Is the Sun Responsible for Global Warming?

[Andre]

This paper has been stalled for almost a year and concequentely misses the latest climate reconstructions (Moberg etc) but finally somebody got the most brilliant and original idea that the heating source itself may perhaps not be ruled out completely as a factor determining temperatures.

Usoskin, J.G., M. Schuessler, S.K. Solanki and K. Mursula 2005, "Solar activity, cosmic rays, and Earth's temperature: a millennium-scale comparison", Journal of Geophysical Research v. 110 (10 p.).

the draft is here

Conclusions

Sunspot numbers and cosmic ray fluxes reconstructed from records of the cosmogenic isotopes 10Be and 14C, respectively, show correlations and anticorrelations with a number of reconstructions of the terrestrial Northern Hemisphere temperature, which cover a time span of up to 1800 years. This indicates that periods of higher solar activity and lower cosmic ray flux tend to be associated with warmer climate, and vice versa. The major part of this correlation is due to similar long-term trends in the data sets. Although the correlations often show only low significance levels, the signs of the correlation coe±cients in all cases are systematic. The long-term trend of the cosmic ray flux determined on the basis of the 14C record seems to correlate better with the terrestrial temperature than the sunspot numbers derived from the same isotope data. This suggests that e®ects induced by cosmic rays may affect the long-term terrestrial climate. The positive correlation between the geomagnetic dipole moment and the temperature reconstructions provides further evidence favoring the cosmic ray influence on the terrestrial climate. However, the present analysis cannot determine the relative importance of (total and UV) solar irradiance and cosmic ray flux since the irradiance may show a long-term trend that does not exactly follow the averaged sunspot number.

You keep wondering why the news papers keep very quiet about this instead of shouting: "Global warming caused by sun!"

 

[ComputerGeek]

I am sure that the sun is part of the cause. Mars has been warming as well.

There is an increase in solar output over the last 30 years.

 

[WhiteWolf]

That makes sense, but I wouldve guessed the sun would be gradually cooling, even if the helium from the burned hydrogen undergoes nuclear fusion, it still wouldn't produce as much heat. So sooner or later, wouldn't this be the case and everything begin to cool?

 

[Andre]

It doesn't seem to be that way. There is some understanding that the sun gets hotter:

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004432.html

As the Sun ages, it gradually expands and heats. It is estimated that the Sun's brilliancy will increase by 10% over the next 1.1 billion years or more.

I take it -an observation of a lay person on this subject- that we are just about to begin exploring the reasons of the variation of the solar output and it's effect on climate.

 

[TheAntiRelative]

Either way, it's a a hilarious thread!


Perhaps the Snowball Earth theory didn't require all the proofs they found to account for the total freeze and thaw. Perhaps the sun isn't as stable as we believe it to be.


Sun worshippers from ancient times:
"We got to do something about this global warming thing..."
"Ya think 10,000 sacrificed will do?"
"Couldn't hurt to give it a try"

 

[Ivan Seeking]

but finally somebody got the most brilliant and original idea that the heating source itself may perhaps not be ruled out completely as a factor determining temperatures.

Statements like this effectively discredit you as a source.

07-07-2003, 03:02 PM

I should add that I think global warming is mostly a result of the sun getting hotter. It is argued that the solar intensity at any moment goes as the sun's magnetic field strength. We can track the history of this magnetic field in rocks on the earth. It so happens that, coincidently, just as industry began dumping CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere about a hundred years ago, the solar intensity also began to increase. If we factor this into the climate models that otherwise assumed a constant solar factor, then the contributions to global warming due to man's activities are insignificant.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=3671

And I got my ideas from scientific reports many years before that, and only recently has the consensus begun to lean heavily.

 

[Mk]

That makes sense, but I wouldve guessed the sun would be gradually cooling, even if the helium from the burned hydrogen undergoes nuclear fusion, it still wouldn't produce as much heat. So sooner or later, wouldn't this be the case and everything begin to cool?

Well, if you were going to look at it at a scale of billions of years you would be correct. However this is a scale of less than a thousand years, and there would certainly be variations in heat and light production.

 

[Andre]

A: but finally somebody got the most brilliant and original idea


IS: Statements like this effectively discredit you as a source.

Statements like this reveal that you do not recognise irony :uhh:
as the real global warmers frantically oppose any suggestion that the sun could have more than say 0,00000000001% effect on the climate.

And a nice ad hominem: he seems to be making a mistake so from now on he and all his references are definitely unreliable.

 

[Andre]

Well, we have to move on and discussing this study in another area, including one of the authors I pointed toward other areas where extreme 14C spikes where registred concurrent with violent climate changes, notably the onset of the Younger Dryas 12,800 years ago.

That same 14C spike screwed up the carbon dating, leading to massive misinterpretations about the Younger Dryas. Anyway, ironically enough although seemingly ignorant :grumpy: of the abundance of solar studies that I studied on a daily basis, I happened to know about this completely forgotten study that co-dates with that 14C spike.

Our research indicates that the entire Great Lakes region (and beyond) was subjected to particle bombardment and a catastrophic nuclear irradiation that produced secondary thermal neutrons from cosmic ray interactions. The neutrons produced unusually large quantities of 239Pu and substantially altered the natural uranium abundance ratios (235U/238U) in artifacts and in other exposed materials including cherts, sediments, and the entire landscape. These neutrons necessarily transmuted residual nitrogen (14N) in the dated charcoals to radiocarbon, thus explaining anomalous dates

.

Incidentely Rick Firestone is still on this project and making nice progress.

One of the discussion members was excited about this find indicating it's importance for many more studies and showed appreciation, asking for more. This is what I answered him:

Dear ...

You're most welcome, and yes, there is plenty more, where this is coming from.

Responding to the opportunity, a little philosophy about science and the history of Earth,

The more we find out about the past the less we seem to understand. This is certainly irritating that we cannot replicate reality, having every piece of the puzzle fitting together nicely. So we tend to concentrate on things we do think we understand, like, in the realm of paleoclimate, greenhouse gas effect induced warm periods and alleged waxing and waning ice sheets in the Pleistocene ice ages. Presumably being a system response of Milankovitch cycle solar forcings and carbon dioxide etc. But if we zoom in, we only find more mysteries like the nuclear event at the beginning of the Younger Dryas.

Two other mysterious phenomena (out of many) are for instance, a sunken city in Cuba 700 meters down on the bottom of the sea and the high arctic Siberian mammoth discoveries. Those have potential for high visibility but we don’t understand them. So what would be our -common sense- incentive? Are we going to find the real reason of this phenomenon if we study it? Probably not, because we have no idea from the onset. So, the best thing seems to be, ignoring it and revert to areas were we see a better change to sort out what has happened, like ice cores, deep sea cores or palynology etc. So, we are may be lucky with this small unpeer-reviewed article of Rick Firestone in a local semi scientific magazine but that’s it, because we have no idea about what happened and what was the cause, perhaps also including the riddle of the Carolina Bays. So, the subject is taboo and needs to be forgotten.

But there are two major flaws here, we are never going to explain the whole picture if we selectively study only what we think we can understand and secondly, what science leaves to be desired will be picked up by either sensationalist or serious crackpots, the Graham Hancock’s, and so on, producing Atlantises and pole-shifts, with utmost contempt for physical laws.

Very awkward things have happened and when honestly trying to explain the bare facts with the cleverly thought out Earth Crustal Displacement hypothesis, Charles Hapgood (PhD History) was nevertheless wrong and effectively refuted. Most unfortunately, this is leading to taboos for any further research in those type of solutions. After all, who wants to be refuted and humiliated? There are reputations to preserve. So, let's forget about it.

But that doesn’t make the evidence go away, for instance take the Taimyr peninsula, the northernmost part of high arctic Siberia, mostly north of 75 degrees latitude north. Only an odd musk ox survives over there nowadays. Up to two meters of snow in wintertime for over six months and muddy marshes for a few summer months. Yet there is an abundance of evidence of a luscious productive steppe with roaming herds of horses, aurochs, deer, antelopes and oh yes mammoths of course, And this simultaneously, when the Laurentide Ice sheet buried almost the whole of Canada under hundred of meters of ice some >40.000-15,000 years ago. The deep freeze tundra-steppe idea falls hopelessly short to explain the biomass abundance.

There are plenty of papers describing this phenomenon ( for instance: http://www.yukonmuseums.ca/mammoth/abstrmol-mor.htm (second article) , but none explaining it, because nobody wants to burn his fingers at the impossible. therefore it remains taboo to really investigating it. So, all of this is “officially” non-existent to that part of palaeo-climate research that leads to the global warming hype. So the crackpot running away with it is Hans Krause. http://hanskrause.de/index%20English.htm (Excellent descriptions of facts but impossible solutions)

I believe that the mammoth is the key to understanding what really has happened and thus showing how the ice ages really worked and that’s without prominent greenhouse effect. So that’s ---- and I are trying to do, enthusiastically supported by Dick Mol (Sir Mammoth). After all we don’t have reputations to loose.

But for that we need to look deep into the Earth, all the way to the core, and imagine the physical properties of all gravitational and acceleration forces and orbital pertubations act on a complicated multi shell-layered solid to fluid gyroscope that the Earth really is.

All the best

Andre

To bad you hate me, I.S. otherwise we could have interesting discussions about this.

 

[Andre]

More solar news. This paper is sitting, awaiting publication.

sensitivity of Earth to solar irradiance: update,
DH Douglass, D Clader, RS Knox[/url]

Summary

We find the climate sensitivity to the 11-year variation in solar irradiance to be about twice that expected from a no-feedback Stefan-Boltzmann radiation balance model. This gain of a factor of two implies positive feedback. The analysis of the sensitivity includes a consistent determination of the dynamic factor and a newly recognized non-radiative flux factor. The
volcano forcing sensitivity is also determined and negative feedback is indicated. Response times of the order of 3 months are found for both solar and volcano forcing. A linear trend in the data having a slope of 76±10 mK/decade is found.

Quite rebellious. Since the IPCC is preaching the opposite. And of course delta warming that can be attributed to the sun, cannot be attributed to greenhouse gas forcing.

 

[blimkie]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature_record_of_the_past_1000_years

this link has a chart which compares temperature changes over the last 1000 years and shows the mediveal warm period.

The articles states that vikings were able to colonize greenland and upper north regions becuase of the ice freee oceans during the medieval warm period.

 

[oblong]

Could someone post any data showing that solar radiation has increased in the last 30 years? Everything I find indicates it has remained quite constant:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation

 

[blimkie]

here oblong,
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/sun_output_030320.html

 

[Kyle Langston]

Extraction of oil from the earth

I wonder if the trillions of barrels of oil removed from the Earth has had
some affect on global warming.

If you reduce the amount of oil in your car, the water temperature in
the radiator rises.

I realize that the oil in your car's main purpose is to reduce friction, but
if you were to place a cup of water on top of a sealed oil filled radiator,
and reduce the amount of oil(leaving the radiotors temperature guage
constant), the temperature of the water would increase.

Big earth, small amount of oil, but we are talking about only a difference
in global temperature of a few degrees.

 

[quantumcarl]

This paper has been stalled for almost a year and concequentely misses the latest climate reconstructions (Moberg etc) but finally somebody got the most brilliant and original idea that the heating source itself may perhaps not be ruled out completely as a factor determining temperatures.
Usoskin, J.G., M. Schuessler, S.K. Solanki and K. Mursula 2005, "Solar activity, cosmic rays, and Earth's temperature: a millennium-scale comparison", Journal of Geophysical Research v. 110 (10 p.).
the draft is here
You keep wondering why the news papers keep very quiet about this instead of shouting: "Global warming caused by sun!"

Yes! I saw the results out of DUKE U.

This study did get minimal media attention however, the Big G Countries or whatever they call themselves, seem to grab a lot more attention with the KOYOTA Agreement (whatever).

In the end the whole "Global Warming" greenhouse myth is helping humans move away from fossil fuels... not that you'd notice... its just starting... that's all... its the idea that has the potential to free us from the sinking supertanker of oil dependence.

The accurate name for a warming caused by the Sun's fluxuation is

"Solar System Warming".

Just wait till she's a red giant

 

[Andre]

...
In the end the whole "Global Warming" greenhouse myth is helping humans move away from fossil fuels... not that you'd notice... its just starting... that's all... its the idea that has the potential to free us from the sinking supertanker of oil dependence.

Kyoto is based on flawed science but it forces the nations to take drastic measures that have the wrong objective of reducing CO2 emission.

Reducing the dependence on mineral/fosil fuels, to avoid something like peak oil, is a completely different objective and should be addressed seperately.

For instance, the search for renewables in areas where there is almost nothing to renew, is more or less mandatory for Kyoto but could (will) be highly counter productive. But this can be totally different in other areas. Avoiding peak oil could also include considering oceanic/permafrost clathrate as (interim) fuel source which would be near useless for Kyoto.

Moreover, the same fear - scaremongering positive feedback loops which are so popular these days, also tends to prevent nuclear solutions.

Fear is a bad advisor. The point is that clear and concise objective gives the chance to head for the most optimal solution for a sustained human society in harmony with nature.

And when it finally will be clear that global warming is specious pseudoscience, perhaps invented and entertained by some scientists with the sole objective to get into the limelight, become rich&famous, secure more research funding but at the expense of incredible amounts, spent for nothing; where would that leave science?

Whether or not reduction of fossil fuel use is paramount, it should not be based on a lie. In the end that will do more damage than there is benifit from moving away from fossil fuels.

 

[quantumcarl]

Kyoto is based on flawed science but it forces the nations to take drastic measures that have the wrong objective of reducing CO2 emission.
Reducing the dependence on mineral/fosil fuels, to avoid something like peak oil, is a completely different objective and should be addressed seperately.
For instance, the search for renewables in areas where there is almost nothing to renew, is more or less mandatory for Kyoto but could (will) be highly counter productive. But this can be totally different in other areas. Avoiding peak oil could also include considering oceanic/permafrost clathrate as (interim) fuel source which would be near useless for Kyoto.
Moreover, the same fear - scaremongering positive feedback loops which are so popular these days, also tends to prevent nuclear solutions.
Fear is a bad advisor. The point is that clear and concise objective gives the chance to head for the most optimal solution for a sustained human society in harmony with nature.
And when it finally will be clear that global warming is specious pseudoscience, perhaps invented and entertained by some scientists with the sole objective to get into the limelight, become rich&famous, secure more research funding but at the expense of incredible amounts, spent for nothing; where would that leave science?
Whether or not reduction of fossil fuel use is paramount, it should not be based on a lie. In the end that will do more damage than there is benifit from moving away from fossil fuels.

Point taken Andre!

In the mean time, what does the little petre dish of humanity do about a warming sun? More solar cells to run giant AC machines?

Hydrogen fuel cell technology can pick up where oil left off as long as we tap free energy to generate the hydrogen (solar energy from an increasing source!). An H fueling station would cost the entreprener 250,000 dollars to set up. It could produce hydrogen on site through any of the 500 chemical processes that create hydrogen. There is a scenario where you can plug your HFC driven vehicle into the power grid and actually feed it... resulting in a monthly payment from the power administration. (Dream on QC).

 

[Mk]

Big earth, small amount of oil, but we are talking about only a difference
in global temperature of a few degrees.

Yeah what's all the fuss about? A few species that couldn't adapt quick enough (if it was too quick) would die, but c'mon species die like everyday. We don't even know how many species there are, or how many are affected by a say... three degree increase in average yearly temperature.

 

[EdGCM_Project]

Sun's increase not significant to climate change

Reading further in the article one will find the authors do not link the solar trend to climate change.

"The new study shows that the total solar irradiance has increased by about 0.1 percent over 24 years. That is not enough to cause notable climate change, Willson and his colleagues say"

For comparison, a .1 percent change in solar radiation is equivalent to a
15 ppm change in CO2, but CO2 has already increased by 95ppm and it's pace is increasing. Thus, the sun's trend is insignificant compared with greenhouse gas increase.

 

[Andre]

So let’s try to calculate the effect of that increase of 280 to 375 ppm (and doubling too) CO2 using David Archers : http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/cgimodels/radiation.html .

To do that we need to look up from ground surface to see the increase of radiation flux (W/m2). So we do two runs as function of pCO2 sensor looking up at 0 km in the 1976 US standard atmosphere. We also use constant Relative Humidity to imply water vapor feedback. leaving the other parameters on the default. A pre-industrial pCO2 of 280 ppmv gives us an output of 257.323 W/m2, the current 375 gives 258.673 the double value 560 ppmv yields 260,526. hence the current and doubling CO2 gives an increase of greenhouse effect / radiation flux of respectively 1.35 and 3.2 W/m2.

Now let’s get Stefan Boltzman’s law out:
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~kushnir/MPA-ENVP/Climate/lectures/energy/Greenhouse_Effect.html

expression 5: (sorry latex seems inoperative for me somehow)

G = σTe^4 = (1-A) S / 4

We can rewrite that as

Te= ( (1-A) S / 4σ)^¼

Substituting A (albedo) = 0,3 and S (solar flux) = 1367.6 and σ=5.67E-8 we get the well known black body temperature 254.9 K or -18C.
Since the average temperature is supposed to be 288K or 15,0C we increase the pure flux with Greenhouse flux (G), assuming albedo is zero for IR flux, and hence adjusting the relationship as

Te= ( G/σ + (1-A) S / 4σ) ¼

Now, to get the 288K, 15.00 C degrees we see that we have to give G the value of 150.75 W/m2. So what would the new temperature be when we add those 1,35 and 3,2 W/m2 (G=152.1 and 153.95) for the current value, 375 ppmv and doubling CO2 from 280 to 560 ppmv?

The answers are 15.25C and 15.59C..

Hence the temperature increase due to the increase of CO2 is 0.25C degrees so far and it would get to 0.59C whenever we would be able to double the CO2 value.



Edit for wrong numbers

 

[quantumcarl]

So let’s try to calculate the effect of that increase of 280 to 375 ppm (and doubling too) CO2 using David Archers : http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/cgimodels/radiation.html .
To do that we need to look up from ground surface to see the increase of radiation flux (W/m2). So we do two runs as function of pCO2 sensor looking up at 0 km in the 1976 US standard atmosphere. We also use constant Relative Humidity to imply water vapor feedback. leaving the other parameters on the default. A pre-industrial pCO2 of 280 ppmv gives us an output of 257.323 W/m2, the current 375 gives 258.673 the double value 560 ppmv yields 260,526. hence the current and doubling CO2 gives an increase of greenhouse effect / radiation flux of respectively 1.35 and 3.2 W/m2.
Now let’s get Stefan Boltzman’s law out:
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~kushnir/MPA-ENVP/Climate/lectures/energy/Greenhouse_Effect.html
expression 5: (sorry latex seems inoperative for me somehow)
G = ?Te^4 = (1-A) S / 4
We can rewrite that as
Te= ( (1-A) S / 4?)^¼
Substituting A (albedo) = 0,3 and S (solar flux) = 1367.6 and ?=5.67E-8 we get the well known black body temperature 254.9 K or -18C.
Since the average temperature is supposed to be 288K or 15,0C we increase the pure flux with Greenhouse flux (G), assuming albedo is zero for IR flux, and hence adjusting the relationship as
Te= ( G/? + (1-A) S / 4?) ¼
Now, to get the 288K, 15.00 C degrees we see that we have to give G the value of 150.75 W/m2. So what would the new temperature be when we add those 1,35 and 3,2 W/m2 (G=152.1 and 153.95) for the current value, 375 ppmv and doubling CO2 from 280 to 560 ppmv?
The answers are 15.25C and 15.59C..
Hence the temperature increase due to the increase of CO2 is 0.25C degrees so far and it would get to 0.59C whenever we would be able to double the CO2 value.
Edit for wrong numbers

Are these numbers below the "wrong numbers" you edited out Andre?

That is if we believe that the model is correct.
The increase of 0,1% solar energy gives S = 1381.3 and hence in the
equation (G = 150.75) Te=15,44 C Hmmm
Let's take G 152,4 again and S =1381.3. Then we get: T = 15,74
That's getting close to reality an 0,74 degrees increase. Not bad

The 0.1 percent increase of temp is over 24 years.

 

[Andre]

Yes, that was an error, thanks for highlighting it When things seem to be too good to be true better check the numbers. Decimal error. We would require 240 years at that increase rate to get onto those numbers.

 

[quantumcarl]

Yes, that was an error, thanks for highlighting it When things seem to be too good to be true better check the numbers. Decimal error. We would require 240 years at that increase rate to get onto those numbers.

Thanks Andre, sorry to expose the malfunctory math
I meant to include how alternate fuel and thinking can reverse the hydrocarbon output or whatever it is that's creating the greenhouse effect.

I also meant to start a new thread about alternate ways to power private and public vehicles... here is a sneek preview of what I hope to post as a thread when I get two or three seconds to myself:yuck:

Hydrogen Powered Fuel Cell Vehicle mass produced in 3-4 years
Check it out!

http://world.honda.com/news/2006/4060108FCX/01.html

Many regards to Mr. Ford and his employees, mind you.

 

[Mk]

Ha, I'd like to see that happen. Hydrogen and the vehicles are rather expensive, and hydrogen is rather voluminous. Much more so than gasoline, or vegetable oil.

 

[quantumcarl]

Ha, I'd like to see that happen. Hydrogen and the vehicles are rather expensive, and hydrogen is rather voluminous. Much more so than gasoline, or vegetable oil.

Hydrogen is generated by 500 different chemical processes. The energy to perform the processes can and does come from renewable sources... as in free... like solar power and bird-chopping wind power.

The first mass produced FCX will cost a fair amount. Something in the range of a domestic HUMMER.

Anyone remember what the first PC cost? Something in the area of $10,000-$20,000 semi-loaded. Today you can pick it all up for under $1000.

If China gets ahead of the US or Japan with the production of FCVehicles... most everyone else may as well throw in the towel.

 

[quantumcarl]

Here's a quote and its source with regard to the thread topic!

Our Variable Star

The Sun appears to us as a steady brilliant light in the sky. Its temperature is nearly 6,000 deg.C and its radiation of light and heat across the vast distances of space weakens in proportion to the inverse square of that distance. By the time solar energy reaches the Earth, the radiation amounts to 1,368 watts per square metre (w/m2).

This figure is known by solar physicists as the "Solar Constant"

Q. - When is a constant not a constant?
A. - When it's the Solar Constant !

The solar `constant' is actually a variable. Contradictory as this may sound, it is only fairly recently that the radiation from the Sun has been proved to vary according to a highly predictable cycle. The variations so far observed from satellites are not much - a mere 0.2% change in mean radiation (or about 2 w/m2).

Extreme short-term variations have been recorded of up to 0.4%. The Sun, in effect, behaves more like a flickering candle, and has been accurately measured doing this by various satellites, including the ill-fated "Solar Max" satellite whose 9-year sample of solar radiation from 1980 to 1989 proved conclusively that the Sun was indeed a variable star.

("Solar Max" became a victim of the very thing it was meant to observe. It was placed in a low orbit just outside the Earth's atmosphere. This was its undoing, as the build-up of solar radiation in 1989, due to the approaching Solar Maximum, caused the outer atmosphere to heat up and expand, and capture the satellite. Solar Max was then slowed by friction and burned up in the atmosphere.)

Further evidence of the Sun's variability came from the Shanghai observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in April 1990, when they reported that the Sun's radius had shrunk 410 kilometres from 1715 to 1987, based on solar eclipse studies. A shrinking sun since 1715 would result in a hotter solar temperature, and increased solar radiation, consistent with a warming of the Earth as claimed by the IPCC.

From: http://www.john-daly.com/solar.htm

 

[Mk]

Hydrogen is generated by 500 different chemical processes. The energy to perform the processes can and does come from renewable sources... as in free... like solar power and bird-chopping wind power.

Free? Solar panels are quite expensive, in development and price to the consumer. Bird chopping windmills, I don't know how expensive those are, but I know they need to be away from people. People tend to think they are ugly, and they are very loud.

 

[Mk]

http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/lia/8.jpg
Sunspots and climate

 

[quantumcarl]

Free? Solar panels are quite expensive, in development and price to the consumer. Bird chopping windmills, I don't know how expensive those are, but I know they need to be away from people. People tend to think they are ugly, and they are very loud.

Yeah, I mentioned bird chopping because it got a lot of press in another thread and there was discussion on what to do to minimize the loss of raptors and other birds to the chopping blades of the wind generators.

Basically the wind powered generators could be scented like cats or have recordings of natural predator's sounds or have motion sensitive, very bright lights attempting to scare the birds off. Or a big straw hat and and old coat stuffed with hay scary, eh?.

Yeah, they're noisy, too... but, it doesn't stop raptors hunting around them and getting chopped up.

 

[quantumcarl]

http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/lia/8.jpg
Sunspots and climate

Nice graph. High correlation there. Everything is so ******* interconnected.

However, these charts and articles are only that... charts and articles... they make some sense but they also may only be the fiction bought and paid for by sunscreen, oil, gas and rubber manufacturing companies. Unchallenged belief in what you read is a disease of the mind that one can often observe in religious groups on the sunday telly.

 

[Gokul43201]

New paper published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A:

Authors
Mike Lockwood (1, 2), Claus Fröhlich (3)

1 Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Oxfordshire OX11 0QX, UK
2 Space Environment Physics Group, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK
3 Physikalisch–Meteorologisches Observatorium Davos, World Radiation Center, 7260 Davos Dorf, Switzerland

Abstract

There is considerable evidence for solar influence on the Earth's pre-industrial climate and the Sun may well have been a factor in post-industrial climate change in the first half of the last century. Here we show that over the past 20 years, all the trends in the Sun that could have had an influence on the Earth's climate have been in the opposite direction to that required to explain the observed rise in global mean temperatures.

"Recent oppositely directed trends in solar climate forcings and the global mean surface air temperature", Mike Lockwood and Claus Fröhlich, Proc. R. Soc. A doi:10.1098/rspa.2007.1880 (2007)

http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/content/h844264320314105/[/URL]

Review of paper in Nature News: [URL]http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v448/n7149/full/448008a.html[/URL]

[quote]Nature 448, 8-9 (5 July 2007) | doi:10.1038/448008a; Published online 4 July 2007

[b]No solar hiding place for greenhouse sceptics[/b]

Quirin Schiermeier

A study has confirmed that there are no grounds to blame the Sun for recent global warming. The analysis shows that global warming since 1985 has been caused neither by an increase in solar radiation nor by a decrease in the flux of galactic cosmic rays (M. Lockwood and C. Fröhlich Proc. R. Soc. A doi:10.1098/rspa.2007.1880; 2007). Some researchers had suggested that the latter might influence global warming through an involvement in cloud formation.

...

Together with Claus Fröhlich of the World Radiation Center in Davos, Switzerland, Lockwood brought together solar data for the past 100 years. The two researchers averaged out the 11-year solar cycles and looked for correlation between solar variation and global mean temperatures. Solar activity peaked between 1985 and 1987. Since then, trends in solar irradiance, sunspot number and cosmic-ray intensity have all been in the opposite direction to that required to explain global warming.

In 1997, Henrik Svensmark, a physicist at the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen, suggested that cosmic rays facilitate cloud formation by seeding the atmosphere with trails of ions that can help water droplets form (H. Svensmark and E. J. Friis-Christensen [i]J. Atmos. Solar-Terrest. Phys.[/i] [b]59[/b], 1225–1232; 1997). He proposed that, as a result of this, changes in the Sun's magnetic field that influence the flux of cosmic rays could affect Earth's climate. This led to claims that cosmic rays are the main influence on modern climate change.
[/quote]

Other news articles:

[PLAIN]http://environment.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn12234&feedId=online-news_rss20[/URL]

[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6290228.stm]BBC: Science/Nature [/url]

 

[ZapperZ]

Global Warming Is Driven by Anthropogenic Emissions: A Time Series Analysis Approach

This paper has appeared in several news reports already, and I don't know if anyone has mentioned it in this forum. So if it hasn't, here it is.

Pablo F. Verdes, Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 048501 (2007).

Abstract: The solar influence on global climate is nonstationary. Processes such as the Schwabe and Gleissberg cycles of the Sun, or the many intrinsic atmospheric oscillation modes, yield a complex pattern of interaction with multiple time scales. In addition, emissions of greenhouse gases, aerosols, or volcanic dust perturb the dynamics of this coupled system to different and still uncertain extents. Here we show, using two independent driving force reconstruction techniques, that the combined effect of greenhouse gases and aerosol emissions has been the main external driver of global climate during the past decades.

Yes, it's a physics paper, written by a physicist. A press release can be viewed here.

Zz.

 

[Skyhunter]

ZapperZ,

There is a lot of activity in regards to aerosols.

Here is a letter in Nature from Ramanathan. He is also a physicist with the Scripps Institute

Correspondence to: Veerabhadran Ramanathan1 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to V.R. (Email: vramanathan@ucsd.edu).
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Atmospheric brown clouds are mostly the result of biomass burning and fossil fuel consumption1. They consist of a mixture of light-absorbing and light-scattering aerosols1 and therefore contribute to atmospheric solar heating and surface cooling. The sum of the two climate forcing terms—the net aerosol forcing effect—is thought to be negative and may have masked as much as half of the global warming attributed to the recent rapid rise in greenhouse gases2. There is, however, at least a fourfold uncertainty2 in the aerosol forcing effect. Atmospheric solar heating is a significant source of the uncertainty, because current estimates are largely derived from model studies. Here we use three lightweight unmanned aerial vehicles that were vertically stacked between 0.5 and 3 km over the polluted Indian Ocean. These unmanned aerial vehicles deployed miniaturized instruments measuring aerosol concentrations, soot amount and solar fluxes. During 18 flight missions the three unmanned aerial vehicles were flown with a horizontal separation of tens of metres or less and a temporal separation of less than ten seconds, which made it possible to measure the atmospheric solar heating rates directly. We found that atmospheric brown clouds enhanced lower atmospheric solar heating by about 50 per cent. Our general circulation model simulations, which take into account the recently observed widespread occurrence of vertically extended atmospheric brown clouds over the Indian Ocean and Asia3, suggest that atmospheric brown clouds contribute as much as the recent increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gases to regional lower atmospheric warming trends. We propose that the combined warming trend of 0.25 K per decade may be sufficient to account for the observed retreat of the Himalayan glaciers4, 5, 6.

 

[cbacba]

That makes sense, but I wouldve guessed the sun would be gradually cooling, even if the helium from the burned hydrogen undergoes nuclear fusion, it still wouldn't produce as much heat. So sooner or later, wouldn't this be the case and everything begin to cool?

Sorry but the 'habitable zone' is headed outward. Estimates are an increase of 40% in the last few billion yrs. It will continue and the oceans should boil off before we ever hit the red giant phase, where our current orbit will be inside the sun. This apparently will be in hundreds of millions of years and not billions of years when the oceans boil.

 

[TR345]

I have read that Venus has unusually high surface temperatures. Does anyone know of any recent and or important discoveries, or research on Venus and the cause of its' high temperatures.