Danish physicist, Henrik Svensmark, is a bit different from your average climate change skeptics. He has an alternative theory of climate change and he has just written a book about it.
Published this week by Icon books, but not yet available at Amazons, it is called ‘The Chilling Stars – A New Theory of Climate Change’ and its apparently all about cosmic rays.
According to the book’s co-author and former editor of New Scientist, Nigel Calder, the new theory can explain why Antarctica is not warming. Indeed the most recent ‘summary’ from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has concluded that while temperatures have increased by almost twice the global average at the Arctic, there has been no warming at the Antarctic.
I’ve always been fascinated by bits of information that don’t fit neatly within an accepted theory, i.e. no warming trend at the Antarctic, and I’m always intrigued when there is a new theory to explain the apparent anomaly.
Anyway, along with the book there is a new journal paper by Dr Svensmark ‘Cosmoclimatology: A New Theory Emerges’ in Astronomy & Geophysics, Volume 48 Issue 1, February 2007.
The abstract states: Changes in the intensity of galactic cosmic rays alter the Earth’s cloudiness. A recent experiment has shown how electrons liberated by cosmic rays assist in making aerosols, the building blocks of cloud condensation nuclei, while anomalous climatic trends in Antarctica confirm the role of clouds in helping to drive climate change. Variations in the cosmic-ray influx due to solar magnetic activity account well for climatic fluctuations on decadal, centennial and millennial timescales. Over longer intervals, the changing galactic environment of the solar system has had dramatic consequences, including Snowball Earth episodes. A new contribution to the faint young Sun paradox is also on offer.
Here’s an opinion piece from the Sunday Times Online entitled ‘An experiment that hints we are wrong on climate change’ by Nigel Calder which includes comment that:
“Disdain for the sun goes with a failure by the self-appointed greenhouse experts to keep up with inconvenient discoveries about how the solar variations control the climate. The sun’s brightness may change too little to account for the big swings in the climate. But more than 10 years have passed since Henrik Svensmark in Copenhagen first pointed out a much more powerful mechanism.
He saw from compilations of weather satellite data that cloudiness varies according to how many atomic particles are coming in from exploded stars. More cosmic rays, more clouds. The sun’s magnetic field bats away many of the cosmic rays, and its intensification during the 20th century meant fewer cosmic rays, fewer clouds, and a warmer world. On the other hand the Little Ice Age was chilly because the lazy sun let in more cosmic rays, leaving the world cloudier and gloomier.”
Read the complete article here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1363818.ece.
The issue was previously discussed at this blog here: http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001674.html
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Thanks for those links Jen. I was away all through October 2006 and am sorry I missed it.
“a failure by the self-appointed greenhouse experts to keep up with inconvenient discoveries about how the solar variations control the climate”.
It seems the notion that mankind is driving climate change is the ultimate form of narcissism.
I don’t know where ‘disdain for the sun’ came from. All climate change researchers have been keeping a very close eye on the sun. Just empty rhetoric.
I am not an atmospheric scientist and professionally I stand to benefit significantly from CO2 sequestration. But I am very concerned that if a very large proportion of the experts are supporting CO2 induced AGW, perhaps for political/funding reasons, then science itself is exposed to being discredited.
Real science is always “the current understanding” and “with our present level of knowledge”. The portrayal of AGW as a done deal is potentially very harmful if we subsequently find that CO2 is but a minor factor. I would like to see more public displays of uncertainty by the AGW proponents because it gives them room to back down or modify their positions in the future if needs be. This could be seen as cowardice by some, but it is what the history of scientific discovery tells us is the wise course of action.
So if the CO2 factor is revealed to be a minor player, what then, so what? Shouldn’t we all heave a sigh of relief? Well, yes, but if science in general is dragged down by the popular use of politics to further scientific careers in relation to CO2, the way is left open for the influx of irrational belief more generally. The creationists and homeopaths and other weirdos will have a field day. That I consider a very chilling prospect.
Boxer, why don’t you point out a scientific study that shows you have any reason to be concerned that political, funding, or career advancement reasons are skewing the science.
Until you have such a study, you can easily be lumped in with the assorted weirdos and irrational scare mongerers you are concerned about.
In my opinion, it is far more plausible that Nigel Calder is giving a Tim Flannery-esque, self promoting hype-up to some contrary research that may not be deserving of the hype it is getting,
than it is plausible that thousands of climate scientists have got it wrong on AGW because of the reasons you are worried about.
Ian re narcissm – i think an individual without qualifications in the appropriate field, who categorically rubbishes current scientific understanding based on his own mangled thoughts and a 1960s atlas is a better example of narcissism.
Steve, I can’t cite anyone, I don’t read the philosophy of science, but I live it.
My point is not about the tally of who has the most citations or the most peer-reviewed publications. My (unoriginal) point is that science is never right, it’s just increasingly less wrong. As soon as someone uses the popularity of an idea as verification beyond doubt, then I know they are not a scientist. That person may still be right and popular ideas are not by definition wrong, but “the facts are in, no further debate is necessary” is the definition I use for the layman believer. I know researchers with an impressive record who are believers, not scientists. These people may rise to become scientific managers who control the budgets of teams of subordinate scientists.
That doesn’t mean that contrarians are always right either. I would say most contrarians are just enfant terribles, but some of them have given us a great leap of understanding because they have led science away from a popular intellectual backwater.
I have watched first hand as scientists are sidelined and their budgets are reduced effectively to nothing because their way of thinking is out of step with the management. I have seen people unable to get their work past the reviewers because the journal chooses the reviewers, and those three people may all be intellectual opponents of the writer. Journals have editorial positions. Scientists understand all this as part of the imperfect game of science. Resubmit, or publish somewhere else, persist.
The climate change debate is showing signs to me of the normal scientific process running out of control on a global scale. This is not evidence that AGW is a myth, but if the current belief about CO2 by the majority is right, it is more by chance than due to protracted rigorous elimination of the alternatives. It has become quite ugly as the matter is now almost entirely played out politically by people who do not know that science is never right etc.
I understand the desire for haste and some of it is hard-wired in as the human fascination with catastrophe and damnation. Like I say, I have much to gain personally if CO2 is the culprit. But the principles of science are as important as CO2 and AGW. Whether the popular view is right or one of the contrarians is right, when this single issue is resolved and we are on to the next challenge, we must still have science to keep the weirdos at bay.
The IPCC Summary for Policymakers claims (p. 10) that “The last time the polar regions were significantly warmer than at present for an extended period [was] about 125,000 years ago.”
But a recent paper by Svensmark (“The Antarctic climate anomaly and galactic cosmic rays”, available at http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/physics/pdf/0612/0612145.pdf ) provides thermometry data for the Law Dome and GRIP Greenland boreholes for the Antaractic and Arctic polar regions respectively (Figure 1). Both sets of data appear to show these regions as warmer than at present for most of the past 6000 years, and significantly warmer in the case of the Law Dome borehole in the Antarctic. In my opinion, the greater part of 6000 years is “an extended period.”
The difference between the IPCC SPM and the Svensmark paper is that the IPCC hasn’t revealed the evidence upon which it bases its assertion – we have to wait until the Report is released in May – whereas Svensmark cites the papers from which he has drawn his results. The GRIP data is from a 1998 paper published in Science and the Law Dome data is from a 1999 paper published in Annals of Climatology.
SJT, since you have characterised the Svensmark and Calder work as “empty rhetoric” and are apparently a “full bottler” on what “All climate change scientists are keeping a very close watch on”, could you please guide me to the evidence that supports the IPCC’s assertion that “The last time the polar regions were significantly warmer than present for an extended period [was] about 125,000 years ago”? And whether I am misinterpreting the results of the Dahl-Jensen et al papers, especially the Law Dome one?
Perhaps there is a simple resolution of the apparent conflict between the IPCC SPM and the papers in peer-reviewed journals, but like Czech President Vaclav Klaus I believe the uncritical acceptance of the SPM, without waiting for the full report it is supposed to be summarising, represents “undignified slapstick.”
William Connelly, Antarctic climate modeller and excellent blogger, finds a few problems with Svensmark’s arxiv paper.
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2007/02/revenge_of_the_killer_cosmic_r.php
You’ll probably groan but RC’s most recent post is on the Calder topic; still with the comment “but there’s no correlation between temperatures and cosmic rays” – Stoat cited above also takes issue.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/02/nigel-calder-in-the-times/
Arnost may be able to shed some light as he made a comment the other day that the recent Space Reviews tome of 100 odd pages cleared that up. I’ll need some guidance.
We should keep our minds open to possibilities of course and in the RC comments – Gavin remarks that RC isn’t anti-solar per se – it’s just that the current warming cannot be explained by such.
There’s a recent review in Nature that also says the same. “In this Review, we show that detailed
analysis of these small output variations has greatly advanced our understanding of solar luminosity change, and this
new understanding indicates that brightening of the Sun is unlikely to have had a significant influence on global warming
since the seventeenth century.”
Vol 443|14 September 2006|doi:10.1038/nature05072
Variations in solar luminosity and their
effect on the Earth’s climate
P. Foukal1, C. Fro¨hlich2, H. Spruit3 & T. M. L. Wigley4
I also believe that cosmic guys think CO2 does have an effect but a modest one. So they’re not being exclusively denialist.
And of course the CO2 theory is more than simple correlation – we do have direct measurements of the flux.
So Nexus defers to Connolly and Luke to RC and Nature.
What about you guys having a go at making up your own minds on an issue for once?
For example, let’s consider how the two different theories explain current trends, for example, warming at the Arctic, but no warming trend at the Antarctic?
I’ve never understood how increasing levels of atmospheric C02 can have such different impacts at the north versus south pole.
Boxer says:
“I don’t read the philosophy of science, but I live it.”
I’m sure everyone here knows the key references, but just in case, for the idea:
“that science is never right, it’s just increasingly less wrong”
we have Popper’s theory of falsifiability (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper).
And for the idea that sometimes:
“scientists are sidelined and their budgets are reduced effectively to nothing because their way of thinking is out of step with the management”,
we have Kuhn’s notion of ‘normal’ science and the structure of scientific revolutions
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Samuel_Kuhn).
You guys also might be interested in a video of the Copenhagen Consensus deliberations, being discussed with some vehemence over at Catallaxy. The ideas in the video are a great example of applied economics.
http://catallaxyfiles.com/?p=2539
Jen – I have made up my own mind !
But I’m attributing source to the finders of the errors. Stoat has found a worrisome problem. And RC simply say (with graphic previous post on this issue) that there is no correlation so they’re off to a bad start.
Jen we know you don’t like to do any background research – you just make your mind up and go for it on instinct. Despite going on about evidence based environmental science.
So you don’t find a very recent review paper from Nature at least of some note? At least worth consideration. And I assume you’ve read the 100 odd page Space Review cosmic rays paper Jen?
We’ve been over the Artic /Antarctic stuff about 20 times. Obviously you don’t read your own blog.
Luke,
Sometimes it’s worth going over things.
I’ve only just today read the paper by Svensmark that Ian Castles links to above.
I was wanting to now refresh my memory on how IPCC models explain why there is no warming at the Antarctic. I wanted to contrast the two theories with respect to this single issue.
I was looking for some help.
I was hoping for a simple explaination … rather than a lot of references to blogs and journal papers. Can you explain in a couple of paragraphs how elevated levels of atmospheric C02 have resulted in warming at the Arctic but not at the Antarctic?
Its not a trick question.
PS I haven’t made my mind up. But I’m trying to understand.
Jen, it’s not a matter of making up my own mind (I can’t speak for Luke of course). I’m open to any theory which is sufficiently supported by evidence. To often with Svensmark’s work the demonstrated correlations fall apart when the analysis is expanded (i.e. different time-frames) or the mistakes corrected (i.e. using poor proxies for world-wide cloud cover). It appears more likely to me that the hypothesis that differences in ocean circulation between the arctic and antarctic are the main reason that warming levels aren’t the same.
I’m not sure its correct to say there has been NO warming trend in the Antarctic either.
Nexus,
I’m interested that you attribute the difference to ocean circulation. It’s my memory that Luke’s explainations at earlier threads related to a vortex and the ozone hole? That’s not to say that these explainations aren’t incompatible even with Svensmark’s work on clouds?
But let’s first establish whether there is warming at the Antarctic or not.
I was relying on the AR4 summary from Paris and two quotes:
pg 9: Antarctic sea ice extent continues to show inter-annual variability and localized changes but no statistically significant average trends, consistent with the lack of warming reflected in atmospheric temperatures averaged across the region.
pg 11: It is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent except Antarctica (see Figure SPM-4). The observed patterns of warming, including greater
warming over land than over the ocean, and their changes over time, are only simulated by models that include anthropogenic forcing. The ability of coupled climate models to simulate the observed temperature evolution on each of six continents provides stronger evidence of human influence on climate than was available in the TAR.
Jen,
If memory serves me correctly (and I hope it does), last week Nature had a small section on research that was published too recently to be included in the AR4 summary. One of the papers mentioned was about recent satellite measurements that did indicate warming in Antarctica. Unfortunately I don’t have access at home and am on a self-imposed blogging ban during work hours so will try and provide the reference tomorrow night.
One thing I would suggest is to get the best explanation in Antarctic climate and what forcings impact on Antarctic climate, as well as Antarctic climate modelling, is to email William Connelly directly if you really are interested in the topic (wmconnolley (at) gmail.com), and maybe ask him to post about it. He is a blogger after all.
Nexus,
I’ve read some of William Connelly, but I’ve really only just discovered Henrick Svensmark and I suspect Connelly wouldn’t be the best person to explain Svensmark.
But if you would like something from Connelly I’d be happy to post it.
The short answer is “Thompson and Solomon (2002) showed that the Southern Annular Mode (a pattern of variability that affects the westerly winds around Antarctica) had been in a more positive phase (stronger winds) in recent years, and that this acts as a barrier, preventing warmer air from reaching the continent.”
The longer answer (oh no – it’s another reference to the ever helpful RC – get a priest, get a vicar, I believe in God) is here and worth reading as it will answer the obvious next questions.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/antarctic-cooling-global-warming/
The mechanism is possibly a global warming x ozone interaction.
********
There was also a paper last year that reported a large winter tropospheric warming over Antarctica. RC and the authors were cautious about whether it was AGW – see they don’t claim everything !!
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2006/03/science_significant_warming_of.php
he researchers were particularly interested in measurements taken in the middle troposphere, the layer of air at a height of about 5km (3 miles).
Their analysis shows that temperatures in the layer have risen by between 0.5 and 0.75C for each of the last three decades.
“It’s the largest regional warming on Earth at this level,” said Dr John Turner of BAS, one of the authors of the paper.
However a question remains over what is causing the change.
“There are arguments for and against this temperature rise being caused by greenhouse gases,” Dr Turner told the BBC News website.
“The problem is trying to differentiate between what is happening naturally and what is happening because of man’s activities”.
*********
Your archive contains lots of Antarctic review articles that I have filed – but while you can nit-pick it would very fair to say the Antartica has not warmed anything like the Peninsula or the Artic. The interior has remained quite cold.
Thanks Luke.
And what do you think of Svensmark’s explaination, as per above link provided by Ian Castles?
It’s very different and you (and Motty) have tended to like reference to the albedo effect?
I’m flattered by Luke’s comment “Arnost may be able to shed some light…”, however – I’m no scientist. So my opinion has next to no weight. (and if it’s a sledge then that too is appreciated as it’s quite sophisticated) – thanks anyway.
I also find Jennifer’s comment at 7.19pm re “different impacts at the north versus south pole” interesting.
In my post linking the Scherer et al doc, I mentioned that sections 12 and 13 were interesting. This is because when I read section 12, these two bits that caught my eye:
12.1 first pph: “The lower energy limit needed for a CHARGED particle to cross the Earth’s magnetosphere and access a specific position at the top of the atmosphere decreases with the geomagnetic latitude of the observer, resulting in a cosmic ray flux on Earth increasing POLEWARD”.
12.2 first pph: “Hydrogen and Helium nuclei are the dominant elements comprising ~98% of the cosmic ray IONS”.
Now, for the last hour I’ve been sticking my thumb out and curling my fingers attempting to see how Ampere’s Law applies, I’ve been trying to decode the Martian in the earlier sections for longer and sorry, but my maths & physics was too long ago. However I know enough to venture that the (I assume negatively) charged the cosmic ray ions SHOULD be deflected by the Earth’s magnetic field in PREDOMINANTLY one direction. Now if this is north or south, like I said – I’ve got no idea.
So my epiphany was “maybe this explains why there’s a different impact at the poles”, and could be an answer – but it’s past midnight and I can’t spend any more time on it.
Over to those who know what they’re talking about.
cheers
Arnost
The IPCC Summary for Policymakers claims (p. 10) that “The last time the polar regions were significantly warmer than at present for an extended period [was] about 125,000 years ago.”
That’s also bending it a bit:
“The last time the polar regions were as warm as present was only 60 years ago.”
(polyakov)
So it all depends on how you define “significant”: tree line research in Siberia reveals a warmer MWP than present, and I am not even considering the holocene optimum of 8000 years ago.
I meant “(I assume positively)” above … too much cut and paste.
cheers
Arnost
Is it just me, or did others think Connelly’s blog post on Svensmark was incoherent, cursory and unprofessional?
It also seems appropriate for me to restate my position that ‘global warming’, without Antarctic warming, and with serious lagging in southern hemisphere warming, cannot be regarded as Global Warming at all. It is northern hemisphere warming which is a northern hemisphere problem which requires northern hemisphere nations to accept full responsibility for remediation.
It is very clearly a result of the concentration of economic wealth, and it’s associated environmental impacts, in a relatively confined space. They don’t want to share the wealth but are eager to share the costs that stem from that wealth.
And that means that here in Australia we don’t even have gullible warming, just gullible government that is willing to pay big bucks to dispose of someone else’s garbage.
Ian – as Rog would say – yes it was just you – gee Ian all your posts are incoherent, cursory and unprofessional – so why let standards get in the way. William just put a rocket into his data – that’s all.
So to your last enlightened comment I guess then that given our rich Aussie inheritance of being on the receiving end of El Nino you will have no objection when the Pacific turns into a semi-permanent El Nino. The Europeans will simply say – well you didn’t want to pull your weight and convinced us on your natural southern hemisphere advantages so enjoy it (suckers).
A short comment from the RC comments section overnight which sums up the difficulties:
“The Svensmark paper was interesting and innovative. However, it ignores the fact that there seems to be no measurable decrease in GCR flux in the 30 years we’ve had measures of it by satellites. I’ve looked at the GOES data myself, and the modulation over solar cycle stands out clearly, but there is no lont-term trend. Conversely, the solar-cycle modulation, which is a factor of 3-5 in GCR flux over 11 years does not seem to influence weather that much.
Look, if someone could come up with a forcing mechanism that could explain the trends other than anthropogenic CO2, nobody would be happier than me. However, no one has proposed a mechanism that is even plausible.
So, on the one hand, we have a mechanism that explains the trends pretty nicely and that we know is present and we have no competing hypothesis that approaches credibility. To reject a perfectly good model simply because you don’t like the implications is simply anti-scientific. If your opposition is to the policies that you think may be implemented, the place to get involved is at the policy level.
Ian, parts of the southern hemisphere have warmed in line with the northern hemisphere. Australia for example, or the Antarctic peninsula. To say its just northern hemisphere is simplifying a bit.
Luke is GCR flux – global cosmic ray flux?
Is the data you refer to in the above quote available for others to scrutinize? I’d like to see what it looks like.
And isn’t the key, understanding this in the context of changes in the sun’s magnetitism?
And, as I asked at the earlier thread on ‘cosmic rays’, how has cloud cover changed over the last 100 years?
According to Henrick Svensmark there was reduced low altitude cloud cover over the last 100 years which is not what you would expect from a general warming?
As regards the assumption that temperature increase correlates well with increases in atmospheric levels of C02, I’m not convinced that the correlation over the last 100 years has been that great. Both have increased, but its not that neat.
I think we should all keep a much more open mind.
And you still haven’t told me what you think about Henrick Svensmark’s explaination as to why Antarctica hasn’t warmed. His explaination wouldn’t seem to me to be necessarily incompatible with the idea that C02 is a key forcing agent globally?
Luke,
For an interested onlooker like myself, could you explain the connection between increased severity/frequency of El Nino events and global warming.
The severity of El Ninos measured by their SOI has not trended in line with CO2 or temperature increases.
I have assumed that El Ninos are set up by temperature differences across the Pacific. Wouldn’t the differences remain the same at higher global temperatures.
Am I right or wrong.
Steve, and calling it global warming is a much greater simplification.
The other issue from Jens question of why Antarctica is not warming, given the same levels of CO2 is the question of why the Southern hemisphere is not actually warmer than the north, given that we have much more ocean than the northern hemisphere.
Remember that oceans absorb 96.5% of their insolation while a desert or beach absorbs 75%. We are also told that the planetary albedo is 31% which means planetary absorption is 69%. It is cloud cover that shifts both land and sea albedo up to 31%.
It must follow from this that increased ocean area produces a proportionate increase in cloud cover but this cannot be the case if varying proportions of each hemispheric ocean is in the tropical high pressure zones where cloud is not formed.
The southern hemisphere oceans have more area within the high pressure evaporative zones while the northern hemisphere has more land (desert) in these evaporative zones and therefore should have less cloud. This lesser area of cloud would appear to compensate for the higher albedo of land.
But there is one element that does not appear to have been considered in the modelling. And that has been tha change in soil moisture levels through farming practices like irrigation etc. and forest and grassland conversion that alter heat balances, and on a massive scale.
There is absolutely no doubt that food production has expanded in much the same way, and for the same reasons, as anthropogenic CO2 emissions over the past century.
The green revolution was not just a genetic revolution in plant productivity. It also involved a massive increase in transpiration and a massive increase in cropped area. And this has been met by major water diversions through irrigation and changes in water use that alter landscape scale heat balances.
Instead of single floods that discharge into the sea and waste their evaporative and heat absorbing and retaining potential, we now have dams that deliver water to areas that in the past would have quickly dried to produce minimal cloud, less heat absoption.
And this redistribution and modification of soil moisture would certainly raise overnight minimum temperatures as we have seen.
The scale of this is enormous. Water that once sat hundreds of metres below the surface in acquifers now contributes to landscape heat balances. Farmers now routinely spray weeds to create a mulch that maintains soil moisture for extended periods prior to sowing a crop. And this moisture continues to provide a service to heat balance that it would not have provided, for as long, under natural conditions.
The water that once shot down the Snowy River into the sea over 3 months of spring, now maintains an altered heat balance on the Murray but the ocean off Gippsland provides the same services it always has.
And to my knowledge, these changes have not been incorporated in the climate models. We get an estimate of increased CO2 from melting permafrost, and estimates of changing albedo from snow to grass etc, in latitudes with 9 months of winter. But we have no modelling of water/heat balances in sub-tropical and tropical irrigation areas where the fluxes are far more significant.
Jennifer / Luke, my take on your AM comments.
The way I read it is: GCRs (Galactic Cosmic Rays) are constant.
The Solar Cycle varies (sunspots etc).
The Earth’s Magnetosphere responds to Solar Cycle / sunspots variations.
This change in the Magnetosphere allows more / less atmospehric ionisation by the (constant) GCRs.
The change in atmospheric ionisation (leading to more / less clouds) – then drives temperatures.
i.e. A causes B which in turn allows C to have a greater effect on D.
(Where A = solar changes, B = magnetosphere changes, C = GCR constant, D = temperature changes).
So even though the GCRs do not correlate with temperature increase, they actually drive it in line with magnetosphere responses to the solar cycles. This explains why there is a strong correlation between solar and temps (and the resulting argument resulting from the thesis that solar flux is not strong enough to explain this).
So anyone got correlations between the earths magnetosphere changes and temps?
cheers
Arnost
Some more stuff on the Galactic Cosmic Ray from Nir Shaviv is [url=http://www.sciencebits.com/CosmicRaysClimate]here[/url].
P.S. Testing to see if link tags work here…
cheers
Arnost
Nope, didn’t work. Here’s the long link…
http://www.sciencebits.com/CosmicRaysClimate
cheers
Arnost
Jen,
Reporting back. The paper mentioned by Nature as published too late to be included in AR4 is indeed the paper Luke mentioned. Measurements were taken by balloons, not by satellites as I’d thought.
Abstract:
“We report an undocumented major warming of the Antarctic winter troposphere that is larger than any previously identified regional tropospheric warming on Earth. This result has come to light through an analysis of recently digitized and rigorously quality controlled Antarctic radiosonde observations. The data show that regional midtropospheric temperatures have increased at a statistically significant rate of 0.5- to 0.7-Celsius per decade over the past 30 years. Analysis of the time series of radiosonde temperatures indicates that the data are temporally homogeneous.
The available data do not allow us to unambiguously assign a cause to the tropospheric warming at this stage.”
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/upload/2006/03/science-turner-2006.pdf
Ian Mott, the mystery of why the Southern hemisphere has not warmed up as much as the Northern is explained by the characteristics of its seas and their greater area. Contrary to your logic that greater absorption of visible light will equal greater temperature of the oceans, the greater depth of absorption of light and the higher heat capacity of water, along with convection and currents tend to lower the surface temperature of the oceans cf land where heating is more a surface effect which can be dissipated deeper into the earth only by conduction.
As to your theories on changes in evaporation rates, etc due to expanded agriculture, I am not so sure. Recently many parts of the world have suffered de-forestation. To my understanding trees transpire more than grass and most crops so that this change works against increased evaporation/transpiration. Similarly, while the area of agricultural land, rice paddies, etc has increased this has been counter-balanced by draining of swamps, flood mitigation, etc and even reclamation of land from the sea.
Thanks, Ian K, Until recently I shared your view that de-forestation reduces evapotranspiration. In fact it is still the case when a simple change to normal grazing takes place. But it is not the case when irrigation is added to the mix.
On the Murray, for example, a conversion from forest to native pasture in a 500mmRF zone would involve a reduction in transpiration from about 490mm to 475mm. This is because in that sort of country the forest is very open woodland with few trees anyway.
But when irrigation is added to a new dairy farming operation, with introduced grasses, fertiliser and trace elements etc, total transpiration will increase almost to the upper limit defined by pan evaporation. That is, about 1600mm a year if the water is available.
And most of this will be in the summer when the warming potential of the water is most pronounced. So there is a minimum three fold increase in soil moisture which would offset the reduction from deforestation on an area 100 times greater. And in Australia and much of Africa and South America, swamps are seasonal, and even cyclical, being dry for the rest of the time. The draining of these are also associated with irrigation and/or moisture retention strategies that can more than offset the water fluxes.
And this raises an interesting question. What is the radiative forcing of a tonne of soil moisture in comparison with a tonne of CO2? Especially bearing in mind that a tonne of soil moisture may only last a month while the tonne of CO2 will last much longer.
Nicely put, Arnost.
Connelly and RC looked for the wrong correlations.
Yes, don’t forget, like RC do, that it’s the high energy 10 Gev comsic rays that are important.
It’s a pity recent solar cycle variations don’t correspond with temperature then, isn’t it.
Nexus,
The link provided by Arnost above includes a graph indicating a correlation over geological time?
What does a plot of solar cycles versus temperature for the last 100 years look like?
Arnost,
Thanks. Your comments helped sort some of the information for me.
PS The graph in the article linked to by Arnost refers to ‘cosmic ray flux’ not solar cycles. But solar cycles should be a good proxy for cosmic ray flux??
Nexus6,
So how do you interpret Fig 3 in the last reference by Arnost then.?
Solar cycle amplitude (no. of sunspots/year) has been falling since the 50s.
http://www.ips.gov.au/Educational/2/3/6
Either plot the whole thing or look for the years with the big M next to them. I’ve a plot on my site but don’t have time to look for it now.
Nexus6
Well when you do, why not overlay the sunspot graph onto Figure 3 of,
http://www.sciencebits.com/CosmicRaysClimate
and tell us what you see.
I’m interested with the obsession on these posts about keeping an open mind on global warming.
For example, If CO2 was not a cause of warming, would you all like to continue sucking down car fumes? Would you not have solar hot water on principle, even if it was the best option financially?
Anthony,
There is no obsession with keeping an open mind about global warming … apparently the debate is over on this one. 🙂
I was just suggesting we keep an open mind on the cosmic ray theory.
You and Al Gore might want to save the earth. But I am not convinced you understand her.
More on correlations from Sun and Bradley (2002):
Svensmark and Friis-Christensen [1997] proposed a “cosmic ray-cloud cover” hypothesis that cosmic ray flux, modulated by solar activity, may modify global cloud cover and thus global surface temperature by increasing the number of ions in the atmosphere, leading to enhanced condensation of water vapor and cloud droplet formation. We evaluate this idea by extending their period of study and examining long-term surface-based cloud data (from national weather services and the Global Telecommunication System) as well as newer satellite data (International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP) D2, 1983-1993). No meaningful relationship is found between cosmic ray intensity and cloud cover over tropical and extratropical land areas back to the 1950s. The high cosmic ray-cloud cover correlation in the period 1983-1991 over the Atlantic Ocean, the only large ocean area over which the correlation is statistically significant, is greatly weakened when the extended satellite data set (1983-1993) is used. Cloud cover data from ship observations over the North Atlantic, where measurements are denser, did not show any relationship with solar activity over the period 1953-1995, though a large discrepancy exists between ISCCP D2 data and surface marine observations. Our analysis also suggests that there is not a solid relationship between cosmic ray flux and low cloudiness as proposed by Marsh and Svensmark [2000].
Nexus6
Except that the stuff quoted by you is out of date, and even the exchange between Nir Shaviv and RC goes well beyond.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/05/thank-you-for-emitting/#comment-13470
I’m not sure of your point. The RC quote has nothing to do with S & B’s paper. Sun and Bradley’s work indicates that your special figure 3 is potentially misleading. Perhaps you could point out what is wrong with Sun and Bradley’s conclusions. The science may have moved on but, hey, I’m a little slow some times.
Anthony / Jennifer, if I may…
In contrast to Jennifer 5:59 PM, I believe that there is an obsession. The obsession however, is not simply with “keeping an open mind re global warming”. It’s a bit more complex than that…
I would hazard the following guesses:
-the majority of the regular bloggers here accept the fact of global warming
-the majority of the regular bloggers here accept the fact that CO2 contributes to global warming
-the majority of the regular bloggers here accept the fact that that CO2 levels have increased due to anthropogenic causes.
So why then do we seize on anything that attempts to disprove that what we accept?
Why do we insist on “keeping an open mind”? Why do we seize on anything that casts the merest shadow of a doubt on CO2 as a contributor to global warming? Why are we so contrarian?
Most of us don’t have a deep understanding of the physics / mathematics behind climate science, and we just throw cherry picked links to science papers / journo articles that appear to support our point of view at each other. And, as there are literally hundreds of thousands of peer reviewed papers (some with no data or algorithm backup) that show anything anyone wants to prove, we don’t achieve much.
Do we do this just because we don’t just accept the premise that CO2 is the primary driver of climate change? And even though the “skeptics” on this site will immediately subscribe to this point of view, I think their real motivation is a bit deeper.
I think it is fair to say that (and I stand to be corrected) the majority of the regular bloggers on this site don’t accept that Kyoto is the answer to Global Warming.
And this is the crux of the issue.
Kyoto with its emissions restrictions directives and the imposed carbon cap trading / carbon tax schemes will not solve the problem even if it does exist – and this is openly acknowledged. Even if the Annex 1 countries cut emissions, it won’t make much difference unless the non Annex 1 countries do likewise – and so far, they’ve refused because that might jeopardize their economic growth and poverty-reduction efforts.
Additionally, the non Annex 1 countries stand to benefit in a massive way – the emissions cap / trade requirement is not a zero sum game. It is possible and indeed likely that the most countries will exceed their emissions quota, and they will have to buy carbon credits. Consider the case of China which is building a “dirty” coal powered powerstation every five days. It can sell carbon credits to the tune of billions of dollars simply by installing cheap technology used in the west to clean coal powerstation emissions.
The “activist” alarmists supporting Kyoto are much better at fund-raising than the skeptics (a point frequently overlooked) and theirs is the voice most often heard, and the silent majority by its silence therefore gives tacit support to the alarmists.
And the media has seized on this and done the world a great disservice by characterizing the climate change debate as “global warming: yes or no”! (“Black vs. white” dichotomies are endemic in journalism – without them there’s no interest, and therefore no sales and therefore no advertising revenue).
They have falsely divided the scientific community into two camps, and placed the both sides in camps that never really existed. This has allowed the science to be politicised and ideologically driven.
(With respect to scientists, there are a few alarmists, and there are a few skeptics. The vast majority try to do their science as objectively as possible, and have no strong opinions on climate policy).
And even though the media understand Kyoto’s limitations and the fact that it will do severe economic damage to Australia, they are nevertheless driving the Kyoto concept because they know that it may well decide the next election. And Labor has a clear platform. They will ratify Kyoto the day after they get sworn in – and that it will pass the Senate with the support of the Greens and Democrats is a given.
And the danger is that once Kyoto is rattified, and we inevitably fail to meet our emission targets, a non Annex 1 country can sue us under our laws for damages done, or to enforce us to “buy” their carbon credits.
IT IS THIS THREAT THAT OBSESSES US. And the only way we can counter it is to discredit the foundation on which it stands. This is why we obsessively seize on any new paper that suggests that CO2 is not the primary driver of global warming, why we insist on being “open minded” etc – all in the hope that it will make Kyoto unnecessary.
Consider the following classic ‘5-steps to becoming a despot’:
1. Adopt a noble cause
2. Exaggerate the threat to that noble cause
3. Aggressively demonize those who disagree
4. Claim to have the only solution to the threat
5. Demand that the population give up wealth, rights or both in order to be saved!
Then consider these with respect to global warming:
1. The noble cause is avoiding a climate change catastrophe.
2. Nearly everything about the threat is exaggerated.
3. The demonization of skeptics is so prevalent that it needs no edification. When the claims are questioned, the skeptics are told to prove the statement wrong! This is hardly a rational request and is a common tactic among those engaged in propaganda.
4. When AGW crisis folks talk about a solution, they are talking about restricting CO2 emissions. They may give lip service to a few other things, but world conferences are all about restricting emissions. It is currently viewed as the only real solution.
5. The calls for sacrifice to prevent the disaster of global warming are never ending!
What is more dangerous? A world that is a couple of degrees warmer but we are free, or a world that is a couple of degrees warmer but we enslaved by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and it’s bureaucracy.
cheers
Arnost
Well I just graphed sunspot numbers and can’t see the correlation with temperature in the last 30 years? Maybe someone can explain. And so if the cosmic ray flux (from the cosmos not the Sun) is being moderated by that inserting a flat input would change something – how?
And in terms of cloudiness – then why is the Antarctic Peninsula warming?
So I’m just flicking through 37 international abstracts on state of the analysis on Southern Annular Mode, polar vortex, ozone, greenhouse etc in the southern hemisphere (recent Southern Annular Mode workshop) . Lots of work linking SAM to atmospheric circulations and major changes in ocean currents.
The cosmic boys are going to have to some serious talking to explain all these changes.
Sorry reference here: http://www.amos.org.au/conf2007/AMOS07_ABSTRACTS.pdf
Southern Annular abstracts in the back. Some of the ocean current research is quite jaw-dropping IMO.
The link to CO2 is simple. Increased solar/cosmic ray activity excites animals such as humans into higher levels of activity.
We correlate with the cosmic rays and produce CO2.
Jennifer, me and Al Gore don’t understand whats good for the planet? Hmmm, not sure how you reach this conclusion?
I don’t like breathing car fumes on my walk to work every morning.
I don’t understand why someone who owns a house and/or has the capital doesn’t buy solar hot water because in the long term, it is a better financial option than any alternative.
The conclusion? Me and Al Gore don’t understand the planet. Please entertain me with your logic on this.
As for Arnost, I’m not sure if you are on the same planet as the rest of us? Apparently we are faced with the choice of freedom or slavery in the form of UN sanctions.
Very interesting post Arnost, well worth a ponder!
Arnost: interesting thesis but I can’t agree.
I won’t go into people’s motivations, although I am sure that people’s main motivations are economic. Every well-off Westerner benefits from emitting and the level of their emissions roughly line up with their incomes. I think all of us naturally resist GW because if we accept the theory we will need to change and we are afraid that we will suffer economically directly or indirectly.
However to paraphrase your thesis on Kyoto: Western countries are afraid of third world countries taking us to court over our emissions and that it is useless trying to do any thing about GW because the Chinese, etc just won’t listen.
I think you are turning the power relationships on their head here. As I see it the UN is pretty powerless. I suspect many countries may miss their targets and nothing will happen about it. John Howard seems to be saying that we will meet our target (admittedly we got a special deal) so that I don’t see why we need fear the first round of Kyoto. I see it as no more than an exercise in good faith. The Western nations, who, of course, caused the problem, would all join up and show the way, at least symbolically.
So why do we not need to fear the actions of less-developed countries? Taking China, two of the main drivers of its economy are exports to the West and direct foreign investment by Western countries in its economy. A united West thus has great leverage over China, although I admit that we need to be indirect about it. China has the high moral ground because it didn’t create this problem and it will bargain hard on it. Furthermore we have cheered her on and encouraged her to follow our wasteful example. China will play hardball to get direct financial assistance from the West and quite rightly so as we benefit so much from her cheap exports. China’s big economic advantage is its hard-working, cheap, labour force. This advantage will not be lost because of paying extra for energy.
Ian K, thanks for your reply,
I don’t disagree with most of what you said, however, I think the core difference between our viewpoints hangs on your statement “As I see it the UN is pretty powerless. I suspect many countries may miss their targets and nothing will happen about it”.
I also believe that many countries will miss their targets, but I think that something WILL happen if we sign Kyoto – because this WILL give the UN the power.
I suspect that one of the drivers underlying the push towards Kyoto is that it is an ideal mechanism to achieve redistribution of wealth from the free market (Annex 1) countries to the others. OK, morally one probably can’t fault the sentiment – however consider that it is this wealth that has allowed the technological advances over the last century plus.
If you entrench Kyoto into law then this redistribution of wealth becomes inevitable #, and all that you will achieve is making everyone the same “poor”. You will have eliminated the surplus wealth that is currently being invested / risked in new technology and science! And what for? A negligible (and I mean one or two tenths of a degree C) reduction in average global temps over the next 100 years…?
I believe that even if Global Warming is a threat, the answer is not in reducing our standard of living. The answer lies in adaptation – and this will take a massive amount of capital. Capital investment into fusion technology research, capital investment into reducing / sequestering pollution, and capital investment into better land / water management (the list goes on…). If we have a choice between saving human lives or saving the environment – the choice will always be human lives. If you have surplus wealth, you can do both! Under Kyoto, this option is taken away becasue the surplus wealth has been redistributed / diluted.
And this is why we just can’t (even symbolically) go down the Kyoto route. We are riding on a knife edge where the advances in technology offset the increases in human population. You can take away the technology immediately, BUT you can’t stop the population increase immediately – and the consequence of stopping investment in technology in terms of human lives lost will make the consequences of a 3 degree increase in av. temps (with technology investment at current rates) pale to insignificance.
Prediction – Al Gore will wait until the US summer and in the midst of destruction casused by whatever convenient natural disaster (flood / tornado / hurricane) will declare his intention to run for President – and because Giuliani is pro gay / pro abortion, he will win. Kevin Rudd will use Climate Change as the core election platform – and because of the left leaning media here drumming the AGW mantra and being anti-Liberal, he will win. And Kyoto’s in place.
I restate what I said previously: “IT IS THIS THREAT THAT OBSESSES US. And the only way we can counter it is to discredit the foundation on which it stands.”
#. If a nation that’s entrenched Kyoto into law chooses not to comply with the penalties imposed under Kyoto – unlucky bucky – that nation’s legal system will ensure that compliance / damages are enforced. This means that either there is a transfer of wealth by way of a forced purchase of carbon credits from non Annex 1 countries (they have only the upside) or a transfer of wealth by forcing industry to move to countries where there is no “carbon tax”. And what is worse, the measures that will be used to determine how much wealth should be redistributed are seriously flawed (just ask Motty) and further, will be under the aegis of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its bureaucracy – which set this scheme up in the first place!
Cheers
Arnošt
Arnost – don’t worry too much.
Fail to reach a good agreement among the major CO2 producing nations – nothing will happen.
Very few citizens will be prepared to do what’s required to reduce CO2 emissions. Any political party that goes too far will simply be voted out of office at the next election.
Pity the global atmosphere doesn’t recognise our policy or political frameworks.
So you will be adapting (or not).
Arnost
thats strange, as that’s what I thought the denialists were doing.
Luke / SJT,
From the World Bank’s “STATE AND TRENDS OF THE CARBON MARKET 2006” (link below) here are some pertinent numbers.
http://carbonfinance.org/docs/StateoftheCarbonMarket2006.pdf
Size of market:
The overall value of the global aggregated carbon markets was over US$10 billion in 2005. In the first quarter of 2006, overall transactions worth US$7.5 billion had led some to predict that this new financial market would be valued at between US$25-30 billion in 2006,
Who are the Buyers of Carbon Credits 2005 to 1st Q 2006(Section 5.3):
Buyers based in Europe (56% of volumes versus 41% in 2004) and Japan (38% versus 36%)
completely dominated the market for project-based transactions in 2005.
Who are the Sellers of Carbon Credits 2005 to 1st Q 2006 (Section 5.4):
Asia accounted for the largest share (73%) of contracted volume of project-based transactions
signed between January 2005 and March 2006. China alone accounted for 66% of global volume.
On these numbers then if the size of the carbon markets was USD 30 bio over calendar yr 2006, then at 66% China would have got a wealth transfer of USD 20 bio! And how much CO2 was eliminated / reduced? – exactly zero! What is the future temperature reduction? – exactly zero.
If this is the size of the market where the principal buyers / seller are in the private market – i.e. companies doing this voluntarily – what will happen when it’s forced on the national / government level?
The way it’s set up, it’s nothing but a rort of the highest order designed to do naught else but transfer wealth from the free market countries.
What if we actually invested this wealth into fusion (and other “alternate”) energy research? Would this not be such a better outcome?
Need I say more?
Arnost
I’m not campaigning for inappropriate carbon credit markets !
Interesting document Arnost: I will have to try to get around to reading it properly. How do you justify this statement, though: “And how much CO2 was eliminated / reduced? – exactly zero!”
From my quick read, most activity is around reducing CFCs (which also helps with the ozone hole problem). But your statement implies that the system is completely corrupt and there is no environmental benefit. That doesn’t seem to be what the authors are saying: what is your justification for that?
I will have to think about this wealth transfer thing. I am not sure that it is as straight forward as you think. To my mind our recent prosperity in Australia has been to a large part due to cheap imports of consumer goods, etc from, mainly, China. You could argue the exploitation has been very much the other way around. What if the extra money that China makes encourages them to flood the Australian market with such things as cheap solar hot water heaters? I think that we would all benefit.
Arnost,
try not to worry about the whole transfer of wealth thing. The developed nations will just cut aid to the developing world equivalent to what they pay in carbon markets. Besides, $25bUSD is around 5% of Oz GDP, so it’s a pretty tiny market.
You can continue to hide under your bunker with cans of soup and tomatoes if you like or you can get out and enjoy the congested developed world air.
Jennifer, I’m still waiting to be entertained by your logic?
so 25 billion is not a significant sum of money!!!??? Tell that to those without access to fresh water or electricity……
Toby, $25bUSD is not significant for the developed world. Arnost implies we are being conned into financing the developing world at our own expense.
I would argue cheap labour due to labour laws (or lack thereof) and deflated currencies are a far greater ‘threat’ to the inflated complacent ego’s of the developed world than emissions trading would ever be.
Arnost, have you not tried Yum Cha or a good Rogan Josh?
Anthony, the trouble is this 25 billion is not going to have any impact on climate change. Yes 25 b is a small sum of money as a % of GDP of the top 50 economies of the world….for the other 130 odd countries it is very significant. If this money was used to alleviate water problems it would actually have a very beneficial effect to mankind.
Of course you could argue we don t want to help them because more people equals more co2 and what we really need to do is to cull a significant chunk of the worlds population (I doubt many of us/ you included would support this).
How is it that China can sell carbon credits…when it is a huge part of the future problems that may avail if co2 is the cause of GW? Surely this is a con and an example of how difficult to police a carbon trading scheme will be?!
Repost from my 21/02 post to Nexus6 http://n3xus6.blogspot.com/
There’s an interesting experiment being run out of the Big Bear Solar Observatory by the New Jersey Institute of Technology. http://www.bbso.njit.edu/
This is the Earthshine Project, which measures the Earth’s albedo by measuring the amount of sunlight reflected from the Earth and, in turn, back to the Earth from the dark portion of the face of the Moon.
A graph of the results (top right of link below) looks to me like it corresponds nicely with measured temps over the last 20 years.
http://www.bbso.njit.edu/ science…ence_may28.html
What’s more, they suggest that the forcing due to albedo is understated in climate similations vis a vis observations.
“…Solar and terrestrial changes are in phase and contribute to a greater power going into the climate system at activity maximum. However, the effect of the albedo is more than an order of magnitude greater. Our simulations suggest a surface average forcing at the top of the atmosphere, coming only from changes in the albedo from 1994/1995 to 1999/2001, of 2.7+-1.4 W/m2 (Palle et al., 2003), while observations give 7.5+-2.4 W/m2. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 1995) argues for a comparably sized 2.4 W/m2 increase in forcing, which is attributed to greenhouse gas forcing since 1850…”[page 4 of the report]]
More solar activity = Less Cosmic Ray influence = Less Clouds = Higher Temps.
The jury’s still out!
cheers
Arnost
Toby, I’m not sure what 25b would do to alleviate water problems to be honest. Apparently we need about $10b in Oz and that will amount to pretty much squat unless we get signficiant rain where its needed. I don’t know enough about water issues aronud the world to comment so I’ll stay out of it.
More people does not necessarily mean more CO2, although historically this has been the case. We have technology and systems that can decouple population and economic growth from emissions growth. The challenge is doing this quickly enough to limit predicted adverse effects from climate change.
Per head, China emits between about 1-2 tonne CO2. Australia emits about 27 tonne CO2 per head. From an equity perspective, they can tell us to get stuffed. They also manufcature the worlds finished products (well pretty much anyway). That is emission intensive industry which we wash our hands of while reaping the benefits (cheap imports).
The way carbon markets are structured, least cost offsets will be bought. Money won’t prejudice the conutry or the project where offsets are available. It’ll just go where its cheapest.
I’m not sure what you think is a con?
Meanwhile on planet Arnost, the moon is reflecting light back to earth from its DARK side. Arnost, tell me you mistyped or something. Most dark surfaces are dark because they absorb light, not reflect it.
Arnost, did you realise the Big Bear Boffins are taking on IPCC report of 1995?
Anthony – my, you ARE in an agressive mood aren’t you?
Your previous post:
Nothing much changed since IPCC 1995 – the weighting of the forcing is unchanged…
The post before that:
With respect to your comment re “Most surfaces are dark because they absorb light…” Get real – the moon can be so bright it casts a shadow when it reflects SUNSHINE. This fact can be empirically proven by me.
Earthshine Project is about measuring the light that is reflected from the Earth on to the Moon and then back to Earth – EARTHSHINE. If it can reflect SUNSHINE, why can’t it refelct EARTHSHINE?
As a proxy, it’s far sight better than any of the proxies that are that are IPCC mainstream – such as treerings, ice cores and formaminafera, all of which all can respond to a multitude of other envornomental factors… What else other than reflected sunlight from the Earth will cause a brightening / dimming of the face of the moon that is not facing the sun?
Please grow up and be a bit more constructive…
cheers
Arnost