’ hypothesis. There is now a testable means to differentiate between the two hypotheses by observation rather than theory.
William:
It should be noted that I am quoting peer reviewed papers and presenting a supporting lattice of observations and analysis results to support the assertion that the majority of the warming in the last 70 years is due to solar magnetic cycle change modulation of planetary cloud cover rather than due to the increase in atmospheric CO2.
Leif you have completely ignored the majority of the logical points presented below and in my other comments and continue to quote ‘revisionist’ papers, provide links to power point presentations, and provide links to graphs which you assert supports the solar magnetic cycle and modulation of planetary cloud cover naysayer hypothesis. …. …..A ‘revisionist’ paper states the opposite of what a prior peer reviewed paper stated, a power point presentation is not peer reviewed and a graph with no reference is also not peer reviewed.
As there is a climate war going on it is asserted that revisionist papers may be incorrect. i.e. A revisionist paper may have been written to support an agenda as opposed to search for scientific truth, to provide an explanation for observations. …. ….The revisionist papers also ignores planetary temperature observations such as the 16 year plateau of warming and the latitudinal pattern of warming can be explained by the solar modulation of planetary cloud cover hypothesis and cannot be explained by the increase in atmospheric CO2 forcing mechanism. …. ….When evaluating hypotheses it is important to look at all observations and analysis results. Can the hypothesis in question explain all observations? Your hypothesis, the ‘solar magnetic cycle cloud modulation naysayer’ hypothesis cannot. Based on what the ‘solar magnetic cycle cloud modulation naysayers’ have told us for the last 10 to 15 years, the recent solar magnetic cycle change should have no significant influence on planetary temperature.
Some of the key observations and logical points are:
1) There has been an observed 16 year plateau of no warming. A plateau of no warming is different than a lack of warming where the general trend in planetary temperature is a wiggly line up and the general trend is slower than predicted. There is currently no accepted explanation for the plateau in warming based on the assertion that the majority of the warming in the last 70 years is due to the increase in CO2 rather than solar magnetic cycle changes.
Lack of warming
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-hans-von-storch-on-problems-with-climate-change-models-a-906721.html
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/19/the-unraveling-of-global-warming-is-accelerating/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/07/monckton-on-his-smashing-u-n-wall-of-silence-on-lack-of-warming-and-censure/
As atmospheric CO2 continues to increase the CO2 forcing should increase if there are not fundamental errors in the mechanism modeling. The CO2 forcing cannot be turned on or off. The solar magnetic cycle mechanism on the other hand can saturate and can reverse. As there has been an abrupt change to the solar magnetic cycle, it is asserted the planet will now cool, if a significant portion of the warming in the last 70 years was due to solar magnetic cycle changes. There is now the first observational evidence of cooling.
http://www.solen.info/solar/images/comparison_recent_cycles.png
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_stddev_timeseries.png
2) The observed latitudinal pattern of warming in the last 70 years does not match that predicted by the CO2 forcing mechanism. The CO2 forcing mechanism is of course proportional to the increase in atmospheric CO2. As CO2 is more or less evenly distributed in the atmosphere the forcing due to the increase in atmospheric CO2 all else being equal should be roughly the same for the entire global, further more as the amount of CO2 warming is also proportional to the amount of long wave radiation that is emitted off to space the most amount of warming on the planet should be in the tropics. The actual warming pattern observed is not global with most of the warming occurring in the tropics as predicted by the CO2 forcing mechanism and the general circulation models. Most of the warming occurs in the Northern hemisphere at high latitudes (twice as much warming in high latitudinal Northern regions as the planet as a whole and four times as much as the tropics). The latitudes where there is the most amount of warming in the last 70 years are the same latitudes where the electroscavenging mechanism (solar wind bursts) has the strongest affect.
Georgieva, Bianchi, & Kirov “Once again about global warming and solar activity” Notes there is close correlation of changes in planetary temperature with solar wind bursts.
In Figure 6 the long-term variations in global temperature are compared to the long-term variations in geomagnetic activity as expressed by the ak-index (Nevanlinna and Kataja 2003). The correlation between the two quantities is 0.85 with p<0.01 for the whole period studied. It could therefore be concluded that both the decreasing correlation between sunspot number and geomagnetic activity, and the deviation of the global temperature long-term trend from solar activity as expressed by sunspot index are due to the increased number of high-speed streams of solar wind on the declining phase and in the minimum of sunspot cycle in the last decades.
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0809/0809.0581.pdf
Limits on CO2 Climate Forcing from Recent Temperature Data of Earth
http://www.ann-geophys.net/27/2045/2009/angeo-27-2045-2009.pdf
On the long term change in the geomagnetic activity during the 20th century Published: 5 May 2009
The analysis of the aa index series presented in this paper clearly shows that during the last century (1900 to 2000) the number of quiet days (Aa<20 nT) drastically diminished from a mean annual value greater than 270 days per year at the end of the nineteenth century to a mean value of 160 quiet days per year one hundred years later. This decrease is mainly due to the decrease of the number of very quiet days (Aa<13 nT). We show that the so-evidenced decrease in the number of quiet days cannot be accounted for by drift in the aa baseline resulting in a systematic underestimation of aa during the first quarter of the century: a 2–3 nT overestimation in the aa increase during the 20th century would lead to a 20–40% overestimation in the decrease of the number of quiet days during the same period.
Fig. 2. Long-term variations of aa indices (12-month and 20-year running averages; scale on the left) and of sunspot numbers (12- month running averages; scale on the right) from 1868 until now.
3) There are cycles of warming and cooling in the paleo climatic record which correlate with solar magnetic cycle changes. The regions that warmed during past warming phases are the same regions of the planet that warmed during the last 70 years. The regions that warmed in the past and in the last 70 years cannot be explained by the CO2 forcing hypothesis.
Greenland ice temperature, last 11,000 years determined from ice core analysis, Richard Alley’s paper.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif
http://www.climate4you.com/
http://cc.oulu.fi/~usoskin/personal/nature02995.pdf
Unusual activity of the Sun during recent decades compared to the previous 11,000 years by S. K. Solanki, I. G. Usoskin, B. Kromer, M. Schussler & J. Beer 2004 Nature
Here we report a reconstruction of the sunspot number covering the past 11,400 years, based on dendrochronologically dated radiocarbon concentrations. We combine physics-based models for each of the processes connecting the radiocarbon concentration with sunspot number. According to our reconstruction, the level of solar activity during the past 70 years is exceptional, and the previous period of equally high activity occurred more than 8,000 years ago. We find that during the past 11,400 years the Sun spent only of the order of 10% of the time at a similarly high level of magnetic activity and almost all of the earlier high-activity periods were shorter than the present episode.
http://cio.eldoc.ub.rug.nl/FILES/root/1999/QuatSciRevvGeel/1999QuatSciRevvGeel.pdf
"The role of solar forcing upon climate change"
http://arxiv.org/abs/1112.3256
Solar activity and Svalbard temperatures
The following is a link to the late Gerald Bond’s paper “Persistent Solar influence on the North Atlantic Climate during the Holocene”. Bond published this paper in 2001.
http://www.essc.psu.edu/essc_web/seminars/spring2006/Mar1/Bond%20et%20al%202001.pdf
https://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/74103.pdf
Solar Influence on North Atlantic Climate during the Holocene
A more recent oceanographic study, based on reconstructions of the North Atlantic climate during the Holocene epoch, has found what may be the most compelling link between climate and the changing Sun: in this case an apparent regional climatic response to a series of prolonged episodes of suppressed solar activity, like the Maunder Minimum, each lasting from 50 to 150 years8. ….. …..Each of these cooling events coincides in time with strong, distinctive minima in solar activity, based on contemporaneous records of the production of 14C from tree-ring records and 10Be from deep-sea cores. For reasons cited above, these features, found in both 14C and 10Be records, are of likely solar origin, since the two records are subject to quite different non-solar internal sources of variability. The North Atlantic finding suggests that solar variability exerts a strong effect on climate on centennial to millennial time scales…
The Der Spiegel (The Mirror) article only begins to hint at the destructive effects of wind turbine installations. It also doesn’t seem to note that on average, those 85,000 megawatts of rated capacity will work out at best to somewhere between 6,800 and 17,000 megawatts actually delivered, and not infrequently to nothing at all. And not only that, but the highly inefficient fast-start fossil generation without which wind is totally useless will burn several times as much fuel as is saved by having the wind. And all at a true cost of 80 cents to $1.10 per megawatt-hour, when all the taxpayer subsidies are factored in.
WHY?!??!!????
erratum – 80 cents to $1.10 per KILOWATT-hour, not megawatt-hour – mea culpa
William Astley says:
July 15, 2013 at 10:15 am
It should be noted that I am quoting peer reviewed papers
There are hundreds of peer-reviewed papers supporting the CO2 theory.
due to solar magnetic cycle change modulation of planetary cloud cover rather than due to the increase in atmospheric CO2.
You are ignoring the possibility that there can be other causes [e.g. internal to the climate system itself]. This is not a binary choice CO2 or the Sun. There are contributions from a variety of sources [including small ones from CO2 and the Sun].
The papers I quote are peer-reviewed. E.g. http://www.leif.org/research/JASR_9142.pdf for geomagnetic activity and http://www.leif.org/research/swsc130003p.pdf for solar activity. Powerpoint slides from such papers are this also peer-reviewed.
Your favorite stock of ‘evidence’ papers tend to be rather dated in this rapidly-moving field.
Chad wrote “WHY?!??!!????”
After WWII intellectuals and CEO’s realized that a substitute for war must be found, mans destructive capacity had reached a critical threshold that made all out war too dangerous. Up to this time war was a great way to stimulate the global economy and a way to deplete durable goods and expand manufacturing capacity for goods/weapons built cheaply and quickly in the industrial age. Lots of money was made by a few. Failure to find a substitute would mean 15 hr work weeks and an economic system that allowed for widespread prosperity for the masses (with government subsidies from government printed money), and time to scrutinize their political leaders . With idle factories, and little opportunity for the rich to get richer at the middle classes expenses, this was unacceptable. The neo-Malthusians and Darwinists were equally alarmed at the possibility of exploding populations with increased living standards and a possible de-evolution of a species free of stress .
A secret study was conducted in the 1960’s that explored such substitutes, leaked as a book published by the name Report from Iron Mountain The substitutes included a common threat that people would find believable and promote globalization (international cooperation). Ideas included threat from UFO’s and aliens, environmental threats (include pollution, population, resources, climate), health threats, financial disasters, terrorism, etc. None was deemed sufficient to replace total war, so they adopted all of them, including limited wars on a much smaller scale (Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, etc).
So anyways, wind power makes no sense from your perspective, but it keeps the manufacturers of turbines occupied and profitable, poses no real threat to conventional power plants, raises energy prices to limit living standards and preserve resources and perpetuates the myth of limited fossil fuels which help keep these prices high.
The world is a much better place than it was 50 years ago, at least from a global perspective, so whose to say they are wrong.
..
Dennis Ray Wingo says:
July 14, 2013 at 4:53 pm
The Germans are starting to get it.
From Der Spieigl
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/wind-energy-encounters-problems-and-resistance-in-germany-a-910816.html
+++++++++++++++++
Ha! The linked article mentions a turbine brand, Enercon.
A rare moment of candor?
Leif Svalgaard says:
July 15, 2013 at 1:05 pm
Your favorite stock of ‘evidence’ papers tend to be rather dated in this rapidly-moving field.
A little self deprecation? Or is this as close as you can get to admitting that you have little idea of how the sun has behaved over the eons?
That’s what it will take. Two or three more flat years. Or, better, cooling ones.
OKay Mr. Astley. Hit back. Answer Leif’s criticism. And don’t take it personally. He skewers everyone!!!! This forum; for those that visit, and in this kind of debate exactly, is our best chance of getting to the bottom of why there is climate change at all, what a risen CO2 percentage means to our future. SHow us where he’s (Leif) wrong.