New study on global warming: "No Sun link" to climate change

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A new study by Mike Lockwood from the UK's Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory and Claus Froehlich from the World Radiation Center in Switzerland seems to offer further evidence that the climate change is not directly related to the solar cycles. More information (I have taken most of this from there) appears at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6290228.stm


A new scientific study concludes that changes in the Sun's output cannot be causing modern-day climate change.It shows that for the last 20 years, the Sun's output has declined, yet temperatures on Earth have risen.

It also shows that modern temperatures are not determined by the Sun's effect on cosmic rays, as has been claimed.

Writing in the Royal Society's journal Proceedings A, the researchers say cosmic rays may have affected climate in the past, but not the present.

"This should settle the debate," said Mike Lockwood from the UK's Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory, who carried out the new analysis together with Claus Froehlich from the World Radiation Center in Switzerland. Dr Lockwood initiated the study partially in response to the TV documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle, broadcast on Britain's Channel Four earlier this year, which featured the cosmic ray hypothesis.

"All the graphs they showed stopped in about 1980, and I knew why, because things diverged after that," he told the BBC News website.

"You can't just ignore bits of data that you don't like," he said.

Warming trend

The scientists' main approach on this new analysis was simple; to look at solar output and cosmic ray intensity over the last 30-40 years, and compare those trends with the graph for global average surface temperature, which has risen by about 0.4C over the period.

Graphs of cosmic ray activity and temperature
Temperatures have continued rising irrespective of cosmic ray flux
The Sun varies on a cycle of about 11 years between periods of high and low activity.

But that cycle comes on top of longer-term trends; and most of the 20th Century saw a slight but steady increase in solar output.

But in about 1985, that trend appears to have reversed, with solar output declining.

Yet this period has seen temperatures rise as fast as, if not faster than, at any time during the previous 100 years.

"This paper re-enforces the fact that the warming in the last 20 to 40 years can't have been caused by solar activity," said Dr Piers Forster from Leeds University, a leading contributor to this year's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment of climate science.

The IPCC's February summary report concluded that greenhouse gases were about 13 times more responsible than solar changes for rising global temperatures. But the organisation was criticised in some quarters for not taking into account the cosmic ray hypothesis, developed among others by Henrik Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen of the Danish National Space Center.

Their theory holds that cosmic rays help clouds to form by providing tiny particles around which water vapour can condense. Overall, clouds cool the Earth. During periods of active solar activity, cosmic rays are partially blocked by the Sun's more intense magnetic field. Cloud formation diminishes, and the Earth warms.

Mike Lockwood's analysis appears to have put a large, probably fatal nail in this intriguing and elegant hypothesis.

He said: "I do think there is a cosmic ray effect on cloud cover. It works in clean maritime air where there isn't much else for water vapour to condense around... It might even have had a significant effect on pre-industrial climate. But you cannot apply it to what we're seeing now, because we're in a completely different ball game."

Drs Svensmark and Friis-Christensen could not be reached for comment.

 

Well, good; I never entertained this rather dubious claim that the sun itself was causing global warming; 'common sense' would indiciate that a stellar object would decrease in intensity over time as its fuel supply reduces.

I would hope that this would also quell some of the rather pointless and irrelevant arguments and squabbling over the source of global warming and maybe focus a little more on solutions, but that's just naive of me...

Because I find the whole "It's man-made/it's natural" debate akin to arguing about whether a housefire was arson, accidental, or an Act of Nature...while the debaters are STILL IN THE BURNING HOUSE.

Essentially, in broad terms, there's three avenues to dealing with climate change/global warming:
1) change the environment to suit us,
2) change US to suit the environment,
3) leave the environment altogether and let it do what it wants - recover/collapse/etc.

or to continue the analogy:
1) put out the fire, (fun if it's gotten inside the walls, etc)
2) evolve into a state that can live fine within flames (makes #1 sound easy now, doesn't it?)
3) GET OUT OF THE BURNING HOUSE!!!!!!

 

Blackthorne, I looked at that site (briefly) and honestly couldn't quite figure out what they were doing, but it appeared to me that they were asking people over the internet to report local temperatures. I'm rather dubious.

All that aside, however, I'm still trying to figure out why exactly the global warming we're experiencing is considered bad. Near as I can tell, the only reason is that a bunch of alarmists have been telling everyone the sea level will rise and flood us all, or the water will disrupt natural currents that warm the north and we'll all freeze. Both of these assume all the natural ice on earth will melt, which is patently rediculous.

The other thing I see everyone ignoring is the fact that temperatures used to be higher than they are today. As recently as 1200 AD global temperatures were high enough for England to grow grapes for wines well enough to compete with French wines IN FRANCE! Then came a global cold snap commonly called the 'little ice age'. Even after about 500 years of global warming (from the lowest point of this 'ice age'), we still haven't matched those old temperatures. If Holland wasn't flooded in 1200 AD, then I don't see what the urgent worry is.

 

a simple fact check on your english wine claims, shows two facts, first of even in the middle ages it was only the southern part of england that could produce wine (sussex and kent mainly), secondly this was and is because of the warm coastel climate caused by the gulf stream. so it has nothing to do with the general global climate in the middle ages or now.

Hollands flodding has also very little to do with global warming ,allthough of course a rise in the ocean level will affect them, the reason why holland is thinking is beacuse scandinavia is still rising, both areas are placed on the far end of the same tektonic plate.

 

As it is, global warming wouldn't really be a threat to us humans. But our ecosystem is very sensitive and the change in temperature would upset the complex networks between the organisms living in it. As an example, major bleaching of the reefs that affects the fishes and whatnot living and feeding on it that affects birds that feed on it and so on so forth... And I'm pretty sure humans are somewhere along that chain.

 

Um, to humans or any individual species it is, but the ecosystem itself it quite durable, and even when it gets wiped clean, it can (and has) started over from scratch in those simple bacteria existing in volcanic vents...

I think what you meant with the italicised part of your statement is OUR ecosystem - i.e. the environment and plants and animals that sustain us comfortably - can be easily toppled, and I'd be willing to agree with that. However, life in general will go on; if the global temperatures rise enough to flood the lands to maybe 90% water coverage of the planet after a couple of centuries, doubtlessly previously land animals will start to become amphibians, and then marine animals. Maybe after twenty or thirty millennia the species of fish currently being consigned to becoming tinned food for us will develop dominance and start the long road to developing some form of aquatic civilisation (gonna be interesting without the aid of fire ).

One way or another, life on this planet would continue. We'd probably be gone (either left, or driven out of existence by conditions not conducive to our life and competition by other species better adapted to the current conditions), but when it comes down to the biosphere, we're still just ONE species, and 'Gaia' has deleted MANY others already before we even became self-aware beings.

There's even evidence to suggest that the planet got so mucked up environmentally in the deep past (rampant vulcanism, meteroite/comet impacts/magnetic pole reversal/planetwide firestorms as the oxygen content got too high and some atmospheric static discharge lit it off) that the 'slate was wiped CLEAN' - nothing lived on the surface. And then bacteria made its way out of the hot crust and started filling the vacancies and started the whole evolving business again.

The hard thing to remember here is; people live maybe a hundred years, but Mother Nature works on the scale of THOUSANDS and MILLIONS of years - it's a little difficult to see patterns that may well just be too big to wrap our minds around...

And that doesn't do much for our ego - and don't try to deny it; it's right there, just above our 'lizard hindbrain': the infallible belief that we're the BEST thing on this planet because of our technology and society. The thought that we're just 'one more Science Project' for Mother Nature and if we fail She'll just go and start another HAS to be unpalatable to it.

So let's just drop the 'interested in the welfare of the planet' lies-to-self and admit that we're scared that the planet and its environment is going to become inhospitable to us. Someone who comes along and says "I want to save the spotted owl because I think it's pretty" or "...because it may turn out to be necessary to keeping the ecology balanced enough to sustain humans" I'd respect them much more than someone with "I want to save the spotted owl because it deserves to live as much or more than we do"

And ACTUALLY, the last part of your post hinted at that 'enlightened self-interest', Faye, so I take back any vitriol I may have (unintentionally) aimed in your direction.

 

Sorry about the wording. I did mean the one we are currently in. On a whole, I believe that life on earth is incredibly resilient and it'll take more than an ice age or two to wipe everything out. Just that many of the organisms in the current one would get wiped out pretty fast if things did get that bad.

And what I meant was, with the current trend, humans would not be affected too badly by global warming as it is (humans are pretty resilient too). But there would definitely be at least some repercussions.

And I do know that compared to the big picture, humans are quite insignificant and the earth would be quite alright when we humans are long gone.

Definitely, humans are a selfish bunch, and undoubtedly most are more worried about saving our own hides than the other animals.
But I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the efforts (well some of the efforts at least... some do seem to be on the borderline of terrorism) to conserve our environment. Regardless of it being an act of selflessness or not (I'm sure there are some that genuinely want to save the animals and hug trees).

I think you misunderstood me. I'm merely pointing out that we would be affected by the global warming, just not on a "Day after tomorrow" scale (but hey, it could be possible...). Personally, I don't care if people are interested in conservation of ourselves or of other organisms.

 

Sorry, I just have to point this out:

Common sense, huh? Well, the way I remember the lessons from high school physics, it would play out more like this:

The good news is, we have a few *billion* years before that happens.

 

Also, the sun cooling and running out of fuel isn't an issue, it hasn't even hit it's mid-life crisis yet. The natural cycles of relative intensity are the issue. How many sunspots there are in a year, how many stellar mass ejections, etc.

 

In other words, we have a long time getting the Earth rid of ourselves before the Sun does it for us

 

The problem I have with global warming is the problem I have with doomsayers in general. People have been predicting doom and gloom since, well, there've been people! When someone starts ranting that we all need to make MAJOR changes RIGHT now, I start to wonder if maybe they have ulterior motives.

This is not to say I disbelieve global warming. I'm just not sure that I have so little faith in humanity that I think it'll kill us all.

 

Well, LKD, it probably won't kill us all (at least in our lifetime), but it will make the life a whole lot worse for a whole lot of people.

 

And "make life a whole lot worse for a whole lot of people" isn't meaningful enough to galvanize people to action (it would be natural for a human mind to conclude "yeah, that'll happen to 'someone else™'" ) so the people trying to summon support find they HAVE to start prophesying doom just to get an audience.