Quiet solar cylce means global cooling?

Back in 1991, before Al Gore first shouted that the Earth was in the balance, the Danish Meteorological Institute released a study using data that went back centuries that showed that global temperatures closely tracked solar cycles.

To many, those data were convincing. Now, Canadian scientists are seeking additional funding for more and better "eyes" with which to observe our sun, which has a bigger impact on Earth's climate than all the tailpipes and smokestacks on our planet combined.

And they're worried about global cooling, not warming.

Kenneth Tapping, a solar researcher and project director for Canada's National Research Council, is among those looking at the sun for evidence of an increase in sunspot activity.

Solar activity fluctuates in an 11-year cycle. But so far in this cycle, the sun has been disturbingly quiet. The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century.

Such an event occurred in the 17th century. The observation of sunspots showed extraordinarily low levels of magnetism on the sun, with little or no 11-year cycle.

This solar hibernation corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. Frigid winters and cold summers during that period led to massive crop failures, famine and death in Northern Europe.

Tapping reports no change in the sun's magnetic field so far this cycle and warns that if the sun remains quiet for another year or two, it may indicate a repeat of that period of drastic cooling of the Earth, bringing massive snowfall and severe weather to the Northern Hemisphere.

Tapping oversees the operation of a 60-year-old radio telescope that he calls a "stethoscope for the sun." But he and his colleagues need better equipment.

In Canada, where radio-telescopic monitoring of the sun has been conducted since the end of World War II, a new instrument, the next-generation solar flux monitor, could measure the sun's emissions more rapidly and accurately.

As we have noted many times, perhaps the biggest impact on the Earth's climate over time has been the sun.

For instance, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Solar Research in Germany report the sun has been burning more brightly over the last 60 years, accounting for the 1 degree Celsius increase in Earth's temperature over the last 100 years.

R. Timothy Patterson, professor of geology and director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Center of Canada's Carleton University, says that "CO2 variations show little correlation with our planet's climate on long, medium and even short time scales."

Rather, he says, "I and the first-class scientists I work with are consistently finding excellent correlations between the regular fluctuations of the sun and earthly climate. This is not surprising. The sun and the stars are the ultimate source of energy on this planet."

Patterson, sharing Tapping's concern, says: "Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth."

"Solar activity has overpowered any effect that CO2 has had before, and it most likely will again," Patterson says. "If we were to have even a medium-sized solar minimum, we could be looking at a lot more bad effects than 'global warming' would have had."

In 2005, Russian astronomer Khabibullo Abdusamatov made some waves — and not a few enemies in the global warming "community" — by predicting that the sun would reach a peak of activity about three years from now, to be accompanied by "dramatic changes" in temperatures.

A Hoover Institution Study a few years back examined historical data and came to a similar conclusion.

"The effects of solar activity and volcanoes are impossible to miss. Temperatures fluctuated exactly as expected, and the pattern was so clear that, statistically, the odds of the correlation existing by chance were one in 100," according to Hoover fellow Bruce Berkowitz.

The study says that "try as we might, we simply could not find any relationship between industrial activity, energy consumption and changes in global temperatures."

The study concludes that if you shut down all the world's power plants and factories, "there would not be much effect on temperatures."

But if the sun shuts down, we've got a problem. It is the sun, not the Earth, that's hanging in the balance.



This article was taken from ibdeditorial.com...

[edit on 8-2-2008 by bakednutz]

I think that essentially the same thing is posted here:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

But I'll respond to this for the fun of it:

For instance, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Solar Research in Germany report the sun has been burning more brightly over the last 60 years, accounting for the 1 degree Celsius increase in Earth's temperature over the last 100 years.

linky

No they didn't. Sami Solanki et al (who are the guys this article is talking about) show that solar activity is not the prime cause of warming for the last three decades. The warming over the last 100 years isn't even 1'C, it's about .75ish.

Oh well, shoddy journalism in 'investors business daily'.

ABE: and posted in another thread about this silly article - ever wondered why this rubbish gets spread so easily, almost like there's a 'denial industry'? If so, see my thread on american denial of GW

Hi Tom,

Thanks for the message. The stuff on the web came from a casual chat with someone who managed to misunderstand what I said and then put the result on the web, which is probably a big caution for me regarding the future.

It is true that the beginning of the next solar cycle is late, but not so late that we are getting worried, merely curious.

It is the opinion of scientists, including me, that global warming is a major issue, and that it might be too late to do anything about it already. If there is a cooling due to the solar activity cycle laying off for a bit, then the a period of solar cooling could be a much-needed respite giving us more time to attack the problem of greenhouse gases, with the caveat that if we do not, things will be far worse when things turn on again after a few decades. However, once again it is early days and we cannot at the moment conclude there is another minimum started.

Thanks for the heads-up.

Regards,

Ken

www.leanleft.com...

So, shoddy and cheap denialist dreck.

[edit on 9-2-2008 by melatonin]

None of the IPCC predictions have come true in saying that mankind is the main cause of Global Warming. For several years we have had warmer than normal temperatures due to high amount of sunspot activity. Now the sunspot activity has all but stopped which raises the concern that it is beginning to get much colder possibly bringing on another Ice Age. The evidence is beginning to appear with record low temperatures in many parts of the world.CO2 warmng caused by mankind is the product of computer modeling which has no scientific basis. Within several years most people on earth will see the IPCC as creating the biggest fraud of the 21st century. The Fascist objective of the IPCC is population reduction based on the theory that the world cannot support the 6 billion plus people on the earth. Destroying people will not improve environment of the earth. Only warfare and destruction of both the environment and mankind will be the result. The Green movement has been funded with billions of dollars to spread its propaganda. Al Gore is getting $100,000 for each speach he gives and his company which sells carbon credits, Generation Investment Management has already taken in over 6 billion dollars. So far over $500 billion dollars have been spent on keeping the fraud alive and they are losing the battle as more people become impoverished and are beginning to see the real science.

reply to post by Anonymous ATS


It has been shown that the recent trend in increase of global temperatures does not correlate well with the solar cycle. Try reading this site for just a couple of papers Solar Cycle.

As to computer models having no validity I presume that you take no notice of your local weather forecast then. The same general underlying models are used for these predictions as for the long term climate change scenarios. These models are extremely complex and include lots of the relevant physical processes to model the atmosphere-ocean-land systems. It is always true that these models cannot include all the physics of the real world but they include enough to provide reasoned information on future changes to the global climate for given changes in greenhouse gas concentrations.

reply to post by Iggus


You're putting your faith in an ex scientist who now operates a web design company?
Sceptical Science was registered and is operated by one man... hardly worth throwing him up against groups of scientists? If he is so great why is he an "ex".

Sigh....

you can check here if you want to learn more about the current solar cycle and it's activity..
www.solarcycle24.com...

I threw up one link which didn't bother to check too deeply but if you want me to list some papers for you which show that there is no major correlation between the solar cycle and current temperature increases then I can but it probabley wouldn't help that much (especially as most of them require you to pay to view). There is a however a correlation between the solar cycle and global temperature but this is overwhelmed by the currently measured increase. Please don't say that I am disagreeing with myself. I am simply stating that the solar cycle plays a role in the global temperature but that superimposed over that, which cannot be explained simply by recourse to the solar cycle itself, there is an increase in the global temperature.

Hopefully that makes my view clear.

According to the Brookhaven National Laboratory the maximum amount of heat Earth will experience by 2100 is 0.4 degrees C, which goes against all the fearmongering the AGW proponents are trying to instill in people.

One thing that the AGW proponents never tell you, among several other things they would like you not to know, is that CO2 as a greenhouse gas can only absorb up to 100% or "some" frequencies of the infrared spectrum. Because of this the forcing of the gas is not a linear function of Carbon Dioxide concentration, which means the greenhouse effect of CO2 becomes less important as the concentration of the gas continues to increase.

So far Earth has acquired 40% of the doubling we are supposed to experience until 2100, but we have already achieved 75% of the warming effect from such doubling of CO2.

But don't believe me, read it from a man who is more intelligent than me.

As Richard Lindzen likes to say, it is just like when you paint your bedroom. The first layer of white makes a lot of difference in the amount of light in that room; additional layers make a smaller contribution.
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motls.blogspot.com...

That's of course without going into a discussion about what is going to happen with the Sun's activity. For the past two years the Sun's activity has been the lowest experienced in over 100 years if not more.

The effects from the low Solar activity will be felt more strongly in the next solar cycle, but we have been already experiencing some of the effects due to this low activity from the Sun.

If the Sun's activity continues to be low, every year will become cooler and cooler, and we will continue to experience extremes in weather events as the oceans release all the extra heat they have stored in them from the last few decades in which the Sun's activity has been the highest for about 1,000 years. The Earth's oceans are not only the greatest storage of heat Earth has, but they are a great factor which moderates temperatures on Earth.

Despite what the AGW proponents try to claim, the climate of Earth is a complex system which is controlled by several natural factors, but the AGW proponents would have us believe that "only a gas which the geological record has shown to lag temperature changes by an average of 800 years" is the "real factor which is causing the current Climate Change.