Solar decline "unlikely to offset greenhouse warming": Met Office

24 January, 2012 by

Irrelevant, apparently

Naturally, nothing the Sun (1.9891×1030 kg of blazing hot nuclear fusion right on our doorstep) can do compares with what our omnipotent man-made CO2 can do – all, er, hundred odd parts per million of it. Another study,  undertaken by the University of Reading and the UK Met Office, dismisses solar effects on the climate:

New research has found that solar output is likely to reduce over the next 90 years but that will not substantially delay expected increases in global temperatures caused by greenhouse gases.

Carried out by the University of Reading and the Met Office, the study establishes the most likely changes in the Sun’s activity and looks at how this could affect near-surface temperatures on Earth.

It found that the most likely outcome was that the Sun’s output would decrease up to 2100, but this would only cause a reduction in global temperatures of 0.08 °C. This compares to an expected warming of about 2.5 °C over the same period due to greenhouse gases (according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s B2 scenario for greenhouse gas emissions that does not involve efforts to mitigate emissions).

Gareth Jones, a climate change detection scientist with the Met Office, said: “This research shows that the most likely change in the Sun’s output will not have a big impact on global temperatures or do much to slow the warming we expect from greenhouse gases.

“It’s important to note this study is based on a single climate model, rather than multiple models which would capture more of the uncertainties in the climate system.”

And just to ram home the “it ain’t the sun, stupid” point even further:

Peter Stott, who also worked on the research for the Met Office, said: “Our findings suggest that a reduction of solar activity to levels not seen in hundreds of years would be insufficient to offset the dominant influence of greenhouse gases on global temperatures in the 21st century.” (source – University of Reading)

Focussing on TSI as the only variable ignores many other possible mechanisms of climatic influence, not least cosmic ray modulation, which, whilst not proven, is about as convincing as the CO2 argument right now.

The abstract from JGR is here.

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Solar effects only cause cooling

7 July, 2011 by

Thames Frost Fair, 1694

Climate scientists in the consensus camp are scrambling to find a reason for the slowing of the global temperature rise in the last decade. According to their models, in which climate sensitivity is very high and positive feedbacks rule, temperatures should have continued rising with CO2.

Solar effects are to all intents and purposes ignored, since as the IPCC states in AR4, changes in solar irradiance are too small to affect the climate, and other methods such as cosmic ray modulation are “controversial” [translation: they don’t fit our agenda – Ed]. So they are simply glossed over.

Just yesterday, we read that the additional aerosols from burning coal have “offset” the greenhouse warming over the past decade and are actually cooling the planet, and today, we read that solar effects may cause UK winters to become colder, as the BBC reports:

Britain is set to face an increase in harsh winters, with up to one-in-seven gripping the UK with prolonged sub-zero temperatures, a study has suggested.

The projection was based on research that identified how low solar activity affected winter weather patterns.

However, the authors were keen to stress that their findings did not suggest that the region was about to be plunged into a “little ice age”. [Note the essential caveat – don’t anyone start thinking this is some kind of global effect – Ed]

The findings appear in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

“We could get to the point where one-in-seven winters are very cold, such as we had at the start of last winter and all through the winter before,” said co-author Mike Lockwood, professor of space environment physics at the University of Reading. (source)

There is a clear double standard at work here. The IPCC and the consensus scientists are terrified of investigating solar links to climate change too closely, since it may blow their CO2 driven cash cow out of the water. In their book, virtually none of the current warming is linked to increased solar activity or other solar-related phenomena, it’s all down to man-made CO2. That’s despite the fact that by their own admission, the level of scientific understanding of forcing by solar irradiance is “low” and that of cosmic rays “very low” [translation: “virtually zero” and “zero” – Ed].

But suddenly, as soon as there is a need to find a reason for cooling, the fog clears, as it were, and they invoke the sun as a cause.

Either we understand enough about the sun to link it to regional or global changes in climate or we don’t. You can’t have it both ways.

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Cosmic rays "contribute 40% to global warming"

22 January, 2011 by

Cosmic ray shower

From The Science is Settled Department. This is what happens when you decide on a pre-conceived politically-motivated conclusion (that man-made CO2 is solely to blame for climate change) and then set up an entire bureaucracy (the IPCC) to build a scientific case to support it. You only look at matters that will support your case, and you shut your eyes to anything that might challenge that case – and the result is not science at all.

So it’s little wonder that independent researchers who have no political axe to grind are constantly making discoveries about the climate that the consensus boys don’t want to hear. Like this:

A key belief of climate science theology — that a reduction in carbon emissions will take care of the bulk of global warming — has been questioned in a scientific paper released by the Environment Ministry on Monday.

Physicist and the former ISRO chairman, U.R. Rao, has calculated that cosmic rays — which, unlike carbon emissions, cannot be controlled by human activity — have a much larger impact on climate change than The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) claims.

In fact, the contribution of decreasing cosmic ray activity to climate change is almost 40 per cent, argues Dr. Rao in a paper which has been accepted for publication in Current Science, the preeminent Indian science journal. The IPCC model, on the other hand, says that the contribution of carbon emissions is over 90 per cent.

‘Cosmic ray impact ignored’

Releasing Dr. Rao’s findings as a discussion paper on Thursday, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh noted that “the impact of cosmic ray intensity on climate change has thus far been largely ignored by the mainstream scientific consensus.” He added that the “unidimensional focus” on carbon emissions by most Western countries put additional pressure on countries like India in international climate negotiations.

The continuing increase in solar activity has caused a 9 per cent decrease in cosmic ray intensity over the last 150 years, which results in less cloud cover, which in turn results in less albedo radiation being reflected back to the space, causing an increase in the Earth’s surface temperature. (source)

Expect to see this story reported widely on the ABC and in Fairfax…

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But the science is settled, isn't it?

7 October, 2010 by

"Poorly studied"

Our ignorant, spin-laden Australian government, via its climate mouthpiece Greg Combet, continues to push the line, “the science on climate is settled”, because they don’t wish to engage with the possibility that it isn’t. They have all their eggs in the IPCC basket, despite the fact that most of those eggs are cracked, rotten and leaking through the bottom, and they aren’t interested in anything else. They simply want to move on, pander to their redistributive instincts and impose an emissions trading scheme or carbon tax which, even if the science were settled, wouldn’t make an iota of difference to the climate, but would “spread the wealth around”, as someone once said.

So it’s ironic when a story breaks that shows so clearly that the science is not settled. Something as fundamental as the effect of the sun on climate during solar cycles is still uncertain, let alone complex feedbacks, clouds, precipitation etc, etc. As the New Scientist (gasp) reports:

IF NEW satellite data can be trusted, changes in solar activity warmed the Earth when they should have cooled it.

Joanna Haigh of Imperial College London studied satellite measurements of solar radiation between 2004 and 2007, when overall solar activity was in decline. The sun puts out less energy when its activity is low, but different types of radiation vary to different degrees. Until now, this had been poorly studied. [“Poorly studied”, notice. Because, thanks to massive government and big green investment, all the research has been directed towards finding the tenuous link between anthropogenic CO2 and climate instead.]

Haigh’s measurements showed that visible radiation increased between 2004 and 2007, when it was expected to decrease, and ultraviolet radiation dropped four times as much as predicted.

Haigh then plugged her data into an atmospheric model to calculate how the patterns affected energy filtering through the atmosphere. Previous studies have shown that Earth is normally cooler during solar minima.Yet the model suggested that more solar energy reached the planet’s surface during the period, warming it by about 0.05 °C (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature09426).

The effect is slight, but it could call into question our understanding of the sun’s subtle effects on climate.

But don’t forget, this is New Scientist, so…

Or could it? Stefan Brönnimann of the University of Bern in Switzerland says Haigh’s study shows the importance of looking at radiation changes in detail but cautions that her the results could be a one-off. He points out that the sun’s most recent cycle is known to have been atypical.

Whatever. But to continue to repeat ad nauseam that the science is settled is nonsensical. Take note, Julia and Greg.

Read it here.

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Global warming "linked to solar radiation"

3 August, 2010 by

How could a massive fusion reaction on our doorstep possibly affect climate?

From “The Science is Settled” department. The IPCC want to play down the effect of the sun on climate because, well, you can’t tax the sun. But you can tax a harmless trace gas which is a byproduct of burning fossil fuels, and thereby stop the fastest growing economies in their tracks, and prevent them from their selfish pursuit of alleviating poverty for millions of people. All together now: “It’s the sun, stupid.”

A STUDY of Arctic cooling cycles suggest warming is linked to solar activity.

By measuring the rings of 400-year-old Scots pine trees, German researchers at the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart were able to determine periods of fast-growth activity associated with higher average temperatures.

They took their measurements from trees on the Kola Peninsula and compared it to 2004 data from the Swedish Laplan and Russian Siberia regions.

They found that temperatures between 1630 and 1840 cooled, then warming in the Arctic began – just after the end of the “Little Ice Age” and 30 years before the start of the Industrial Age.

The “Little Ice Age” refers to a 300-year cooling effect leading up to the Industrial Age in which the Arctic cooled by 0.4C.

That phase also coincided with a decline in solar radiation over the same period.

After reaching their peak between 1935 and 1957, the German researchers found summer temperatures in the Arctic then dropped by “one or two degrees” to 1990.

The new lows came through a modern phase associated with high emissions, yet still dropped to temperatures not seen since 1870, just as the Industrial Age began.

“One thing is certain: this part of the Arctic warmed up after the end of the Little Ice Age around 250 years ago, cooled down from the middle of the last century and has been warming up again since 1990,” paleoclimatologist Dr Tatjana Bottger said.

And because News.com.au has a pro-warming agenda, it adds this bizarre caveat:

But before the climate sceptics start celebrating, the researchers also noted that since 1970, solar radiation’s influence on summer temperatures had weakened.

Although they don’t explain why the laws of solar physics have decided to change in 1970 after staying the same for 4.5 billion years. And next time there’s a warming scare story, will we see News.com.au writing “Before the alarmists start celebrating…”? I think not.

Read it here.

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Scientist agrees with herself – creates "consensus"

26 June, 2010 by

Consensus of one

An easy way to make a consensus if ever I’ve heard one – just agree with yourself! Not that consensus has anything to do with science anyway, but since the warmists insist consensus is important, we have to deal with it. Here we have a single scientist and a single paper (co-authored by said scientist) being relied upon by the IPCC to ignore solar effects on the climate:

Klimaskeptik.cz, a Czech climate skeptic blog, has posted today an interesting article “Judithgate: The IPCC was only one Solar Physicist” (google rough translation). Her name is Judith Lean (photo at right). On the basis of this “consensus of one” solar physicist, the IPCC proclaimed solar influences upon the climate to be minimal. Objection to this was raised by the Norwegian government as shown in the AR4 second draft comments below (and essentially dismissed by the IPCC):

“I would encourage the IPCC to [re-]consider having only one solar physicist on the lead author team of such an important chapter. In particular since the conclusion of this section about solar forcing hangs on one single paper in which J. Lean is a coauthor. I find that this paper, which certainly can be correct, is given too much weight”

What a ridiculous concept even to think that the sun, the only significant source of energy for the entire climate system, could possibly have anything to do with the climate! </sarc>

Read it here.

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