Solar output increases account for part of (not all) the observed climate warming
If the skeptics read the scientific literature, they would know that climate scientists do not ignore solar output changes in attributing past, present, and future climate forcing agents. I was shocked when The Other Paper published part of Jym Ganal’s rant that solar output changes were solely responsible for the observed climate warming; an embarrasingly (for him) simplistic claim that ignores the reality that solar output changes are one of a long list of forcing factors included in climate simulations, the latter aimed at partitioning the relative importance of various climate forcings.
As put forth in the The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007 Fourth Assessment Report, that “Changes in the atmospheric abundance of greenhouse gases and aerosols, in solar radiation and in land surface properties alter the energy balance of the climate system.”. There is no silver bullet, as Ganahl simplistically suggests. According to a growing body of science summarized by the IPCC each 5 or so years since 1991, science’s best estimate for the role of changing solar output in climate change is that increasing solar output accounts for between 3% and 19% of the observed change in the energy balance of the climate system. Average temperature at the surface reflects the changing heat energy contained in the climate system. If Ganahl were a scientist worth his 40-year-old “Seal of Approval”, he would review all relevant and credible sources of information instead of putting forth only one of a myriad of factors that influence climate as a sole cause of warming. Yes, temperatures on Mars have increased because of increasing solar output. Again, that share on earth accounts for less than one fifth of the observed warming.
It’s unfortunate, but, the reality is that unless civilization stabilizes its non-sustainable impact on the Earth’s atmosphere, ecosystems, and resource bases, we collectively will face economic and environmental disruptions that will make us look back on the recent market meltdown as not nearly so bad.
Do your homework Ganahl. All, please see: the IPCC summary for policy makers figure SPM.2
Yours Realistically,
Jason E. Box, contributing author to The 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report
April 1st, 2009 at 5:49 pm
“If the skeptics read the scientific literature, they would know that climate scientists do not ignore solar output changes in attributing past, present, and future climate forcing agents.”
1) According to the IPCC’s chart covered in my presentation, while the IPCC may not totally ignore the sun they have it labeled as poorly understood. How can any organization that claims to poorly understand the sun possibly claim to understand the climate? That is like me claiming to be an expert on diets, but have a poor understanding on exercise and caloric intake. The facts are the most significant variable influencing climate is the sun, the the IPCC itself admits to have a poor understanding of it. The most significant greenhouse gas is the other major factor in climate, and that factor is not even mentioned on the chart of greenhouse gasses, and there is no Global Warming Potential assigned to it. How in the world can you have any credible model explaining the climate when the two most significant variables are either ignored or poorly understood? Additionally the greenhouse gas they do claim to understand, CO2 doesn’t have a well defined atmospheric lifetime. The IPCC lists is at 50 to 200 years. I have seen research listing it as high at 10,000 years, when in reality it is between 5 to 15 years. With this much uncertainty, none of the IPCC models are worth the paper they are written on.
“According to a growing body of science summarized by the IPCC each 5 or so years since 1991, science’s best estimate for the role of changing solar output in climate change is that increasing solar output accounts for between 3% and 19% of the observed change in the energy balance of the climate system. ”
1) Just what is the “observed change in the energy balance”? Is that represented by the temperature chart? If so, just what temperature chart are you referring to? The IPCC has so many to choose from.
2) No matter what the research says, if you don’t have good data, the conclusions are worthless. The IPCC uses a different temperature chart in each of its reports, and they are all dramatically different. Temperature is the dependent variable in all these models, CO2 drives temperature. If everyone is using ground based temperature measurements from NASA, GISS, Hadley etc etc, they are all simply using bad data so you can expect bad results. It isn’t surprising to find the sun not contributing much in these models because it is being regressed against data that doesn’t reflect reality. If you regress it against satellite data I am sure you will reach a totally different conclusion.
3) The most accurate method of measuring global temperatures is satellite and balloon measurements. They both show no significant warming over the last 30 years. More importantly the ground measurements are diverging from the satellite and balloon data throwing all these models into even greater question.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/05/goddard_nasa_thermometer/
4) NOAA literally adjusts the data, and unlike any random data set I have ever seen, they have an almost 100% upward bias when it is adjusted. You just don’t see that in random data sets, you expect the error to be randomly distributed. Most importantly, if the measurement starts deviating from a benchmark, one would expect an adjustment to the data to bring it back in line, that doesn’t happen with this data, the deviation of ground to satellite is actually GROWING!!
“f Ganahl were a scientist worth his 40-year-old “Seal of Approval”, he would review all relevant and credible sources of information instead of putting forth only one of a myriad of factors that influence climate as a sole cause of warming. Yes, temperatures on Mars have increased because of increasing solar output. Again, that share on earth accounts for less than one fifth of the observed warming.”
1) Once again, you are using ground measurements as your “observed”. That data is junk. GIGO. It is biased, and biased at an increasing rate. Remove the upward bias that exaggerates the temperature increase and the sun suddenly does a far better job explaining the temperature increase. The sun can explain the temperature increase, it can’t explain the upward bias applied to the “adjusted” data. That is man made, and not natural, and therefore you shouldn’t expect the sun to explain the intentional man made error. The sun explains the ral temperature, not the monkey business of the people playing with the data.
2) Jym Ganahl has the satellite temperature data on his side, and within 5 years we will know who is right and who isn’t. IMHO temperatures won’t reach levels above 1998 within my lifetime, and if sun spots are any indication, we can expect temperature to he lower than they are today in 5 years. If they are, Jym Ganahl knows more than the IPCC.
3) If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. The IPCC is simply trained to look for CO2 as the cause, that is what they are paid to do. If you go to a Surgery convention with a back problem, 100% will say you need surgery. If you go to an Internal Medicine Conference, 100% will prescribe you drugs. If you go to a Chiropractic convention, 100% will say you need an adjustment. A consensus in any field means nothing more than what the people have been trained to see.
4) Harvard Physicists seem to find the relationship between sun and temp pretty convincing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallie_Baliunas
April 1st, 2009 at 9:43 pm
Here are the videos of the recent global warming presentation:
http://www.youtube.com/share?p=C678EF27DDD6980D
April 1st, 2009 at 9:45 pm
Here are the videos of the recent global warming presentation:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=C678EF27DDD6980D
April 2nd, 2009 at 10:50 am
“If the skeptics read the scientific literature, they would know that climate scientists do not ignore solar output changes in attributing past, present, and future climate forcing agents.”
1) According to the IPCC’s chart covered in my presentation, while the IPCC may not totally ignore the sun they have it labeled as “poorly understood.” How can any organization that claims to poorly understand the sun possibly claim to understand the climate? That is like me claiming to be an expert on diets, but have a poor understanding on exercise and caloric intake. The facts are the most significant variable influencing climate is the sun, and the IPCC itself admits to have a poor understanding of it. The most significant greenhouse gas, wqter vapor, is the other major factor in climate, and that factor is not even mentioned on the chart of greenhouse gasses, and there is no Global Warming Potential assigned to it. How in the world can you have any credible model explaining the climate when the two most significant variables are either ignored or poorly understood? Additionally the greenhouse gas they do claim to understand, CO2, doesn’t have a well defined atmospheric lifetime. The IPCC lists is at 50 to 200 years. I have seen research listing it as high at 10,000 years, when in reality it is between 5 to 15 years. With this much uncertainty, none of the IPCC models are worth the paper they are written on.
“According to a growing body of science summarized by the IPCC each 5 or so years since 1991, science’s best estimate for the role of changing solar output in climate change is that increasing solar output accounts for between 3% and 19% of the observed change in the energy balance of the climate system. ”
1) Just what is the “observed change in the energy balance”? Is that represented by the temperature chart? If so, just what temperature chart are you referring to? The IPCC has so many to choose from. Depending on what chart you choose, you get different conclusions. It is like Make a Deal, where you don’t knwo what is behind door number 2. Being able to pick and shoose data sets to make your point is very bad science.
2) No matter what the research says, if you don’t have good data, the conclusions are worthless. The IPCC uses a different temperature chart in each of its reports, and they are all dramatically different. Temperature is the dependent variable in all these models, CO2 drives temperature. If everyone is using ground based temperature measurements from NASA, GISS, Hadley etc etc, they are all simply using bad data so you can expect bad results. It isn’t surprising to find the sun not contributing much in these models because it is being regressed against data that doesn’t reflect reality. If you regress it against satellite data I am sure you will reach a totally different conclusion.
3) The most accurate method of measuring global temperatures is satellite and balloon measurements. They both show no significant warming over the last 30 years. More importantly the ground measurements are diverging from the satellite and balloon data throwing all these models into even greater question.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/05/goddard_nasa_thermometer/
4) NOAA literally adjusts the data, and unlike any random data set I have ever seen, they have an almost 100% upward bias when it is adjusted. You just don’t see that in random data sets, you expect the error to be randomly distributed. Most importantly, if the measurement starts deviating from a benchmark, one would expect an adjustment to the data to bring it back in line, that doesn’t happen with this data, the deviation of ground to satellite is actually GROWING!!
“If Ganahl were a scientist worth his 40-year-old “Seal of Approval”, he would review all relevant and credible sources of information instead of putting forth only one of a myriad of factors that influence climate as a sole cause of warming. Yes, temperatures on Mars have increased because of increasing solar output. Again, that share on earth accounts for less than one fifth of the observed warming.”
1) Once again, you are using ground measurements as your “observed”. That data is junk. GIGO. It is biased, and biased at an increasing rate. Remove the upward bias that exaggerates the temperature increase and the sun suddenly does a far better job explaining the temperature increase. The sun can explain the temperature increase, it can’t explain the upward bias applied to the “adjusted” data. That is man made, and not natural, and therefore you shouldn’t expect the sun to explain the intentional man made error. The sun explains the real temperature, not the monkey business of the people playing with the data.
2) Jym Ganahl has the satellite temperature data on his side, and within 5 years we will know who is right and who isn’t. IMHO temperatures won’t reach levels above 1998 within my lifetime, and if sun spots are any indication, we can expect temperature to he lower than they are today in 5 years. If they are, Jym Ganahl knows more than the IPCC.
3) If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. The IPCC is simply trained to look for CO2 as the cause, that is what they are paid to do. If you go to a Surgery convention with a back problem, 100% will say you need surgery. If you go to an Internal Medicine Conference, 100% will prescribe you drugs. If you go to a Chiropractic convention, 100% will say you need an adjustment. A consensus in any field means nothing more than what the people have been trained to see.
4) Harvard Physicists seem to find the relationship between sun and temp pretty convincing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallie_Baliunas
April 2nd, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Speak of the Devil, this is in the news today:
Deep Solar Minimum
04.01.2009
+ Play Audio | + Download Audio | + Email to a friend | + Join mailing list
April 1, 2009: The sunspot cycle is behaving a little like the stock market. Just when you think it has hit bottom, it goes even lower.
2008 was a bear. There were no sunspots observed on 266 of the year’s 366 days (73%). To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go all the way back to 1913, which had 311 spotless days: plot. Prompted by these numbers, some observers suggested that the solar cycle had hit bottom in 2008.
Maybe not. Sunspot counts for 2009 have dropped even lower. As of March 31st, there were no sunspots on 78 of the year’s 90 days (87%).
It adds up to one inescapable conclusion: “We’re experiencing a very deep solar minimum,” says solar physicist Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center.
“This is the quietest sun we’ve seen in almost a century,” agrees sunspot expert David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center.
But is it supposed to be this quiet? In 2008, the sun set the following records:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/01apr_deepsolarminimum.htm
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:52 am
“If the skeptics read the scientific literature, they would know that climate scientists do not ignore solar output changes in attributing past, present, and future climate forcing agents.”
1) According to the IPCC’s chart covered in my presentation, while the IPCC may not totally ignore the sun they have it labeled as “poorly understood.” How can any organization that claims to poorly understand the sun possibly claim to understand the climate? That is like me claiming to be an expert on diets, but have a poor understanding on exercise and caloric intake. The facts are the most significant variable influencing climate is the sun, and the IPCC itself admits to have a poor understanding of it. The most significant greenhouse gas, wqter vapor, is the other major factor in climate, and that factor is not even mentioned on the chart of greenhouse gasses, and there is no Global Warming Potential assigned to it. How in the world can you have any credible model explaining the climate when the two most significant variables are either ignored or poorly understood? Additionally the greenhouse gas they do claim to understand, CO2, doesn’t have a well defined atmospheric lifetime. The IPCC lists is at 50 to 200 years. I have seen research listing it as high at 10,000 years, when in reality it is between 5 to 15 years. With this much uncertainty, none of the IPCC models are worth the paper they are written on.
“According to a growing body of science summarized by the IPCC each 5 or so years since 1991, science’s best estimate for the role of changing solar output in climate change is that increasing solar output accounts for between 3% and 19% of the observed change in the energy balance of the climate system. ”
1) Just what is the “observed change in the energy balance”? Is that represented by the temperature chart? If so, just what temperature chart are you referring to? The IPCC has so many to choose from. Depending on what chart you choose, you get different conclusions. It is like Make a Deal, where you don’t knwo what is behind door number 2. Being able to pick and shoose data sets to make your point is very bad science.
2) No matter what the research says, if you don’t have good data, the conclusions are worthless. The IPCC uses a different temperature chart in each of its reports, and they are all dramatically different. Temperature is the dependent variable in all these models, CO2 drives temperature. If everyone is using ground based temperature measurements from NASA, GISS, Hadley etc etc, they are all simply using bad data so you can expect bad results. It isn’t surprising to find the sun not contributing much in these models because it is being regressed against data that doesn’t reflect reality. If you regress it against satellite data I am sure you will reach a totally different conclusion.
3) The most accurate method of measuring global temperatures is satellite and balloon measurements. They both show no significant warming over the last 30 years. More importantly the ground measurements are diverging from the satellite and balloon data throwing all these models into even greater question.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/05/goddard_nasa_thermometer/
4) NOAA literally adjusts the data, and unlike any random data set I have ever seen, they have an almost 100% upward bias when it is adjusted. You just don’t see that in random data sets, you expect the error to be randomly distributed. Most importantly, if the measurement starts deviating from a benchmark, one would expect an adjustment to the data to bring it back in line, that doesn’t happen with this data, the deviation of ground to satellite is actually GROWING!!
“If Ganahl were a scientist worth his 40-year-old “Seal of Approval”, he would review all relevant and credible sources of information instead of putting forth only one of a myriad of factors that influence climate as a sole cause of warming. Yes, temperatures on Mars have increased because of increasing solar output. Again, that share on earth accounts for less than one fifth of the observed warming.”
1) Once again, you are using ground measurements as your “observed”. That data is junk. GIGO. It is biased, and biased at an increasing rate. Remove the upward bias that exaggerates the temperature increase and the sun suddenly does a far better job explaining the temperature increase. The sun can explain the temperature increase, it can’t explain the upward bias applied to the “adjusted” data. That is man made, and not natural, and therefore you shouldn’t expect the sun to explain the intentional man made error. The sun explains the real temperature, not the monkey business of the people playing with the data.
2) Jym Ganahl has the satellite temperature data on his side, and within 5 years we will know who is right and who isn’t. IMHO temperatures won’t reach levels above 1998 within my lifetime, and if sun spots are any indication, we can expect temperature to he lower than they are today in 5 years. If they are, Jym Ganahl knows more than the IPCC.
3) If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. The IPCC is simply trained to look for CO2 as the cause, that is what they are paid to do. If you go to a Surgery convention with a back problem, 100% will say you need surgery. If you go to an Internal Medicine Conference, 100% will prescribe you drugs. If you go to a Chiropractic convention, 100% will say you need an adjustment. A consensus in any field means nothing more than what the people have been trained to see.
4) Harvard Physicists seem to find the relationship between sun and temp pretty convincing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallie_Baliunas
April 3rd, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Wouldn’t it be nice, to not be held accountable for elevating atmospheric infrared heat trapping gasses above pre-industrial levels. Let’s instead blame the sun for our non-sustainable practices, meanwhile compromising future generations the same prospects for clean air, water, and access to resources. Wake up! Humans have elevated infrared-trapping gasses well above pre-industrial levels. Says, who? The US department of commerce. They measure CO2 all over the earth. http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/cmdl-flask/cmdl-flask.html
April 6th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Dr Box, all the IPCC Reports and Research didn’t include these findings. Given the oceans play a huge part of climate and atmospheric temperature, doesn’t this throw a huge monkey wrench into the AGW theory? That is unless CO2 caused this as well? In my presentation I point out the inconsistency of the oceans warming and AGW because infrared doesn’t penetrate the oceans. Now we have an explanation why both the oceans and atmosphere would be warming, and once again it is the sun, not CO2. I would imagine more direct sunlight, of the wavelengths that due penetrate the oceans is also a reason the glaciers are melting as well. So here we have 1) a warmer sun and 2) clearer skies leading to the warming. Anyone that ever ventured out on a beach without sun block can understand this concept, and it doesn’t need CO2 in the explanation.
Airborne Dust Reduction Plays Larger Than Expected Role In Determining Atlantic Temperature
ScienceDaily (Mar. 28, 2009) — The recent warming trend in the Atlantic Ocean is largely due to reductions in airborne dust and volcanic emissions during the past 30 years, according to a new study.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090326141553.htm
April 8th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Dr. Box says:
As put forth in the The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007 Fourth Assessment Report, that “Changes in the atmospheric abundance of greenhouse gases and aerosols, in solar radiation and in land surface properties alter the energy balance of the climate system.”.
Dr Box, you are right, the IPCC does mention solar radiation, but as you can see they claim to know very little about it and claim it has a minor impact, in fact less of an impact than CO2. That is absurd, and like claiming to have a concensus on weight loss, yet claiming to know very little about caloric intake and exercise. How can any model have any validity if you don’t understand the most important variable?
Here is the IPCC Report:
http://cires.colorado.edu/science/groups/tolbert/images/ipcc620.jpg
April 8th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
Dr Box Says: “Wouldn’t it be nice, to not be held accountable for elevating atmospheric infrared heat trapping gasses above pre-industrial levels.”
Actually I think the more interesting question is why does Mother Nature deliberaly increase greenhouse gasses as she warms the earth? As she warms the Earth, she increases CO2, CH4, etc etc etc. Why would Mother Nature deliberaly increase greenhouse gasses if it harmed life? Aren’t the current global warming alarmists fighting Mother Nature?
April 17th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
so many factors to ponder…precession of poles, angle of axis, orbital changes from oval to circular, solar output, volcanic activity…all since the last ice age….this is a cyclical and almost predictable interglacial warming…which will culminate in yet another ice age as the four we had in the last 400,000 years..carbon dioxide and methane levels have been higher in past. oceans will rise causing increased evaporation and snow fall over the poles, increased albedo of earth, the gulf stream will stop from the surge of north atlantic fresh water and inextricably the earth will cool yet again
May 7th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
What is the evidence that direct radiant insolation is the only mechanism by which the sun’s activity can affect the Earth’s weather?
The IPCC report only models insolation changes, but the sceptics aren’t proposing that as the mechanism.
September 27th, 2009 at 1:50 am
Dr. Wagner (optometrist),
Here’s an interesting chart for you that was just published in Nature (which is a PEER-REVIEWED, ACADEMIC journal):
http://www.toddalbert.com/files/images/insolation.png
You’re absolutely correct – we are in a minimum for insolation (solar radiation). Then why are we continuing to warm?
In fact, while we are in a long-term DECREASE in Arctic insolation, the long-term cooling has recently been reversed. What could possibly have caused that (also from NATURE):
http://www.toddalbert.com/files/images/endofcooling.png
Anthropogenic emissions are causing the increases in CO2, not “Mother Nature”. Perhaps a quick refresher on 7th grade Earth Science is in order?
Back to optometry with you,
Dr. Todd Albert, Climatologist