It's all over but for the sweating?

[NeilBlanchard]

Carbon dioxide is not the only thing causing climate change - but it is the most important factor, and it is the only way that the numbers work.

11 years is a half cycle. ~22 years is the cycle. We have just come through a an unusually low minimum of sun spot activity, and the sun's output is lower when there is low sun spot activity. This is actually counterintuitive since sunspots themselves are much cooler than the rest of the surface of the sun.

Here's an excellent NOVA program on the Sun that aired earlier this year:

NOVA | Secrets of the Sun

As I understand it, the sun is increasing its output over the very long term - but the output over the short term can drop off, and it does drop off during sun spot minimums. The most well know minimum was the Maunder Minimum.

[gone-ot]

...it's sorta analogus to the famous "A.A. Prayer":

"...grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change,
courage to change the things we can,
and wisdom to know the difference."

We can't change what the SUN does, but we can change what WE do here on earth.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by TheEnemy

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.

There are several ways in which the sun's output can be said to be increasing, but you are using these literally true statements to mislead. Kind of analogous to the way denialists used to point out that Pluto was warming too (true, because its orbit was taking it closer to the sun), so Earth's warming must be due to the sun.

1) The sun's output has increased over its lifetime (Faint young Sun paradox - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ), but a change of about 30% over several billion years is going to be negligible over the course of human history, and so is irrelevant to global warming.

2) The solar cycle is currently on the upswing from its low point, so it's literally true that the sun's output is increasing right now. But that increase is too small to have a noticable effect (given thermal lag and all).

3) You use a proxy reconstruction starting back in the 1700s to infer an increase in solar output. If you look at the graph of actual measurements, you see that solar output has actually decreased very slightly over the last half century, the same time period in which warming has been observed.

[TheEnemy]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Carbon dioxide is not the only thing causing climate change - but it is the most important factor, and it is the only way that the numbers work.

11 years is a half cycle. ~22 years is the cycle. We have just come through a an unusually low minimum of sun spot activity, and the sun's output is lower when there is low sun spot activity. This is actually counterintuitive since sunspots themselves are much cooler than the rest of the surface of the sun.

Here's an excellent NOVA program on the Sun that aired earlier this year:

NOVA | Secrets of the Sun

As I understand it, the sun is increasing its output over the very long term - but the output over the short term can drop off, and it does drop off during sun spot minimums. The most well know minimum was the Maunder Minimum.

Yes it is a good video. Go to 43minutes into the video, and rewatch, they clearly state the solar cycle is 11 years.

What is the solar cycle?


NASA

The amount of magnetic flux that rises up to the Sun's surface varies with time in a cycle called the solar cycle. This cycle lasts 11 years on average. This cycle is sometimes referred to as the sunspot cycle. Near the minimum of the solar cycle, it is rare to see sunspots on the Sun, and the spots that do appear are very small and short-lived. During this "solar maximum", there will be sunspots visible on the Sun almost all the time (often there are more than 100 spots visible at a time!), and some of those spots will be very large (up to 50,000 km in diameter) and last several weeks. There was a sunspot maximum in 1989-1990 and we expect another one in 2000-2001.

www.swpc.noaa.gov/info/SolarMax.pdf

NOAA

Over the last 300 years, the average
number of sunspots has regularly waxed and
waned in an approximately 11-year sun-spot
cycle (see figure 1). The Sun, like the Earth, has
its seasons—but its “year” equals 11 of ours.

Its really not that important in the context of overall global warming.

...it's sorta analogus to the famous "A.A. Prayer":

"...grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change,
courage to change the things we can,
and wisdom to know the difference."

We can't change what the SUN does, but we can change what WE do here on earth.

Exactly, I just prefer that the reasons I change be as true and honest as possible.

[Arragonis]

Good snowfall gives new life to glaciers - Times Of India

[TheEnemy]

This graph is taken from the IPCC orriginally, if you notice they have solar irradiance increasing by approx 0.2w/m^2 which is very close to the values I calculated using the information I supposedly misrepresented. You don't believe me that is fine, I don't have the proper credentials. But you don't even believe your own climate scientists who are saying nearly the exact same thing about the influence of the sun. Again I have NEVER said that the current warming is ONLY due to the sun.



Here directly from the IPCC,

FAQ 2.1 - AR4 WGI Chapter 2: Changes in Atmospheric Constituents and in Radiative Forcing


I just duplicated their contribution due to CO2 increase, it goes back to when we had a concentration of 275ppm and uses a multiplier I know to be wrong. I can step you through those calculations if you like, and show you why the multiplier is wrong.

[TheEnemy]

Originally Posted by Arragonis

Good snowfall gives new life to glaciers - Times Of India

Regional changes does not prove or disprove anything... cherry picking.

[NeilBlanchard]

The magnetic poles of the sun are stable for 11 years and then they switch, and go another 11 years, and then switch back to the way the cycle started. A cycle is the length of time to go from one state to a different state - and then back to the first state. The full solar cycle is 22 years - and this is the cycle of solar output. It is the length of time that is embedded in sedimentary rock on earth - they are like tree rings and they show a 22 year long cycle.

The modern understanding of sunspots starts with George Ellery Hale, who first linked magnetic fields and sunspots in 1908.[14] Hale suggested that the sunspot cycle period is 22 years, covering two polar reversals of the solar magnetic dipole field.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunspot#Physics

Edit: here's another related NOVA program:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/earth/extreme-ice.html

[user removed]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

...it's sorta analogus to the famous "A.A. Prayer":

"...grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change,
courage to change the things we can,
and wisdom to know the difference."

We can't change what the SUN does, but we can change what WE do here on earth.

What are the solutions?

regards
Mech

[radioranger]

Well with the global recession the warming should have at least slowed down, as far as air quality goes a bit off topic, I remember seeing the brown haze over Long Island off my boat coming from New York area, ever since the late 90's the air is cleaner much cleaner, thanks in the most part to fuel injection and Catalytic converters, side effect is the cars last twice as long because of decreased oil dilution in the motors by the gas. so changes can be made without total lifestyle destruction, the big thing now to me is how we are throwing thousands of pounds of mercury in our water every year because of no way to easily dispose of all these CFL bulbs the enviromentalists are pushing, if they were smart they'd stop on this course right away , so I guess they dont know everything !!