Solar output is one of four major influences on the climate. And over the long term, it is increasing - like billions of years. The sun spots are a short term (22 year) cycle, and we recently came through a very unusual *low* sun spot activity (the nadir with almost no spots at all) and even with this lull, temperatures did not decline very much, and now that sun spots are on the upswing, we are seeing lots of new record high temperatures.
We have our strong magnetosphere to thank for not being toasted. It prevents our atmosphere from being stripped away by the so-called solar wind. If our sun follows the typical pattern for medium sized stars, we will have it for another 5 billion years, or so, before it expands to the size of the whole solar system, and then collapses back down much smaller than before.
And how do we know that? Science - the same way we know about our climate.
Q: If 97% of all astrophysicists agreed that there is an asteroid the size of Alaska on a path to hit the earth in exactly 21 years 242 days 6 hours and *about* 7 minutes, and the remaining 3% where saying that the asteroid will miss us by a mile (passing through our atmosphere), and some saying no it is a gaseous object and we have nothing to worry about, and some saying it will pass well outside of the Moon's orbit, and a few say that it won't happen until 500 years from now on the next orbit, and some saying no the data doesn't support it at all - which group of scientists should we follow? What if some of the 3% are actually molecular physicists and a few are former astronauts, but all of the 97% are PhD's in astrophysics?
With all that doubt and uncertainty - do we trust any of them?
Solar output is one of four major influences on the climate. And over the long term, it is increasing - like billions of years. The sun spots are a short term (22 year) cycle, and we recently came through a very unusual *low* sun spot activity (the nadir with almost no spots at all) and even with this lull, temperatures did not decline very much, and now that sun spots are on the upswing, we are seeing lots of new record high temperatures.
Actually its an appox 11 year cycle, it varries some. There are other cycles that varry at different time cycles, not just billions of years.
According to the TSI reconstruction there is an almost 1W/m^2 difference between 1880 and present, converting that energy change to forcing on a sphere gives approx 0.2w/m^2, the same that is accepted by the IPCC.
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We have our strong magnetosphere to thank for not being toasted. It prevents our atmosphere from being stripped away by the so-called solar wind. If our sun follows the typical pattern for medium sized stars, we will have it for another 5 billion years, or so, before it expands to the size of the whole solar system, and then collapses back down much smaller than before.
And how do we know that? Science - the same way we know about our climate.
Q: If 97% of all astrophysicists agreed that there is an asteroid the size of Alaska on a path to hit the earth in exactly 21 years 242 days 6 hours and *about* 7 minutes, and the remaining 3% where saying that the asteroid will miss us by a mile (passing through our atmosphere), and some saying no it is a gaseous object and we have nothing to worry about, and some saying it will pass well outside of the Moon's orbit, and a few say that it won't happen until 500 years from now on the next orbit, and some saying no the data doesn't support it at all - which group of scientists should we follow? What if some of the 3% are actually molecular physicists and a few are former astronauts, but all of the 97% are PhD's in astrophysics?
With all that doubt and uncertainty - do we trust any of them?
I would trust them. Astrophysisists have had a history of being honest and doing honest science. They are open to critisism of their work and other views and conclusions.
They couldn't get the direct measurements they were looking for, so they ran another measurement through their model and viola!!! got the data they were looking for. That is not good science.
Another group after the historic low in arctic ice in 2007 went on an expedition to measure ice thickness during the winter. They found that it was only as thick as seasonal ice. But when you looked at their path they only went across areas that had melted the year before. That is not good science.
Dr Hansen from NASA has been caught several times adjusting the measured temperatures higher (he said it was an honest mistake). His data constantly shows the highest warming and the highest projected warming, far and above the other groups doing the same work. Now you want me to trust him, his work?
Al Gore, who is not even a scientist has admitted to exadgerating the facts to make a point. Only scientists involved?
Actual climate scientists who don't agree with the main conclusion loose their grants, jobs, silenced, and discredited.
I agree that there are groups on the other side of the issue really mudying the waters, but often when I try to find the core science on the subject all I can find is disinformation and fear mongering from both sides.
Similarly if I look into the orbit of say the asteroid apophis, I get what the current understanding is with the admission that there is still a lot of uncertainty about the projections.
According to the TSI reconstruction there is an almost 1W/m^2 difference between 1880 and present, converting that energy change to forcing on a sphere gives approx 0.2w/m^2, the same that is accepted by the IPCC.
Pay attention to the scale on the left side of the graph. The max dT over the whole reconstruction period is (by eyeball) 1.7 W/m^2. Since solar output averages 1361 W/m^2, that's a change of 0.125%. Now for simplicity assume the temperature change is linear, then that change in output would change the Earth's temperature by 0.00125 * 288K = 0.36K in the last 3 centuries.
Considering thermal inertial, it'd be more appropriate to take net change as the average between solar cycle peaks, or about 1.2 W/m^2. Even if we accept that reconstruction as valid*, that's not a heck of a lot of change.
*And why do you accept this reconstruction, but not the so-called "hockey stick" reconstruction? 'Cause you can spin it to persuade the hard-of-thinking that the sun's to blame?
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I would trust them. Astrophysisists have had a history of being honest and doing honest science. They are open to critisism of their work and other views and conclusions.
I doubt if they're all that open. I bet Flat Earthers and Young Earth Creationists don't get much of a hearing at astrophysics conferences :-)
They couldn't get the direct measurements they were looking for, so they ran another measurement through their model and viola!!! got the data they were looking for. That is not good science.
No? I expect you didn't pay much attention in e.g. math class. If you get an unexpected result, you go back and check your work to see if you've made a mistake. As for example the recent fuss about the neutrinos that apparently travelled faster than light, eventually traced to a false reading caused by a bad cable IIRC .
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Actual climate scientists who don't agree with the main conclusion loose their grants, jobs, silenced, and discredited.
Crap. First you have to find an actual climate scientist who doesn't agree with the main conclusion. You might find a couple, but they are still getting grants. You might also find a few self-proclaimed ones who've had their work discredited (the ones who were trying to blame the warming on cosmic rays, perhaps), but that's because their work was either honestly bad, or faked.
Last edited by jamesqf; 12-05-2012 at 09:55 PM..
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Until recently it was thought that there were 28 cycles in the 309 years between 1699 and 2008, giving an average length of 11.04 years, but recent research has showed that the longest of these (1784–1799) seems actually to have been two cycles,[1][2] so that the average length is only around 10.66 years. Cycles as short as 9 years and as long as 14 years have been observed, and in the double cycle of 1784-1799 one of the two component cycles had to be less than 8 years in length. Significant variations in amplitude also occur. Solar maximum and solar minimum refer respectively to epochs of maximum and minimum sunspot counts. Individual sunspot cycles are partitioned from one minimum to the next.
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Pay attention to the scale on the left side of the graph. The max dT over the whole reconstruction period is (by eyeball) 1.7 W/m^2. Since solar output averages 1361 W/m^2, that's a change of 0.125%. Now for simplicity assume the temperature change is linear, then that change in output would change the Earth's temperature by 0.00125 * 288K = 0.36K in the last 3 centuries.
So I should just ignore any changes that the sun has gone through? Did you even look at the calculations I did in the previous post?
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No? I expect you didn't pay much attention in e.g. math class. If you get an unexpected result, you go back and check your work to see if you've made a mistake. As for example the recent fuss about the neutrinos that apparently travelled faster than light, eventually traced to a false reading caused by a bad cable IIRC .
I do regularly check to see if the results make sense, its called a sanity check.
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Crap. First you have to find an actual climate scientist who doesn't agree with the main conclusion. You might find a couple, but they are still getting grants. You might also find a few self-proclaimed ones who've had their work discredited (the ones who were trying to blame the warming on cosmic rays, perhaps), but that's because their work was either honestly bad, or faked.
It depends on what the "main" conclusion is, as I said many pages before there are actually many levels of conclusion.
For instance if your conclusion is that the earth is warming, all climate scientists would agree, even most of us on this board including me would agree.
If your conclusion is that CO2 is responsible for a moderate to large part of it you would still have the vast majority of climate scientists, and the majority of the people involved in this discussion, including me.
If your conclusion was that CO2 is responsible for all of the warming, then you would actually loose most of the climate scientists, and many of the people in this discussion. Its a matter of how the thing is worded.
edit to add: The TSI reconstruction actually re-inforces your views, so wouldn't it be good for me to use it?
Solar output is one of four major influences on the climate. And over the long term, it is increasing - like billions of years. The sun spots are a short term (22 year) cycle, and we recently came through a very unusual *low* sun spot activity (the nadir with almost no spots at all) and even with this lull, temperatures did not decline very much, and now that sun spots are on the upswing, we are seeing lots of new record high temperatures.
Yes, temperatures did drop a little, now if the increase in CO2 is responsible for all to nearly all of the recent increase in temperature, how could that happen? It still was only a 0.1% change in TSI.
Not too many climate scientists would keep their job if they disagree with the global warming theory , and most of them dont want you driving anyway , I've got some friends nearby who all believe in global warning as they heat their houses with smoky wood stoves, LOL, if you believe it act accordingly , and they all drive 20 MPG subarus too for the most part.
Read the full article. There's an approximately 11 year variation in sunspots - the sunspot cycle. The solar magnetic field reverses in each sunspot cycle, so the complete solar cycle is ~22 years.
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So I should just ignore any changes that the sun has gone through?
You should not ignore them. You should look at the changes (and think about how accurate any reconstruction might be, given the limitations of data collection prior to satellites), discover that they are not large enough to produce any significant temperature change, and THEN ignore them.
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For instance if your conclusion is that the earth is warming, all climate scientists would agree, even most of us on this board including me would agree.
But that's not even a conclusion, it's just observed data. The conclusions are 1) physics says increased CO2 should cause warming; and 2) the observed warming is consistent with the observed increase in CO2.
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If your conclusion is that CO2 is responsible for a moderate to large part of it you would still have the vast majority of climate scientists, and the majority of the people involved in this discussion, including me.
Then why has everything you've posted been an argument that CO2 does not cause warming? After all, even if the sun was responsible for some significant fraction of observed warming, there's nothing (well, maybe orbital mirrors...) that we can do about it.
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If your conclusion was that CO2 is responsible for all of the warming, then you would actually loose most of the climate scientists, and many of the people in this discussion.
Sure, if you make it an absolute. But if you say that all, or a significant part, of the warming is NOT due to anthropogenic factors, you also lose them. It's just physics.
Furthermore, there is no reason to think that the other factors, such as solar output, will keep increasing without limit. As best we can tell from the available data, the Sun has remained pretty constant over millions of years, and there are physical reasons to expect that it will undergo no significant change on human timescales. So absent any physical reason to think otherwise, we should expect solar output to keep on following its pattern of very small periodic & random variations around its long-term average.
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edit to add: The TSI reconstruction actually re-inforces your views, so wouldn't it be good for me to use it?
Use, sure, but not misuse. You need to stay aware of the fact that the scale of the graph is misleading, so that what appears to be large swings are really tiny variations. I dare say that if you graphed it on a 0-1400 scale, it would just appear as a straight line.
Neil: if you look at it that way then it could be called a 22 year cycle, but the common way to refer to it is by the sunspot cycle which is 11 years.
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Then why has everything you've posted been an argument that CO2 does not cause warming? After all, even if the sun was responsible for some significant fraction of observed warming, there's nothing (well, maybe orbital mirrors...) that we can do about it.
I never said it wasn't a factor, I disagree that it is the only thing causing warming.
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Furthermore, there is no reason to think that the other factors, such as solar output, will keep increasing without limit. As best we can tell from the available data, the Sun has remained pretty constant over millions of years, and there are physical reasons to expect that it will undergo no significant change on human timescales. So absent any physical reason to think otherwise, we should expect solar output to keep on following its pattern of very small periodic & random variations around its long-term average.
IPCC, NASA, NOAA all agree that the sun has increased in output and is responsible for at least some warming, since you don't trust my word, why don't you trust theirs, they are climate scientists after all.
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Use, sure, but not misuse. You need to stay aware of the fact that the scale of the graph is misleading, so that what appears to be large swings are really tiny variations. I dare say that if you graphed it on a 0-1400 scale, it would just appear as a straight line.
How have I misused it? If you look at the calculations I did I used the proper values.
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