Climate Feedback

"The prize committee declared Al Gore “one of the world's leading environmentalist politicians” and said the IPCC had “created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming”."

Well, Al Gore is politician, but the IPCC's arguments on human CO2 emissions' decisive role are strictly scientifically premature and dubious, at least.

From the vast literature of alternative explanations please see e.g.

Usoskin, Ilya G., Sami K. Solanki, and G.A. Kovaltsov, 2007. Grand minima and maxima of solar activity: new observational constraints. Astronomy & Astrophysics Vol. 471, No 1, pp. 303-307, August III 2007, online

Timo --- That has been throughly debunked on realclimate.org:

No trend in solar activity in the last 50 years. Trend in global temperature in the last 50 years. Trend in CO2 concentrations in the last 50 years. Physics of CO2 as a so-called greenhouse gas has been known for over a century.

Now you can put those facts together to see that IPCC is essentially correct.

Oddly enough the paper Timo cites (full text here) is pretty much a stake in the heart of the argument that sunspots significantly influence climate. The paper itself doesn't discuss climate at all, but anyone familiar with the pattern of climate change over the Holocene will take one look at the graphs on pages 3 and 4 and realize that there's no correlation. Interestingly, the main point of the paper is that sunspot trends are mostly unpredictable, which will come as a shock to many denialists.

On a related topic, I notice that there's a new paper (discussed here) that's very damaging if not fatal to the Svensmark cosmic ray hypothesis.

David B. Benson, Realclimate.org doesn't allow real debate. If you don't agree they don't post your messages. So it's hardly been de-bunked. The physics of other greenhouse gases like H2O are also known. Why do you say "Essentially correct"? Why can't it just be "correct"?

I truly welcome the mainstreaming of the global warming hoax. The more prizes and publications the hoax receives, the more obvious it will become that the global warming scare is based on intentional misinterpretations and falsified science. Al Gore and others have cleverly exploited this field of junk science to become more powerful and influential than he has ever been before. Smart move man. Al Gore has done a lot of work to fight what he believes is dangerous to him self and his hoax cource: scientific debate and free speech. Al Gore is determined to kill reason and let irrational beliefs roam the earth. Al Gore, IPCC are destroyers of worlds.

What do skilled scientists do to resolve hard issues? They turn to the laboratory. That is exactly what Danish scientists did with the SKY program around the year 2000 to explore the chemical origin of clouds. Understanding cloud formation is number one in the study of long and short term climate variation. At any given time point, about half of earth is covered by clouds and clouds can reflect as much as 70% of the sunlight so it is a massive player in determining local as well as global temperature. The first results from the simpler SKY experiment were encouraging and now the cause of cloud formation process has been unambiguously determined: Clouds are formed by cosmic rays. This is real hard science, not sporadic observations and correlations. This is what real Nobel prizes are made of. It is the sun and the galaxy which determines the climate on earth. Greenhouse gases such as water vapor which is around 100 times more concentrated than the smaller amount of CO2 in the atmosphere play a truly minor role. It should come to no surprise that earth climate is swinging to the tune of the sun. However, the connection between the solar wind, cosmic rays, cloud cover and global warming is educational - that is - as long as you do not feel to blame your neighbors for the changing weather. Experimental science is fantastic. This is where humanity has learned the most. Never follow blindly the “flavor of the day” as Bjørn Lomborg so eloquently puts it. Goodbye CO2, hello clouds.

I'm really not sure what Forster is saying. Gore's contribution was to bring climate change to the fore, something that the ipcc and the science community was not able to do. An inconvenient truth cut right thru to the core.

Maybe it's really pre-emptive peace: They want Gore elected to try and stop an Iran conflict and get the USA away from the bellicose petrodollar agenda.

I wish peace would break out among the activists though. It seems that even environmentalist moderates are attacked as "deniers" these days. Such a silly word to use! Why not say "doubters" instead? You can only actually deny facts and nobody denies the few real facts - we just doubt the torrent of unfounded speculations, most of which turn out to be wrong. But if you demonize, how do you expect to persuade? After all, regardless of whether you doubt AGW or whether you expect a watery doom, seeking alternative fuels, (preferably renewable) and avoiding pollution of the planet, in as fast a timescale as possible, are things I think we all agree on. The only real issue should be how to achieve it without doing more harm than good. If the desired end point is the same, can we skip the intermediate name-calling and concentrate on the best energy plan?

"Never follow blindly the “flavor of the day” as Bjørn Lomborg so eloquently puts it. Goodbye CO2, hello clouds."

I hope I'm not the only one who appreciated the juxtaposition here.

Many thanks for the encouragement Zeke. Speaking of clouds, I highly recommend the book written by Nigel Calder (prominent science journalist) and Henrik Svensmark (Danish physicist) entitled:

"The chilling stars - a new theory of climate change"

It explains the cosmic ray, sun activity, cloud-cover connection and how powerful it has been in shaping earth climate throughout its long history. My humble guess is that it will continue to do so even if man produces more "plant food" (CO2). The only global impact CO2 will have is on plant growth but that might not be such a terrible catastrophe after all. The CO2 scare is an interesting subject to follow because it tells us plenty of the darker side of human nature and the desire of a minority to control us.

David Blair --- You are wrong. Real CLimate does allow debate, so long as personal attacks are avoided and the debate is informed and reasoned.

IPCC cannot be exactly correct since, as the report mentions, there are still uncertain aspects to our knowledge of climate. Of course, the future of economic activity cannot be acturately predicted.

You are right. The IPCC has an uncertain knowledge of climate and its causes.

I recommend the following scholarly studies for those who want to understand how gravitational forces produce the familiar 11-year solar cycle and changes in our climate as the major planets move around the Sun:

1. W. J. R. Alexander, F. Bailey, D. B. Bredenkamp, A. vander Merwe and N. Willemse, "Linkages between solar activity, climate predictability and water resource development," J. South African Institution of Civil Engineering 49, 32-44 (June 2007).

http://www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/Conf2007/Alexander-etal-2007.pdf

2. Richard Mackey, "Rhodes Fairbridge and the idea that the solar system regulates the Earth's climate," J. Coastal Research SI 50 (Proceedings of the 9th International Coastal Symposium, Gold Coast, Australia, 2007) pp. 955-968.

http://www.griffith.edu.au/conference/ics2007/pdf/ICS176.pdf

3. Theodor Landscheidt, "Extrema in sunspot cycle linked to Sun's motion, "Solar Physics 189, 413-424 (1999).

http://bourabai.narod.ru/landscheidt/extrema.htm

The Sun is jerked like a yoyo on a string as the major planets move about it. This motion induces sudden acceleration and deceleration of the Sun and shifts the position of the high-density solar heat source [4] relative to the solar surface.

Reference #4 tells the origin and operation of the Sun and how its compact core controls the outflow of solar energy, solar neutrinos, and the solar wind.

4 "The Sun is a plasma diffuser that sorts atoms by mass," Physics of Atomic Nuclei 69 (2006) 1847-1856.
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0609509

Just as the four seasons are controlled by Earth's annual orbit about the Sun, so also are cyclic changes in the solar heat source controlled by the positions of the major planets.

With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
http://www.omatumr.com

Dear Al,
Talking in terms of the average temperature of the Earth and scaring the daylights out of people and is not helpful.

The little bit of warming that we have seen since 1976 has made more habitable vast stretches of the Eurasian and North American land mass where the growing season is short. So, last spring it stayed cold and less grain got planted in Canada. Meanwhile grains are being fermented to make fuel. The reserves disappear and the price of wheat doubles.

The big swings in climate that our ‘CO2 warmers’ don’t want to recognise occur in the tropics. These swings in temperature obviously relate to the filtering effect of the atmosphere that changes the amount of solar radiation getting through to the surface. Globally, on the average, less than half gets in. A little bit more or a little less makes a huge difference. The atmosphere functions as a heat shield and part of the reason it is so effective is its CO2 content, but much more in fact its water vapour content, aerosol content, density and depth. When more solar radiation impinges at the surface the air temperature responds. However evaporation in the tropics keeps the lid on temperature except where there is no water to evaporate. As the ocean warms the currents carry this warmth eastwards and the land masses wheel the currents northwards to provide almost the entire benefit to the Northern Hemisphere .......especially in the places where the grain is grown. We have had thirty years of warmth and now, as the tropics begin to experience persistent La Niña’s over solar cycle 24, 25 and perhaps 26, we will see that grain belt in the grip of Jack Frost rather more frequently. The deciduous trees of New England will look much as they did in the cool decades of the 1950s.

The current warming of the Arctic is a temporary phenomenon due to the collapse of convection at the intertropical convergence. Compare sea surface anomalies January 2007 and September 2007 at http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/climo.html . As convection weakens in the tropics so does the downdraught of very cold air over the poles. It’s frequently minus 80°C in winter.

Inside two or three years we will see the northern latitudes in the northern hemisphere cooling. The waters of the Pacific and the Atlantic are cooling and it is upon these waters that the high latitudes depend for the length of their growing season. The cooling at low latitudes is associated with the collapse of the polar magnetic field of the sun and the fall in the base load of the solar wind. Sunspots will be fewer but that is really a distraction from the main game. The main game is, without a doubt, the effect of the solar wind on the rather thin atmosphere above the tropics. This is the part of the atmosphere where the stratosphere is thin and the ultraviolet and shorter wave radiation penetrates to the surface. This is the really decent hole in the ozone layer. See http://www.temis.nl/uvradiation/world_uvi.html

The tropical atmosphere is currently letting in less solar radiation and that is the source of the developing La Nina. The big temperature swings will still occur but the underlying trend is down.

In eight of the last 12 solar cycles a strong La Nina has occurred in the closing stages of the solar cycle. Another frequently occurs at solar maximum. In cycles that have no strong tendency either way the pattern weakens but these are few.

You can read more at http://www.happs.com.au/downloaders/Chance_of_rain.pdf
and http://www.happs.com.au/downloaders/weather_forecast.pdf This is a new thesis. Sorry to spoil your party just when it appears to be taking off.

Question to the editors of Nature Climate change: Why do you link to:
A Few Things Ill Considered:
http://illconsidered.blogspot.com/

(See left panel on this page under BLOGROLL, first link)

The subtitle for "A Few Things Ill Considered" is quite odd for a science journal to link to it. This is what they write:

A layman's take on the science of Global Warming featuring a guide on How to Talk to a Climate Sceptic.

Layman? Guide? Climate sceptic? First of all; what is a skeptic? Is it a non-beliver because if it is then sign me up. It certainly remind me of propaganda-style brainwashing, something Nature should not embrace. So of course Nature will have to remove dishornest links like that and stay with the facts right? By a climate skeptic, supporters of a man-made climate impact refer to 'people who do not blindly trust that CO2, nor human activity otherwise, is the primary driver of climate change'. Fine. What about the huge climate variations in the past? They can certainly not be explained be neither human activity nor CO2 or even the greenhouse effect. If a climate skeptic is a person who would like to understand climate variation in the past BEFORE making a premature and possible completely wrong judgment on the more contemporary climate variation then by all means use the term skeptic. At least we are not on a wild goose chase as IPCC et 'Al Gore' :-)

WHY IS IT DIFFICULT FOR NEW IDEAS TO SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY?

Is it appropriate to consider "the structure that makes it difficult for new ideas to see the light of day", an issue that Erl Happ raises on page 8 of his link?

http://www.happs.com.au/downloaders/Chance_of_rain.pdf

In the United States the problem arises from the decision by the US Congress to delegate decisions on the budgets of federal funding agencies (NASA, DOE, NOAA, NSF, etc.) to NAS (National Academy of Sciences), a private, self-perpetuating group that is supposed to help our government protect national security on matters of science policy.

Instead NAS directs public funds into the troughs (federal funding agencies) for scientists to “discover” evidence that supports the favorite opinions of NAS members:

a.) AGW (anthropologic global warming),
b.) OSN (oscillating solar neutrinos),
c.) SSM (standard solar model), etc.

And allocates no funds to investigate strong empirical evidence that:

d.) Gravitational forces produce the familiar 11-year solar cycle and change our climate as the planets move around the Sun, and

e.) Gravitational forces cause the depth of the solar heat source, a compact neutron star, to shift inside the Sun.

Links to a few key references are shown above.

With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
http://www.omatumr.com

Thanks to Sune F. for pointing out the bias in this site's blogroll. I wonder if the good people at Nature blogs have ever heard of Climate Audit - Science blog of the year in 2007.

Global Warming or Ice Age

Some experts have projected an increase in the global temperature for the next 100 years or longer. Our previous interglacial period lasted around 7,000 years. The current interglacial period has lasted over 9,000 years. It has been stated, our current climate cycle started one million years ago, which roughly coincides with a meteor impact in Bosumtwi, Ghana. The impact created a crater 10.5 kilometers in diameter. Using the chart “Temperature of Planet Earth” from Wikipedia and information on meteor impacts from the Earth Impact Database, impacts at 65, 50, 36, 35 and 15mya altered the long-term climate patterns of earth. The snowball earth 600mya may have been caused by no more than the inclination of the ecliptic plane being so close to the invariable plane, additional radiation could not shine into the polar cusps.

Imagine a ball tied to a string swinging in a circle. The ball will continue to swing in its’ given trajectory (similar to the invariable plane) until acted on by an outside force (a meteor impact with the earth). After an outside force has acted on the ball, it will establish a new trajectory (the earth’s current inclination to the invariable plane).

The invariable plane is the plane of the averaged mass of the solar system or the equilibrium plane of the solar system. The Astronomical Society of the Pacific indicates the inclination of the ecliptic varies from a maximum of 2.6deg. to about 0.8deg above the invariable plane. If the earth were attached to a spring then pushed above the equilibrium point (the invariable plane) and let go, it would oscillate above and below the point of equilibrium (the invariable plane). If the maximum inclination of the ecliptic is 2.6deg above the invariable plane, the minimum should be close to 2.6deg below the invariable plane (the equilibrium plane of the solar system). Changes in the inclination would not stop until gravity from the invariable plane was great enough to reverse the direction of travel. If the ecliptic plane reversed directions close to the invariable plane there would be no momentum to carry the orbit of the earth away from the invariable plane. The earth would stay at the invariable plane, not continue moving away from the invariable plane without an outside gravity source to cause this movement. Using the equator of the sun as a constant, the inclination of the ecliptic plane would oscillate from 8.27degS to 3.07degS above the sun’s equator.

This is a good time to bring up the various frames of reference used. The sun is the source of heat supplied to all of the planets and should be used as the frame of reference whenever possible.

The angle the north-pole makes with a line parallel to the sun’s equator at summer solstice is currently around 106.19deg. If this angle is held constant, the maximum inclination from the invariable plane to the ecliptic assumed to be 3.0degIP (8.67degS), a current ecliptic inclination of 1.58degIP above the invariable plane (7.25degS) and the invariable plane inclination assumed to be 5.67degS above the sun’s equator, the obliquity of the earth is:
1. 24.86deg. at a maximum inclination of 8.67degS to the sun’s equator
2. 24.46deg at 8.27degS (max. inclination from the sun’s equator 30,000 years ago 2.6deg above the invariable plane)
3. 19.26deg at an inclination 2.6deg below the invariable plane (3.07degS inclination to the sun’s equator)
The obliquities listed above are due only to the change in the inclination above and below the invariable plane. If the obliquity changes within commonly recognized values due largely to changes in inclination only, I would assume the angle between the earth’s poles and the equator of the sun remains relatively constant (106.19deg). Precession would dictate the small changes in the angle between the earth’s poles and the equator of the sun. Changes in inclination would largely dictate the angle of light entering the polar cusps.

If we assume obliquity and inclination are independent of each other, the angle between the poles and the equator of the sun would fluctuate between approximately 103deg to 106deg at high inclinations (8.75degS) and between approximately 106deg and 109deg near the invariable plane. This seems unlikely.

The reason for the interglacial periods would in effect be windows at the polar cusps opening at high inclinations and allowing more radiation through the earth’s magnetic field. The angle between the ecliptic plane and the poles is a minimum at the maximum inclination. A possible reason for the current length of the interglacial period is the migration south of the magnetic north pole. According to Natural Resources Canada @ (http://gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/geomag/nmp/long_mvt_nmp_e.php) the magnetic north-pole will closely coincide with the geographical north-pole around 2020. Sometime between now and 2020 the polar cusp window will close. The long interglacial period 400,000 years ago may also be due to the migration of the magnetic poles.

In conclusion;
1. Interglacial periods occur during high levels of inclination above the equator of the sun.
2. Inclination of the ecliptic plane to the equator of the sun seems to dictate obliquity.
3. The current models of obliquity are wrong.
4. Spikes in global temperature, whether large or small, seem to be associated with maximum and minimum precession and minor fluctuations in the angle between the sun’s equator and the polar cusps.
5. Movement of the magnetic poles affects the climate.
6. Global warming may be the least of our problems.

Curtis Thompson, P.E.
Plano, Texas

Dear Al Gore, Rajendra Pachauri, Mohan Munasinghe and remainging IPCC scientists,

I like everything about what you are thinking and proposing. Let me add here, that your views and plans for action appear to be ones that many people will soon come to understand and appreciate.

What worries me is how much time it takes for people to share long-range views like yours and to adopt farsighted proposals like the ones you are putting forward because the necessary changes that are in store for “the masters of the universe” — the leaders who rule the global political economy in its current, patently unsustainable form — will find such changes categorically unacceptable. The masters of the universe among us have made it quite clear through their primary positive regard and relentless protection of unbridled global economic growth, now rampantly overspreading the surface of Earth, that they would rather see life as we know it obliterated than limit, as well as share with others, their wealth, power and privileges, I suppose.

Always,

Steve

Steven Earl Salmony, Ph.D., M.P.A.
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/