'No Sun link' to climate change

[jethro]

Thank you CB and Biff for those responses. Having a core of seething radioactivity does sound a little far-fetched and absurd. Re magnetic pole shifts: I'm aware that it's never in a fixed location,but what of the 10% reduction of it's strength? Is that for real,and if so is it par for the course (ie a reduction of intensity towards the reversal,followed by a recovery)? If the 10% reduction (if indeed that's a fact) is real,that would of course shift the onus from cosmic/solar ray variations to one of the Earth's ability to 'deal' with present levels. Have I opened a can of worms?!

Hi Laserguy,

I started a thread on this a while ago: http://www.netweather.tv/forum/index.php?showtopic=37107

In short, from what I could gather, there may be a link between our magnetic field and climate and yes, it is/has been in decline , more sharply declining in recent decades. If you get time, have a read through, quite a few links in there too.

Cheers

[Stu_London]

Back on topic

I am a little suprised that no one has really commented on the rather lame 20 year dataset used. OK, it might be the only period where the data was reliable enough -but it is barely effective as a sample in the warmer era, let alone historic temperature datasets

[laserguy]

http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=153

Found this today. Ta for the link Jethro;I'd forgot about that even tho' I'd contributed to it!

Stu,I don't think we're drifting OT since there's still a 'sun link' if it's (the sun's!) magnetic activity affects the Earth's which then affects climate,or not as the case may be.

[VillagePlank]

There's something really simply here.

The heat we experience from day to day, comes from the sun. I think that we'd all agree it's undeniable. As for 'No sun link' - it's preposterous. Turn the sun off - global ice cube - it really is that simple.

The extent of that is what is in question. I have a question, to that degree, if the sun did turn off would pumping out (extreme) enough of GHG be enough to prevent the enevitable?

Of course not.

[laserguy]

Sorry if this has been posted before:

http://www.warwickhughes.com/agri/Solar_Arch_NY_Mar2_08.pdf

[Devonian]

There's something really simply here.

The heat we experience from day to day, comes from the sun. I think that we'd all agree it's undeniable. As for 'No sun link' - it's preposterous. Turn the sun off - global ice cube - it really is that simple.

The extent of that is what is in question. I have a question, to that degree, if the sun did turn off would pumping out (extreme) enough of GHG be enough to prevent the enevitable?

Of course not.

No one denies the heat energy comes from the Sun. But, the Sun simply isn't the whole climate story and it's as preposterous for anyone to claim it is. I don't think anyone worth listening to is claiming either.

What matters is that the Sun does indeed warm the planet from close to absolute zero to about -18C (what, 250C plus) but, clearly, that's not enough since a global temperature of -18C is a tad cold. What makes the planet habitable is the GH effect on top (another 33C or so) and what makes the difference between ice age and hot house is less than 10C. We might only change the planet by 1C (and that's not much of a problem) but more than 2C anthro warming is, imo.

I don't know how much anthro warming there will be but I trust those scientists who looked at the physics, doubling CO2 = at least 1C warming for a start and then the feedbacks which add the 1,2,3C on top of that. I don't know better than said scientists - of course Warwick does...

Edited April 6, 2008 by Devonian

[biffvernon]

Sorry if this has been posted before:

http://www.warwickhughes.com/agri/Solar_Arch_NY_Mar2_08.pdf

Good gracious! I struggled to find a paragraph in that document that wasn't complete cobblers. How did he do it? The same way the people who write about the Earth being 6000 years old or how they were abducted by aliens, I suppose. Into the bin with it.

[Admiral_Bobski]

What matters is that the Sun does indeed warm the planet from close to absolute zero to about -18C (what, 250C plus) but, clearly, that's not enough since a global temperature of -18C is a tad cold. What makes the planet habitable is the GH effect on top (another 33C or so) and what makes the difference between ice age and hot house is less than 10C. We might only change the planet by 1C (and that's not much of a problem) but more than 2C anthro warming is, imo.

This argument is misleading - it implies that the Sun warms us up to -18C and then the Greenhouse Effect is responsible for around 33C of warming (which suggests that the trace amounts of CO2 and methane and the water vapour cause a whopping 33C of warming).

The -18C figure quoted is an average global temperature. This average is determined by taking the coldest it would be (with no GH effect), somewhere around -150C, and the warmest it would be (with no GH effect), which is about 110C. So in reality the Sun is responsible for a maximum warming of well over 300C.

What the greenhouse effect does is it homogenises the temperatures between the light and dark sides of the Earth. The atmosphere reflects enough energy back into space to stop us from reaching temperatures above boiling point, and traps enough energy to stop us from freezing up completely.

So the existing greenhouse effect isn't actually responsible for 33C of warming - it lowers the maximum temperature and raises the minimum so that the average is raised by 33C, which is a rather different thing.

CB

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

Dev you are wrong. Captain B has answered that nicely.

BFTP

[laserguy]

Good gracious! I struggled to find a paragraph in that document that wasn't complete cobblers. How did he do it? The same way the people who write about the Earth being 6000 years old or how they were abducted by aliens, I suppose. Into the bin with it.

Along with all the 'cobblers' spouted relentlessly and demonstrably wrongly by the IPCC etc,which so far has cost many wasted billions,unlike WarwickHughes who is more likely to be right? It's all gotten so ridiculous... While *some of us* scrabble around like headless chickens trying to blame one gas (for what??)in isolation,and a trace one at that which is only culpable because we happen to produce minute amounts of it, the sun if it were human would be smiling down at us and having a good ol' chuckle at what it's got 'up it's sleeve'! We to the Earth are but what a virus is to a football...nothing,nothing at all. I fear the coming cooldown, (which we could always overturn by increasing CO2 emissions )the only positive aspect of which will be the silencing of AGW nonsense which has insiduously permeated society and succeeded only in making us feel guilty just for trying to make the passage from one day to the next. Fossil fuels have made that easy even to the most frugal types. When that changes,as it will,boy will there be something to really worry about,compounded of course by reduced temps due to solar influences,not by the ensuing reduction in CO2 emissions.

[Roo]

demonstrably wrongly by the IPCC

Could you please show why that is the case?

[Devonian]

Dev you are wrong. Captain B has answered that nicely.

BFTP

Odd, then, that both our posts say 33C? OK, I didn't use the word average, but what else could a global temperature be?

CB put what I said in a different way. Fine, I can live with that. I don't much care for the bit about 'misleading' but there we are.

Along with all the 'cobblers' spouted relentlessly and demonstrably wrongly by the IPCC etc,which so far has cost many wasted billions,unlike WarwickHughes who is more likely to be right? It's all gotten so ridiculous... While *some of us* scrabble around like headless chickens trying to blame one gas (for what??)in isolation,and a trace one at that which is only culpable because we happen to produce minute amounts of it, the sun if it were human would be smiling down at us and having a good ol' chuckle at what it's got 'up it's sleeve'! We to the Earth are but what a virus is to a football...nothing,nothing at all. I fear the coming cooldown, (which we could always overturn by increasing CO2 emissions )the only positive aspect of which will be the silencing of AGW nonsense which has insiduously permeated society and succeeded only in making us feel guilty just for trying to make the passage from one day to the next. Fossil fuels have made that easy even to the most frugal types. When that changes,as it will,boy will there be something to really worry about,compounded of course by reduced temps due to solar influences,not by the ensuing reduction in CO2 emissions.

If you know what's going to happen to global temperatures perhaps you could post it in graphical form? I'd be interested to see it

[laserguy]

http://mclean.ch/climate/IPCC.htm

Here's somewhere to start,Roo.

No idea what's going to happen in terms of magnitude and time scales,Dev. For sure,it's a different scenario to the 'warming' one we've been fed for many,many years now.

[Mr Sleet]

http://mclean.ch/climate/IPCC.htm

Here's somewhere to start,Roo.

No idea what's going to happen in terms of magnitude and time scales,Dev. For sure,it's a different scenario to the 'warming' one we've been fed for many,many years now.

I wouldn't take solace in that likelihood LG, a 20 year cool down would still be a "downward blip in an ever upward trend" for some

My advice- take a leaf out of Government's book and don't take AGW or this board too seriously.

Edited April 7, 2008 by Mr Sleet

[Yeti]

Along with all the 'cobblers' spouted relentlessly and demonstrably wrongly by the IPCC etc,which so far has cost many wasted billions,unlike WarwickHughes who is more likely to be right? It's all gotten so ridiculous... While *some of us* scrabble around like headless chickens trying to blame one gas (for what??)in isolation,and a trace one at that which is only culpable because we happen to produce minute amounts of it, the sun if it were human would be smiling down at us and having a good ol' chuckle at what it's got 'up it's sleeve'! We to the Earth are but what a virus is to a football...nothing,nothing at all. I fear the coming cooldown, (which we could always overturn by increasing CO2 emissions )the only positive aspect of which will be the silencing of AGW nonsense which has insiduously permeated society and succeeded only in making us feel guilty just for trying to make the passage from one day to the next. Fossil fuels have made that easy even to the most frugal types. When that changes,as it will,boy will there be something to really worry about,compounded of course by reduced temps due to solar influences,not by the ensuing reduction in CO2 emissions.

Look, instead of telling us that the IPCC is no good, can you tell us why you predict a cooldown and why you think the sun is responsible for raising global temps at the moment... considering that its output has actually decreased very slightly over the past fifty years.

To be honest it would be more reliable to look into a crystal ball than to predict a cooldown based on no evidence whatsoever.

[biffvernon]

One of the world's leading climate scientists warns today that the EU and its international partners must urgently rethink targets for cutting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere because of fears they have grossly underestimated the scale of the problem.

In a startling reappraisal of the threat, James Hansen, head of the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, calls for a sharp reduction in C02 limits.

Hansen says the EU target of 550 parts per million of C02 - the most stringent in the world - should be slashed to 350ppm. He argues the cut is needed if "humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilisation developed".

More at http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008...carbonemissions

Hansen's paper will be published at Science magazine tomorrow, I am told.

(Of course the regular flat-earthers round here will assure us that Jim Hansen is a looney crackpot and that their universe is cooling nicely.)

Edited April 7, 2008 by biffvernon

[bluecon]

Good gracious! I struggled to find a paragraph in that document that wasn't complete cobblers. How did he do it? The same way the people who write about the Earth being 6000 years old or how they were abducted by aliens, I suppose. Into the bin with it.

What a crazy idea that the variations in the energy from the Sun could have a greater affect on the Earths temperature than a minute increase in the amount of a harmless gas.

[biffvernon]

What a crazy idea that the variations in the energy from the Sun could have a greater affect on the Earths temperature than a minute increase in the amount of a harmless gas.

It sounds like a crazy idea, but only to those who don't understand the science or do not have faith in those who do.

There are plenty of much more crazy ideas that you probably don't understand such as the quantum mechanics that allows your mobile phone to work.

[VillagePlank]

(Of course the regular flat-earthers round here will assure us that Jim Hansen is a looney crackpot and that their universe is cooling nicely.)

If ever there was an inflationary comment ....

Anyway ...

Instead of using theoretical models to estimate the sensitivity of the climate, his team turned to evidence from the Earth's history, which they say gives a much more accurate picture.

Does this mean that those who use computing modelling for their climate forecasts are less accurate? - this assumes, of course, that theoretic translates to 'using computer modelling' - to the tune of orders of magnitude as demonstrated by the new call for nearly a halving of the 'safe' CO2 limit?

(Incidentally, I agree with him using historic evidence instead of computer model evidence for predictions - as I have said before, here)

EDIT: added "computer modelling = theorectcal modelling, comment"

Edited April 7, 2008 by VillagePlank

[Mr Sleet]

Temperature responses to quasi-100-yr solar variability during the past 6000 years based on δ18O of peat cellulose in Hongyuan, eastern Qinghai–Tibet plateau, China

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=h...l%3Den%26sa%3DN

It's the Sun wot did it.

Edited April 7, 2008 by Mr Sleet

[Yeti]

It sounds like a crazy idea, but only to those who don't understand the science or do not have faith in those who do.

There are plenty of much more crazy ideas that you probably don't understand such as the quantum mechanics that allows your mobile phone to work.

Beautifully put. Nobody on here is saying that the sun has no effect on the climate - that is what the antis put into our mouths - but what we are saying is that the sun's energy outut has gone slightly down but the temperature has gone up. Seeing as though the Svensmark looks highly unlikely, the only reasonable conclusion to make is that something else other than the sun must be happening to affect the global temperature - and for this CO2 has a mountain of evidence compared to anything else.

[Admiral_Bobski]

Odd, then, that both our posts say 33C? OK, I didn't use the word average, but what else could a global temperature be?

CB put what I said in a different way. Fine, I can live with that. I don't much care for the bit about 'misleading' but there we are.

My point was a bit more subtle (but no less important for being so) than you seem to realise. You say that the greenhouse effect is responsible for making the Earth 33C warmer than it would otherwise be, which suggests that the greenhouse effect (and hence GHGs) is responsible for 33C of warmth in addition to what the Sun would supply us with. In reality, the Sun is responsible for around 130C more warming than the average would lead us to believe (since an atmosphere-free planet at our mean distance from the Sun would have a peak temperature of about 110C).

What the greenhouse effect actually does is to reflect and redistribute the heat to such an extent as to bring the extremes into a more managable range - the side-effect of this redistribution is to raise the average temperature by 33C, or thereabouts.

This is not the same thing as GHGs being responsible for 33C of warmth, and that is why I said that your last post was misleading. Your last post implies that the 380ppm of CO2 (plus other GHGs) causes 33C of warming, from which it would follow logically that a small increase in CO2 can cause a surprisingly large increase in temperatures, but this is simply not the case.

CB

PS - thanks for the nod, BFTP

Beautifully put. Nobody on here is saying that the sun has no effect on the climate - that is what the antis put into our mouths - but what we are saying is that the sun's energy outut has gone slightly down but the temperature has gone up. Seeing as though the Svensmark looks highly unlikely, the only reasonable conclusion to make is that something else other than the sun must be happening to affect the global temperature - and for this CO2 has a mountain of evidence compared to anything else.

Does Svensmark look highly unlikely? I read the "No Sun Link" paper and responded with my thoughts previously in this thread. The authors' statistical analysis does not seem to corroborate the Svensmark hypothesis, but there are other important points they make in their paper (read my post on the subject for details). Also, as I say in that post, CERN are currently testing the hypothesis, and the first full set of results is expected sometime in 2010 - until those results are in it would seem scientifically appropriate to reserve judgement.

CB

[Devonian]

You say that the greenhouse effect is responsible for making the Earth 33C warmer than it would otherwise be, which suggests that the greenhouse effect (and hence GHGs) is responsible for 33C of warmth in addition to what the Sun would supply us with.

No, I don't mean that, I was obviously unclear. To be clearer I mean the energy comes from the Sun, all of it bar a tiny amount of energy from inside the Earth.

We both clearly agree there is a GH effect and it is ~33C

What the greenhouse effect actually does is to reflect and redistribute the heat to such an extent as to bring the extremes

Does reflection come into it? In what way does reflection come into it?

As to a planet without a GH effect. Well, I think it is hard to describe since you have to decide what is left. Nitrogen? Oxygen? Oceans (clearly not?)?

But, without an atmosphere Earth would be quite like the Moon and the Moon's average temperature is? And, yes, it would be a more extreme place.

[Admiral_Bobski]

No, I don't mean that, I was obviously unclear. To be clearer I mean the energy comes from the Sun, all of it bar a tiny amount of energy from inside the Earth.

We both clearly agree there is a GH effect and it is ~33C

We both clearly agree that there is a GH effect, but what do you mean by "it is ~33C"? Honest question - how, exactly, do you perceive the Greenhouse effect to cause a 33C increase in the global average temperature? I just want to get an idea of how our respective understandings of the GH effect differ.

Does reflection come into it? In what way does reflection come into it?

There is clearly a degree of reflection involved, or else one side of the Earth's temperature would shoot above boiling point every time it pointed towards the Sun. This is an atmospheric effect which must, at least in part, be caused by GHGs.

As to a planet without a GH effect. Well, I think it is hard to describe since you have to decide what is left. Nitrogen? Oxygen? Oceans (clearly not?)?

This is one place where our viewpoints are likely to differ the most - what exactly is a planet without a greenhouse effect? I would suggest that a planet without a greenhouse effect would have to have no atmosphere - if you add any kind of atmosphere at all you can expect at least a little bit of GHG to exist there, in which case you would have some kind of GH effect. To have absolutely no GH effect you would have to have absolutely no atmosphere (I know that, theoretically, an inert atmosphere is GH effect-free, but it is physically implausible).

But, without an atmosphere Earth would be quite like the Moon and the Moon's average temperature is? And, yes, it would be a more extreme place.

The moon's average temperature is somewhere in the region of -20C-ish, and this is determined by taking the average daily max and the average nightly min, adding them together and dividing by two. But that doesn't mean that the Moon is cold, it just means that the Moon is cold on average.

CB

[biffvernon]

The moon's average temperature is somewhere in the region of -20C-ish, and this is determined by taking the average daily max and the average nightly min, adding them together and dividing by two. But that doesn't mean that the Moon is cold, it just means that the Moon is cold on average.

Average temperature of what? The Moon's atmosphere?