MaxedOutMama
Monday, July 25, 2005
My Inner Dork Squeaks
I got up early to work this Monday, and instead launched into a massive work-avoidance exercise. It's possible that Carl of NOFP caused this by the following link, which I found hilarious:
This reminded me so much of the idiosyncrasies of the climate change debate in the last decade or so that I burst out laughing. It brought my inner science dork to the forefront before I had had a chance to remind myself that I was a productive and rational human being, so naturally I have just spent a few hours goofing off instead of working. It's been very enjoyable. The work I got up to do is quite urgent, so hopefully after I finish this post I will actually begin to work.
First, on the matter of the intensity and length of sunspot cycles, the correlations to observed climate seem incredibly strong. This recent article in the BBC addresses the sunspot cycle issue:
The point is, we can reconstruct past temperature pretty well with this method, and it correlates very well with current fluctuations. Note that this graph contradicts the assertion in the BBC article. I begin to suspect that you can't get your research published unless you claim it supports man-made warming.
I do want to point out that this strong correlation doesn't mean that higher levels of CO2 won't eventually produce a warmer climate. What it does suggest is that the IPCC's estimates of CO2 forcing may be very high end, because if we aren't really seeing the signal yet, CO2 forcing is probably not such a strong force as we thought. And that means that you may well be subjected to yet more incidents of Al Gore pontificating on the terrible danger of global warming in the middle of a blizzard, while the poles seem to be getting colder and the ice cap increases. Someone's losing contact with reality here, and I have no intention of being in the orbital velocity crowd.
The nice thing about the sunspot intensity/length of cycle correlation is that it will be testable. These cycles do vary quite a bit, and we are probably due for a bit of a decrease. If temperatures decrease in sync with the cycle length and estimated intensity, a whole new climate ballgame begins. Furthermore, the individuals now working on the theory that the sun's activity is the actual driving force are now making future predictions that are testable this decade. See here and see here. John Daly's (not the golfer!) website usually has some interesting science dork stuff on it.
If you want to understand why there is such a raging controversy over the IPCC's methodology and the scientific "consensus", see McKitrick's talk (pdf, 18 pages) about the hockey-stick graph and the implications of its uncritical adoption. This lays out the oddity of our "scientific" assumptions with some eloquence. See, in particular, page 6 which shows the Huang temperature reconstruction of borehole data. It's almost incomprehensible that the IPCC could have thrown out so much data in favor of the hockey stick graph, and it does raise a lot of questions. Anyone who thinks this is not one of the major scientific scandals of the century is very much out of touch. Scientists can easily be wrong, and that is why rigorous review is necessary. How did this slip through and why were the early critics squashed?
This reminded me so much of the idiosyncrasies of the climate change debate in the last decade or so that I burst out laughing. It brought my inner science dork to the forefront before I had had a chance to remind myself that I was a productive and rational human being, so naturally I have just spent a few hours goofing off instead of working. It's been very enjoyable. The work I got up to do is quite urgent, so hopefully after I finish this post I will actually begin to work.
First, on the matter of the intensity and length of sunspot cycles, the correlations to observed climate seem incredibly strong. This recent article in the BBC addresses the sunspot cycle issue:
Over the past few hundred years, there has been a steady increase in the numbers of sunspots, a trend that has accelerated in the past century, just at the time when the Earth has been getting warmer.But this is just what the data doesn't show. Yes, the earth is getting a bit warmer, but sun intensity (measured by length sunspot cycle and number of sunspots) hasn't remained stable over the last 20 years. The graph is as follows (this is the Danish plot):
The data suggests that changing solar activity is influencing in some way the global climate causing the world to get warmer.
Over the past 20 years, however, the number of sunspots has remained roughly constant, yet the average temperature of the Earth has continued to increase.
This is put down to a human-produced greenhouse effect caused by the combustion of fossil fuels.
This latest analysis shows that the Sun has had a considerable indirect influence on the global climate in the past, causing the Earth to warm or chill, and that mankind is amplifying the Sun's latest attempt to warm the Earth.
The point is, we can reconstruct past temperature pretty well with this method, and it correlates very well with current fluctuations. Note that this graph contradicts the assertion in the BBC article. I begin to suspect that you can't get your research published unless you claim it supports man-made warming.
I do want to point out that this strong correlation doesn't mean that higher levels of CO2 won't eventually produce a warmer climate. What it does suggest is that the IPCC's estimates of CO2 forcing may be very high end, because if we aren't really seeing the signal yet, CO2 forcing is probably not such a strong force as we thought. And that means that you may well be subjected to yet more incidents of Al Gore pontificating on the terrible danger of global warming in the middle of a blizzard, while the poles seem to be getting colder and the ice cap increases. Someone's losing contact with reality here, and I have no intention of being in the orbital velocity crowd.
The nice thing about the sunspot intensity/length of cycle correlation is that it will be testable. These cycles do vary quite a bit, and we are probably due for a bit of a decrease. If temperatures decrease in sync with the cycle length and estimated intensity, a whole new climate ballgame begins. Furthermore, the individuals now working on the theory that the sun's activity is the actual driving force are now making future predictions that are testable this decade. See here and see here. John Daly's (not the golfer!) website usually has some interesting science dork stuff on it.
If you want to understand why there is such a raging controversy over the IPCC's methodology and the scientific "consensus", see McKitrick's talk (pdf, 18 pages) about the hockey-stick graph and the implications of its uncritical adoption. This lays out the oddity of our "scientific" assumptions with some eloquence. See, in particular, page 6 which shows the Huang temperature reconstruction of borehole data. It's almost incomprehensible that the IPCC could have thrown out so much data in favor of the hockey stick graph, and it does raise a lot of questions. Anyone who thinks this is not one of the major scientific scandals of the century is very much out of touch. Scientists can easily be wrong, and that is why rigorous review is necessary. How did this slip through and why were the early critics squashed?
Comments:
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I agree that the greenhouse theory and man made emissions lacks reasonable scientific evidence. Clearly the earth has been much warmer than this in the past, and also much colder.
However, the graph you posted is misleading as well. The lefthand barometer is length in years, ranging from 10-11 years, and it is inverted. Solar activity does indeed occur on roughly 11 year cycles with slight fluctuations but the length of the solar activity period does not correlate with the intensity of solar erruptions. The fact that the charted years are inverted would suggest that the shorter the period of solar activity, the greater the increase in temperature.
I will be the first to suggest that global warming, although occuring, is not caused by man. Testable and repeatable measures should be pursued as you stated.
www.RightViews.com
However, the graph you posted is misleading as well. The lefthand barometer is length in years, ranging from 10-11 years, and it is inverted. Solar activity does indeed occur on roughly 11 year cycles with slight fluctuations but the length of the solar activity period does not correlate with the intensity of solar erruptions. The fact that the charted years are inverted would suggest that the shorter the period of solar activity, the greater the increase in temperature.
I will be the first to suggest that global warming, although occuring, is not caused by man. Testable and repeatable measures should be pursued as you stated.
www.RightViews.com
# posted by 
: 8:21 AM
: 8:21 AM
Anon - they are fooling with various measures of estimating the sun's overall energy output. The number of sunspots is a rough measure of activity, and that is why the sunspot/length is used, although it is still a rough measure. As for the significance of length, the shift to long cycles with little or no known sunspot activity corresponded with the Maunder Minimum.
One way to look at it is that an average cycle length 3 years less produces more energy output peaks over a century, thus more overall heating into the earth's energy system.
There are some good explanations of various methods in some of the links. What's really impressive to me is that now they seem to have evolved a possible explanation for how the sun's activity interacts with clouds and El Nino/El Nina activity to produce the historical correlation - and people are willing to make predictions that can be checked. Suddenly we find ourselves back in the realm of actual science.
Thanks for the link to your site. I find it quite interesting!
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One way to look at it is that an average cycle length 3 years less produces more energy output peaks over a century, thus more overall heating into the earth's energy system.
There are some good explanations of various methods in some of the links. What's really impressive to me is that now they seem to have evolved a possible explanation for how the sun's activity interacts with clouds and El Nino/El Nina activity to produce the historical correlation - and people are willing to make predictions that can be checked. Suddenly we find ourselves back in the realm of actual science.
Thanks for the link to your site. I find it quite interesting!
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