Some (not all) global warming skeptics complain that the IPCC doesn’t adequately acknowledge the influence of the sun, including sunspot cycles, on climate.
There is new information at the NASA website about recent past and future solar activity including the prediction that “Solar Cycle 25, peaking around the year 2022, could be one of the weakest in centuries.”
I can’t say that the graph tracks Australian temperatures or troposphere temperatures very well at all, but then I am not sure atmospheric C02 does either.
The NASA website explains sunspot activity but makes no link to global warming:
“The Sun’s Great Conveyor Belt has slowed to a record-low crawl, according to research by NASA solar physicist David Hathaway. “It’s off the bottom of the charts,” he says. “This has important repercussions for future solar activity.”
The Great Conveyor Belt is a massive circulating current of fire (hot plasma) within the Sun. It has two branches, north and south, each taking about 40 years to perform one complete circuit. Researchers believe the turning of the belt controls the sunspot cycle, and that’s why the slowdown is important.
… On the other hand, they will have to worry more about cosmic rays. Cosmic rays are high-energy particles from deep space; they penetrate metal, plastic, flesh and bone. Astronauts exposed to cosmic rays develop an increased risk of cancer, cataracts and other maladies. Ironically, solar explosions, which produce their own deadly radiation, sweep away the even deadlier cosmic rays. As flares subside, cosmic rays intensify—yin, yang.
Hathaway’s prediction should not be confused with another recent forecast: A team led by physicist Mausumi Dikpata of NCAR has predicted that Cycle 24, peaking in 2011 or 2012, will be intense. Hathaway agrees: “Cycle 24 will be strong. Cycle 25 will be weak. Both of these predictions are based on the observed behavior of the conveyor belt.”
How do you observe a belt that plunges 200,000 km below the surface of the sun?
“We do it using sunspots,” Hathaway explains. Sunspots are magnetic knots that bubble up from the base of the conveyor belt, eventually popping through the surface of the sun. Astronomers have long known that sunspots have a tendency to drift—from mid solar latitudes toward the sun’s equator. According to current thinking, this drift is caused by the motion of the conveyor belt. “By measuring the drift of sunspot groups,” says Hathaway, “we indirectly measure the speed of the belt.”
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
This NASA release is big stuff. The long-standing prediction of the next fully developed Little Ice Age cold period (Landscheidt Minimum) by 2030, depends on the giant outer planets driving the Sun’s irregular orbit about the centre-of-mass of the solar system. But the new Hathaway&Wilson paper provides strong support in two quite different ways. First, it provides scientific support without relying on the planets at all. What about the second way? This new study comes from the heart of the mainstream, not from the climate-change contrarians.
The prediction of a new LIA can be tested against actual observations over a discrete time interval, unlike the AGW hypothesis, where the theory has to keep changing to try and track what’s actually happening to the climate.
I’d like to make a prediction. If we are entering a new LIA, and temperatures are trending down for the next few years, the AGW proponents will blame increased aerosols from coal burning in China and India overcompensating for increased atmospheric CO2. The solution will be the same as today, decarbonise the economy. And somehow the USA will be to blame!
I just read a report on the heating up of planet Earth a few days ago,from a man in Missouri USA who has studied the changes in our planet,he says the a planet called Planet X that NASA will not talk about much ,is approaching earth,and is all electromagnetic which is influencing the electromagnetic fields in the centre of Earth which is increasing the temperatures daily .’The heat is not from fossil fuel use or any other ennviro thing,but a huge increase in heat and pressure within .
The inner heat ,will cause massive tidal waves,tsunamis,earthquakes,horrific weather and floods worldwide as the heat is coming from beneath the oceans and polar caps as icebergs melt from below the seas surface .
Just check it out on websites or any on Planet X.
There could be a bit global cooling going on if Mount Merapi really blows her top in Java.
A cooling event is unlikely, as Merapi erupts frequently and rarely above VEI 3, which is comparable to Nevado del Ruiz in 1985, which was also not visible in the global temperature record.
http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=0603-25=&VErupt=Y&VSources=Y&VRep=Y&VWeekly=Y&volpage=erupt
If you plot solar cycle duration against the observed surface temperature, it becomes apparent we are entering a 30-45 year cooling trend as part of a 60-90 year cycle. The cycle runs roughly 1880 to 1940 and 1940 to 2000. The surface cooling trend is associated with an increase in solar cycle duration. However, other contributing warming factors may make this trend appear flat.
See:
Friis-Christensen, E., and K. Lassen, Length of the solar cycle: An indicator of solar activity closely associated with climate, Science, 254, 698-700, 1991
K. Lassen, Long-term Variations in Solar Activity and their Apparent Effect on the Earth’s Climate, http://www.tmgnow.com/repository/solar/lassen1.html
If you plot solar cycle duration against the observed surface temperature, it becomes apparent we are entering a 30-45 year cooling trend as part of a 60-90 year cycle. The cycle runs roughly 1880 to 1940 and 1940 to 2000. The surface cooling trend is associated with an increase in solar cycle duration. However, other contributing warming factors may make this trend appear flat.
See:
Friis-Christensen, E., and K. Lassen, Length of the solar cycle: An indicator of solar activity closely associated with climate, Science, 254, 698-700, 1991
K. Lassen, Long-term Variations in Solar Activity and their Apparent Effect on the Earth’s Climate, http://www.tmgnow.com/repository/solar/lassen1.html
An important point to note about the solar activity → cosmic ray flux → climate link is that if it indeed operates (and I don’t want to get into that debate now) then the relevant cosmic rays are those with relatively high energy (their typical energies are of order 1 GeV, while those which ionize the atmosphere are typically 10 GeV).
This is important because solar activity does not have the same modulation of the cosmic ray flux at different energies. Not only is the amplitude different, but the secular variations are different. For example, only high energy cosmic rays show significant decrease from the 1970’s. That is, if one wants to compare solar activity variations to climate change, one should be aware that low energy proxies (e.g., 10Be, or sunspot number for that matter) don’t follow the atmospheric ionization one to one (e.g., compare figs. 5 and 6, in http://www.sciencebits.com/CO2orSolar )
Paul Williams: “I’d like to make a prediction. If we are entering a new LIA, and temperatures are trending down for the next few years, the AGW proponents will blame increased aerosols from coal burning in China and India overcompensating for increased atmospheric CO2. The solution will be the same as today, decarbonise the economy. And somehow the USA will be to blame! ”
I agree. I’ve seen these moves in Greens and leftwing idealists before several times. That’s why i’m never taken seriously the whole Global Warming issue. It’s dangerous to explain complex system of climate by one cause – even if it’s Co2. Besides why doesn’t it keep warming during 1940-1975.
Solar activity is much more important than Co2. But there are more factors: sea, winds, clouds etc. What science knows about them? Not much. Not much. I mean if they are honest.