Ah perhaps we're going to cool after all

[The PIT]

http://www.dailytech.com/Solar+Activity+Di...rticle10630.htm

Interesting quick read.

[John Cox]

Hi The Pit,

An interesting slow read and one, if true, would confirm , as I have always said ,that man has very little influence on climate change

[wysiwyg]

My favourite comment about the article

farting has been proven to cause global warming By Techno Pride on 2/11/08, Rating: 2By Techno Pride on 2/11/2008 2:44:03 AM , Rating: 2

Since we know methane gas from farting causes global warming, all we have to do is keep farting.

Dr. Mephisto

Seriously, it's not a new argument - more work needed to nail the link between the magnetosphere of the sun, cosmic ray incidence and the ability of said cosmic rays to increase cloud cover (and farting! )

Wysi :lol:

[laserguy]

Here's the same story from a different source.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/4248062.html

The comments under the main article are interesting. As the 'heat' goes out of AGW,watch all the soon to be out of work protagonists start clamouring for money to 'study' the sun,as the title of the piece suggests.

[ghrud]

Started to find this news aticle interesting until I read this bit...

and in Britain, people reported sighting eskimos paddling canoes off the coast.

[Bobby]

Global Cooling comes back in a big way

Which must be why last year was the 2nd warmest year globally ever according to NASA and NOAA.

What evidence is there in that article or anywhere else to suggest that the next cycle isn't going to happen? The cycles occur very regularly over 11 years, I don't see it should be any different this time.

[noggin]

I'm no expert on sunspots, but I believe that the cycle that was to have started recently hasn't started, that there are no sunspots visible at the moment. There are many scientists who believe that this will lead to a cooling which will be quite obvious within the next 10/12 years. If you are interested, a quick "google" of global cooling/sunspots (or similar) will provide you with lots of info in this respect.

[Methuselah]

IMO, there is no evidence whatsoever for any imminent cooling phase to suddenly get started...Especially insofar as we are seeing record warmth coinciding with the current sunspot minimum just now?

But I will keep an open mind!

Edited February 17, 2008 by Pete Tattum

[BARRY]

A good site to keep an eye on sunspot activity is here

[Nick F]

Another straw to clutch for those still in denial ? ... interesting all the same, like Pete T though, IMO it's unlikely to have an instant effect if it is true. Though it may hopefully temper the unstoppable global rise in temps. Does anyone know if this is a credible/plausible concept and research, not my forte this subject?

[Stratos Ferric]

http://www.dailytech.com/Solar+Activity+Di...rticle10630.htm

Interesting quick read.

I guess external forcing could change any time, though re that article I got a little bothered when I read the comment that in the Little Ice Age people reported seeing Eskimos paddling in canoes off the coast. That's some paddle, even holding aside considerations of a canoe vs a raging Atlantic.

[noggin]

Which must be why last year was the 2nd warmest year globally ever according to NASA and NOAA.

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/ have it as the 8th.

[Stratos Ferric]

Hi The Pit,

An interesting slow read and one, if true, would confirm , as I have always said ,that man has very little influence on climate change

John, man has a lot of influence, but the point will always be that man is not the ONLY influence.

[noggin]

Started to find this news aticle interesting until I read this bit...

Yes, I was a bit startled by that bit, too!

[Thundery wintry showers]

2007 was the second warmest year on record over the Northern Hemisphere, a conclusion reached by both CRU and NCDC, but globally it was only the 8th (CRU) or 7th (NCDC) warmest. Some sources try to mislead us by implying that it was the second warmest globally. But still, one year being "only" 8th warmest, especially with a La Nina underway, doesn't signify a cooling trend.

Interesting that January 2008 was the first January below the 100-year average since 1982 according to the NCDC, although there was only a fraction of a degree in it. The coolness was caused largely by the La Nina event plus large cold pooling over southern Asia, hence the unusual snow events in that region. More months would have to continue at this kind of rate before we could say it was more than a blip.

There is always the possibility that 'natural' factors, such as solar activity, could indeed flip abruptly and cause a global cooling (or warming) of much greater magnitude than through AGW, but it remains low in the near future.

[wysiwyg]

Another straw to clutch for those still in denial ? ... interesting all the same, like Pete T though, IMO it's unlikely to have an instant effect if it is true. Though it may hopefully temper the unstoppable global rise in temps. Does anyone know if this is a credible/plausible concept and research, not my forte this subject?

http://public.web.cern.ch/PUBLIC/en/Spotli...htCloud-en.html

The CERN physics institute are taking this quite seriously so I guess that adds a little 'weight' to the theory. Trouble is with the likes of CERN and similar (Rutherford appleton lab, Daresbury etc) is that they do lots of interesting cutting edge particle acceleration work but unfortunately it a ) takes ages and b ) doesn't usually find high impact, commercially viable application in the near term (imho).

Results are due from the CLOUD program in about 3-4 years time!

This link has some general info on cosmic rays' effect on climate in general although I personally am a little sceptical that the ones coming from outer space have that much impact at all. However, i suppose the mechanism is the same regardless of wether the rays come from the sun or elsewhere.

http://www.sciencebits.com/CosmicRaysClimate

NB for the record the above link is from a GW sceptic.

Wysi :lol:

[laserguy]

http://www.ilovemycarbondioxide.com/pdf/So..._NY_Mar2_08.pdf

This is a very worthwhile read. Please don't be put off by the 'i love my carbon dioxide' bit though! I'm well aware that'll raise a few groans!

To add my own twopenn'orth. Many have pointed out that the sun elevates our temperature from what would otherwise be pretty close to -273C (absolute zero) to the range we experience now. Of course,without the atmospheric blanket it would be subject to incredible extremes. The point being,how can anyone suggest that the sun's role is so insignificant,and how can anyone suggest that the sun is so incredibly stable that it's variance over decades or centuries can be mapped with any kind of accuracy? Every second,the sun converts,by nuclear fusion,around four million tonnes of hydrogen into helium. Or so we are told. Who am I to argue? I've no idea how much mass is continually being lost by this process,and I've no idea what becomes of the helium thus produced. Does it just 'stay there',waiting until all the hydrogen has been fused to helium before the helium itself begins to fuse into carbon? Or is the fusing of helium to carbon concurrent with the fusion of hydrogen?? Someone on nw will have the answers to my elementary question,but my point is simply to show that surely the sun cannot be 'that' stable,given the extraordinarily vast (by our reckoning) nuclear processes ongoing. There are things going on in the sun that the greatest minds ever to grace the planet will never be able to fathom,of that I am quite certain. I've pretty much dismissed the effects of anthro CO2 on climate (and took the flak for it!),but to blame an alleged 0.7C rise over 100 ish years almost solely on CO2 whilst largely ignoring the sun beggars belief.

[PersianPaladin]

Sunspots are comparativley cool spots on the surface of the sun, and hence a large proliferation of them would in theory mean less radiation is emitted outwards; whereas a lack of sunspots would mean more radiation.

Well...clearly its not my subject and I know nowt about solar physics lol.

[wysiwyg]

I've no idea how much mass is continually being lost by this process,and I've no idea what becomes of the helium thus produced. Does it just 'stay there',waiting until all the hydrogen has been fused to helium before the helium itself begins to fuse into carbon? Or is the fusing of helium to carbon concurrent with the fusion of hydrogen??

The helium only starts to fuse into heavier elements (carbon & oxygen) when the core temperature reaches a certain temperature if I remember correctly from my uni physics stuff. At that point the sun starts to shed its outer layers due to its reduced mass and it becomes a red giant.

In the current scale of things (i.e. several human generations) it can be considered as stable in terms of its mass to energy conversion rate. The lesser understood aspects relate to the sun's magnetic field which is much more variable and is apparently influenced by sunspots and flares/corona. Given that Earth's magnetic field varies too, I strongly agree that we cannot write off the sun as a major forcing factor of the climate we currently experience (in 100s of year terms). In summary, the Sun's radiant heating power (in the IR and visible spectra) is pretty constant but it's ability to modify these (and the UV) spectra are highly variable due to its varying magnetosphere.

[Osbourne One-Nil]

I've no idea how much mass is continually being lost by this process...

I believe it's about 5 - 10 million tons per second.

[Devonian]

Perhaps we should read Dr Tapping's clarification?

"Thanks for the message. The stuff on the web came from a casual chat with someone who managed to misunderstand what I said and then put the result on the web, which is probably a big caution for me regarding the future.

It is true that the beginning of the next solar cycle is late, but not so late that we are getting worried, merely curious.

It is the opinion of scientists, including me, that global warming is a major issue, and that it might be too late to do anything about it already. If there is a cooling due to the solar activity cycle laying off for a bit, then the a period of solar cooling could be a much-needed respite giving us more time to attack the problem of greenhouse gases, with the caveat that if we do not, things will be far worse when things turn on again after a few decades. However, once again it is early days and we cannot at the moment conclude there is another minimum started."

Source.

Otoh, perhaps Dr Tapping has been got at by evil green eco storm troopers? Yeah, that'll be it and not that original story was, to be charitable, a load of spin that found an eager market...

Edited February 17, 2008 by Devonian

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

I don't see any spin. What I do see is that even on the METO say so the earth has cooled slightly since 1998. I still think it is significant that with all trillions of rapid earth warming CO2 tonnes being added to the atmosphere yet we are slightly cooling!!! . The clock is ticking as I assert again that by now we should have exceeded 1998 IF CO2 is the warmer that we are led to believe. We haven't and globally its a bad start in 2008 for the AGW stance.

For Clarification solar cycle 24 should have started 10-12 months ago and also 23 was quieter than expected too.

BFTP

[Devonian]

I don't see any spin. What I do see is that even on the METO say so the earth has cooled slightly since 1998. I still think it is significant that with all trillions of rapid earth warming CO2 tonnes being added to the atmosphere yet we are slightly cooling!!! . The clock is ticking as I assert again that by now we should have exceeded 1998 IF CO2 is the warmer that we are led to believe. We haven't and globally its a bad start in 2008 for the AGW stance.

For Clarification solar cycle 24 should have started 10-12 months ago and also 23 was quieter than expected too.

BFTP

When La Nina has fizzled and if it's not warming again, you might have point. But, I don't expect the response of climate to CO2 changes to be instantaneous - there is a vast climate flywheel called the oceans to overcome for a start, and then there is internal climate variability.

[laserguy]

More on Dr.Tapping,Sorokhtin,solar (in)activity,cooldowns and the 'coming out' of several hundred previously pro AGW scientists to debunk AGW at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change on March 2-4 in New York.

http://www.usadaily.com/article.cfm?articleID=265816

[eddie]

From a scientific point of view everyone in both camps should be glad if we are now entering another maunder minimum type period. It will be the perfect opportunity to try and establish more exactly the link between solar variability and climate.

Having said that, if the sun does something odd and the earth cools I don't think that will necessarily disprove the link between CO2 and warming any more than a large volcano erupting would. Obviously it would invalidate the current model predictions, as any unexpected climate forcing would, but it doesn't change the fact that if the sun maintained its current levels and CO2 increased we would likely continue to warm.

I would conceed that if there is a very strong cooling response that would suggest that more of the warming we have seen during the last 50 years should be attributed to solar variability. However if temperatures only plateau despite a long period of low solar activity then that might sugest that global warming is only postponed.

This is all conjecture of course because it isn't certain we are heading for another maunder minimum but the next 10 years are going to be very interesting for sure.