In 1610 Galileo observed dark features on the face of the sun – sunspots. In the preface to a little book Galileo wrote on sunspots that was published in 1613, he was credited with having discovered sunspots but an Englishman, Thomas Harriott, and a Dutchman, Johann Fabricius, probably beat him to that discovery.
What we do know is that since the invention of the telescope, Europeans have been keenly observing sunspot activity and some have been correlating it with global temperatures.*
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) publishes the mean monthly sunspot number back to January 1749.
There were no sunspots during a period of unusual cold in the northern hemisphere known as the Maunder Minimum which extended some 70 years from 1645 to 1715.
Because the number of sunspots has shown a general trend of decline since March 2006 there has been much chatter amongst global warming skeptics with some suggesting that we are perhaps in for an extended period of cooling
Now there is more excitement, because August 2008 appears to be the first month since June 1913 without a sunspot.
[But perhaps I should wait until there is a zero recorded at the official NOAA site before announcing this?]
David H. Hathaway, Solar Physics Team Leader at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, has suggested that this solar cycle 24 is just taking a while to get started.
Habibullo I. Abdussamatov, head of the space research laboratory of the Russian Academies of Sciences’ Pulkovo Observatory and of the International Space Station’s Astrometry project, has predicted for some time that because of low solar activity we may be entering another period similar to the late 17th century and that this may start in 2012-2015 and reach its peak in 2055-2060.**
————————————————-
* Why few sunspots could correlate with low tempertures by Richard Mackey:
“The Earth’s geomagnetic field provides a buffer against solar radiation, the solar wind and radiation of all types generated elsewhere in the Universe. The field’s strength depends on solar output and the lunisolar tides. A stronger geomagnetic field will deflect more cosmic radiation than a weaker one.
“A highly active Sun can make the geomagnetic field stronger; a relative inactive Sun will make it weaker. Other things being equal, a strong geomagnetic field contributes to a warmer climate; a weaker field to a cooler climate. But the effect may not be uniform across the planet. Currently, the geomagnetic field seems to be weakening, contributing to global cooling.
“The heliosphere, and the termination shock sphere within it, deflects cosmic radiation. The Earth’s geomagnetic field also deflects cosmic radiation. The strength of the heliosphere depends on the Sun’s activity levels. High levels of solar activity reduce the volume of cosmic rays entering the Earth’s atmosphere, contributing to global warming. High levels of solar activity generate more turbulence in the heliosphere scattering galactic cosmic rays before they reach the inner planets. Conversely, a greater volume of cosmic rays enter our atmosphere during times of low solar activity because the Heliospheric magnetic fields are smoother with less scattering of galactic cosmic rays, resulting in global cooling.”
(from ‘Much more to the Earth’s Climate than human activity’, Submission to the Garnaut Climate Change Review by Richard Mackey, February 2008)
** Lawrence Solomon profiled Dr Abdussamtov in a piece entitled Look to Mars for the truth on global warming, The Deniers — Part IX, Financial Post Published: Friday, February 02, 2007.
Published papers by Dr Abudssamotov predicting cooling include: ‘Optimal Prediction of the Peak of the Next 11-Year Activity Cycle and the Peaks of several Succeeding Cycles on the basis of Long-Term Variations in the Solar Radius or Solar Constant’, Kinematics and Physics of Celestial Bodies, 2007, Vol. 23, No. 3, pp 97-100, and ‘Long-Term variations of the Integral radiation Flux and Possible Temperature Changes in the Solar Core’, Kinematics and Physics of Celestial Bodies, Vol. 21, No. 6, pp. 328-332, 2005.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Gee – greenhouse CO2 based warming must be powerful stuff – heapum big medicine for such a teensy weensy widdle gas – 5th warmest July on record – Arctic going crazy with melting – and with no sun spots and coming out a La Nina and a PDO change? Warming probably about to go through the roof.
What are the increasing isolated and desperate climate creation cultists going to do ? Probably start another another coal-ition web site ! Sign up more retired geologists.
{and why didn’t Duffy pay me for the PETM as evidence – probably coz I don’t exist}
Luke… Come on… It’s the sun, stupid.
LUKE & NT.
Did you know that the Sun provides 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of the heat to drive the planets climate?
Worth noting that during the long minimum of 1910-1914 the sunspot number was below 10 for 39 out of 40 months, but the solar maximum that followed was higher than the previous three maxima. The current lull (below 10 for 13 of last 14 months) may not, of itself, be a good predictor of anything, not yet anyway.
Of course it does. But that’s not energy balance. e.g. if the Earth was much bright or darker then the temperature would be different.
i.e. a specious argument
Let’s not get confused by the facts eh?
Sydney has shivered through its coldest August in 64 years.
The harbour city had an average maximum temperature during the month of 17 degrees celsius, slightly below the long-term normal of 18.
The average overnight temperature also was down one degree to eight degrees, according to the Weatherzone.com.au figures.
With the average minimum and maximum temperatures combined, Sydney’s average temperature during the month came in at 12.7 degrees.
Weatherzone.com.au meteorologist Matt Pearce said while it was a sliver below the long-term normal of 13.3 degrees it was the coldest August since 1944.
“We have seen a prolonged period of very cold air across southeast Australia in general this August,” Mr Pearce said.
“This has resulted in one of the best snow seasons in recent years in the Snowy Mountains, but has also kept Sydneysiders shivering.”
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24270495-29277,00.html
And this my friends, is just one of several reasons why the wily Russian science establishment, while jovially allowing their more wet-behind-the-ears juniors to access some of those lovely Western grant funds by riding along on the Western AGW bandwagon, spend their evenings quietly snickering into their vodkas and telling Dimitri and Vladimir to ‘keep their cool on AGW’.
Dimitri and Vladimir can easily afford to do this of course, in the full knowledge that Russia is sitting on as much oil and gas as Saudi Arabia (while the latter pump Gulf seawater into their oil and gas fields to keep the illusion alive and so their elite can continue to max out on conspicuous consumption), but with over 95% of it still in the ground!
Meanwhile, the US and European AGW science establishment thinks it is going to ride the Great Obama Show into a glorious future of unlimited grants and never-ending apocalypse.
On the ‘wet’ coast of Canada (Vancouver) we have recently had the coldest June on record. July started warm for about 2 days then cooled off. August has been miserable.
When I stuck my head out the door last night, I could feel the first chill of Autumn, an effect we get here from cold air moving down from the north. Normally we can expect summerish weather till mid-September, and there are years, called Indian Summers, where the warmth extend to October.
The chill I felt last night is abnormal. I’m not talking about the normal cool air of Autumn. We get a distinct cold that is indicative of Arctic air as opposed to that coming off the Pacific.
The year 2008 has been noticeably colder than recent years, going back at least 20 years. I think there is something to the lack of sunspots.
Luke et al are obviously, right the Sun can not have any effect on the world temperature. Let us switch it off somehow because it is so obviously unecessary. The sun spot activity has a correlation to world temperature so since it can not be anything to do with the Sun it must be climate change causing the sun spots. Shame on you poluting heretics who conveniently ignore the obvious. Repent and believe for the alarmists are the true way and the sooner we do the sooner we will end up with nuclear power.
Luke, you know that there is a time lag, the oceans do appear to be cooling marginally and when they do , your arctic ice will stop melting.
Maybe the hot spot you believers need will show up…until then, be grateful that “mothernature” has warmed up the world a bit for us all…..
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24271305-3102,00.html
“Brisbane records coldest August in eight years”
Obviously Luke was en-pixellated in August
“Now there is more excitement, because August 2008 appears to be the first month since June 1913 without a sunspot.”
I had a solar keratosis appear on my forearm during August…Does that count?
Gordon
Where I live, Halls Creek in the Kimberley, the weather has been different – the wet seasons seems a little early – rained last night and last week as well. And it’s cooler than normal as well.
Gordon ditto for Calgary our summer has geen virtually non existant and today was more like october than august. The entire world has been reporting unusually cold weather for the last 20 months. I do not think that the sunspot absence reacts that quickly though, historically there is at least a 4 to 5 year lag, the ocean currents do have a much more immediate impact, again reference Joe D’Aleo’s many publications see icecap.us. The NASA sun spot predictions are split right down the middle still because in the past a long minimum has been followed by a high maximum but as Graeme pointed out although cycle 24 may spike there is evidence that cycle 25 could be really weak. It is still a heck of a guessing game and I am not ashamed to admit it because we just do not have enough historical data and the entire solar science is still very much in its infancy. That being said we are able to reconstruct the suns performance using isotopic analysis quite a long way back what we do not know is why the sun varies. I still think it has a lot to do with the gravitational forces throughout the solar system, is it just a coincidence that the sun has 11 year cycles which is the approximate orbit time of Jupiter, I know it is correlation which proves nothing but it is a start.
Luke – “…5th warmest July on record…”
The surface and satellite records are really divergent on this. RSS and UAH saw it as average to cool.
If you told average Joe on the street that we just had the 5th warmest July on record, they really wouldn’t believe you.
“Gee – greenhouse CO2 based warming must be powerful stuff – heapum big medicine for such a teensy weensy widdle gas – 5th warmest July on record – Arctic going crazy with melting – and with no sun spots and coming out a La Nina and a PDO change? Warming probably about to go through the roof.”
Makes you wonder how this idiot even so much as makes it to work. By the way it was the coldest Sydney August in decades. It wasn’t the fifth warmest july on record thats ridiculous. And the ice has frozen up from last year. So nothing is particularly unusual for a time period where the oceans HAVE ONLY JUST FALLLEN FROM THEIR PEAK WARMTH.
How did you get to be this stupid? Are the left-wingers all those people who had a dotty aunty that dropped them on their head?
I’ll tell you what you retarded leftist morons. Go get some ice now. Run a bath one fifth full of cold water. Put the ice down the far end. Try to hold it there somehow. Then turn the hot tap on and push some of the hot water up there and sea if the ice melts. Then see if the experiment inspires you any.
Truly. How did you get to be such blockheads? You NT. Speak up? What was your story and how did you get to be such a moron?
Don’t waste your posts referring to solar lag in responding to ignorati like Luke. Even high priest James Hansen chants on the same immediacy ignorance when brainwashing the press; Luke only follows what he learns from that pulpit. In private, Hansen knows better; the same cannot be said for Luke.
I’m not trying to educate that idiot. Thats like trying to teach a down syndrome chimp to write murder mysteries. But third parties need to know what is actually going on. Before the weather cools and the CO2 levels plateau and head down, damaging agriculture severely.
It’s the year 2020 and the globe has still “refused” to warm up. Report from NASA: But it’s still the 99th warmest year ever.
ROFLMAO!!
# Based on preliminary data, the globally averaged combined land and sea surface temperature was the fifth warmest on record for July and the ninth warmest for the January-July year-to-date period.
# July 2008 temperatures were above average in Japan, the British Isles, northwestern Africa, the northwestern and northeastern continental U.S., and most of South America, Europe, Australia, and Asia.
Obviously not enough work is being done on the study of UHI effects then Luke…..?
You would have to agree, that if there is a heat bias in the data, then there would be an incorrect conclusion drawn from that data. Which would then show a slightly higher level of temperature…… Would you not agree?
2008 is set to be the coldest year this millenium, obviously “global warming” must be real!!
ROFLMAO!!
Luke doesn’t believe in UHI. Well, actually he does but thinks it should have all happened “a while back” (i.e. preceding satellite measurements).
What he does or doesn’t realise, is that many people maintaing these temperature sites are well intentioned but also completely clueless. The number of surface stations positioned beside A/C units is mind boggling. The older the site, the more prone it is to being modified.
Luke, the trend is still pretty unimpressive over the past 10 years…what’s your point?
Joel, if you look at where the warming is happening you’ll see it’s mostly at sea and in non-urban areas (like Siberia).
UHI at Baffin Island. WTF?
And now UHI heatwaves – yea for sure dudes !
Look it’s obviously turned the corner and it’s now warming. How can July be that warm in solar gloom with La Nina and PDO changes. You guys are ignoring the facts.
How can this be with no sun spots?
July 23, 2008 Summer heat that is fairly typical in other parts of Canada is a rare phenomenon in Iqaluit, which is in the middle of an Arctic heat wave.
Residents say daytime temperatures consistently above 20 C have never been felt before in the Baffin Island region, where the Nunavut capital is located.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2008/07/23/iqaluit-heat.html
Heat wave claims 8 lives in Japan
The warmest weather was reported in Tajimi, Gifu Prefecture, where temperatures reached 102.2 degrees, and in Tokai, Aichi Prefecture, where it was 101.12 degrees, Kyodo News reported.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/07/27/Heat_wave_claims_8_lives_in_Japan/UPI-44671217199361/
Temperature Records Fall as June Heat Wave Continues
Today’s temperatures, averaging more then ten degrees above normal, broke records across Georgia and the eastern seaboard, as the heat wave we’re in continues.
http://www.lawrencevilleweather.com/blog/2008/06/temperature-records-fall-june-heat-wave.html
4 dead in Texas heatwave
odeo.com/episodes/23148291-Texas-Suffers-Record-Heat-Wave
CO2 powerful medicine. Remember the PETM?
And this Nature paper cinches it:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v454/n7208/abs/nature07223.html
The first 12 months to July 1913 averaged 0.83C cooler than the last 12 months (up to July 2008) – ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/monthly.land_and_ocean.90S.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat. The difference is the enhanced greenhouse effect.
Well done Jen, you have just confirmed for us that the globe has warmed by 0.8C this last century, and you can’t blame it on the sun (sounds awfully like what the IPCC said last year). Welcome to the scientific consensus.
As for UHI, shows us the publications people – oh that’s right sceptics don’t publish except in the papers and on blogs.
Record LOW high temperatures in the USA
August 2008:
Springfield, MO – breaks old record low high temperature of 79 set in 1936
Joplin, MO – breaks old record low high temperature of 76 set in 1952
Vicky-Rolla, MO – breaks old record low high temperature of 75 set in 1900
West Plains, MO – ties the record low high temperature of 72 set in 1995.
July sets two new record lows in Montana
Snow in the summer in Austria
Largest snowfall ever on record in Vancouver, BC. – 21 Apr 08
A White Easter for many in the UK – 23 Mar 08
More than 900 dead in Afghan winter – 130,000 cattle perish -16 Feb 08
Record snowfall in Kashmir – Lowest temps in Mumbai, India in more than 50 years
7 Feb 08
Tajikistan ‘facing catastrophe’ – Coldest winter in five decades – 6 Feb 08
Dozens killed in Iran blizzards – 9 Jan 08
Delhi reels under cold spell, More than 150 people have died as a result of the cold weather – 1 Feb 08
Rare snowstorm hits Middle East – 29 Jan 08
Jerusalem blanketed with heavy snow – 29 Jan 08
Cold kills 60,000 cattle in Vietnam – 26 Feb 08
Food warnings amid China freeze – winter crops wrecked – 31 Jan 08
New round of snow in China kills 12,000 more cattle – 25 Feb 08
New Zealand smashed snow records for this century
Sydney’s Coolest Summer in 50 Years Leaves Empty Cafes, Gloom – 5 Mar 08
Coldest morning in Adelaide since 1983 – 28 July 08
Coldest day in Melbourne, Australia since 1977 – 19 May 08
Record cold around the world and yet us humans keep getting the blame for “global warming”!
………I’m not going to argue that the July anomaly was single-handedly caused from UHI. But WTF NT. Can’t you understand that if UHI did influence the result, cities and supposedly rural sites would read as “average” instead of “cold as hell”?
David,
—“The difference is the enhanced greenhouse effect.”
From 1913 t0 2008 it was all due to AGW —and exactly which piece of your published science unambiguously says so.
Not even that shonk Hansen says this.
Hey david, there’s a plethora of papers published on the subject. Check the references at the end of this post:
http://climatesci.org/2008/08/11/guest-weblog-a-comment-on-the-report-unified-synthesis-product-global-climate-change-in-the-united-states-by-joseph-d-aleo/
Luke’s clincher in Nature is a letter describing a GCM which pupports to explain how the Greenland icecap formed.
Since all GCM’s have CO2 forcing built in, it would be astonishing if any other result was produced.
A smattering:
Davey, C.A., and R.A. Pielke Sr. (2005) “Microclimate Exposures of Surface-based Weather Stations – Implications for the Assessment of Long-term Temperature Trends.” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 86(4) 497–504
Hinkel, K., Nelson, F., Klene, A., Bell, J., 2003, The Urban Heat Island in Winter at Barrow, Alaska International Journal of Climatology, 23, 1889-1905
Pielke Sr., R.A. J. Nielsen-Gammon, C. Davey, J. Angel, O. Bliss, N. Doesken, M. Cai., S. Fall, D. Niyogi, K. Gallo, R. Hale, K.G. Hubbard, X. Lin, H. Li, and S. Raman, 2007: Documentation of uncertainties and biases associated with surface temperature measurement sites for climate change assessment. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 88:6, 913-928.
Zhou, L., Dickinson, R, Tian, Y., Fang, J, Qingziang, L., Kaufman, R, Myneni, R., Tucker, C., 2004, Rapid Urbanization warming China’s climate faster than other areas, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, June 29, 2004
The IPCC’s reliance on such utter junk as Peterson 2003:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1859
to write off UHI effects is just stunning. Peterson’s own data shows a warming bias of about 0.7C over the past 100 years in urban sites compared to rural sites.
Is it any wonder that July 2008 is supposedly the 5th warmest? Sheesh.
Between Anthony Watts and his surface stations project showing that the majority of US temperature monitoring sights are poorly sighted, thereby ensuring substantial UHI effects, and Steve McIntyre showing just how sloppy and rudimentary (and that’s being kind) the UHI adjustment processes are, I would have thought that the average warmer would be too embarrassed to put the letters UHI together in a post.
It is doesn’t seem to be getting warmer the past few years; not setting records. No similar rest in measured CO2 levels though. That’s the thing about telling people a giant fireball is heading their way. Sooner or later, they’ll ask to see it!
“Hey Mabel, you seen that dang global warming thing around here anywhere? I coulda swored I left it out on the porch a few years ago.”
Yes but now it’s warming again after that La Nina has gone expressing the true nature of the warming yet to come.
And fancy quoting D’Aleo after the real truth has been revealed. The ol’ shell game.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/02/03/exclamation-points/
And even the Antarctic is below average (and yet the sun’s dead)
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/S_timeseries.png
And wow – the Arctic is 2nd lowest on record and we have no sunspots and coming out of a La Nina.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
Look at that sucker go !
David said: “has warmed by 0.8C this last century”
People, get some perspective here, the graphs look menacing until you look at the scale!!!
We are talking about less than 1C over a century!!
(and it could go the other way next century)
There are more than ten times the differences in temperature across the worlds regions now, and people and plants survive quite happily.
Further to ‘Alarmists getting mor alarmed’, (above), Sydney has had coldest August since 1944, and Adelaide has just had one of the coldest, if not the coldest August on record.
And earlier in the month, Eucla area in WA recorded a minus six deg., an alltime record low for anywhere in WA!
These events even with the BoM’s “adjusted data”.
The point of quoting D’Aleo was only to show the extensive reference list on UHI. Way to derail Luke.
And what the heck does the “real truth” mean? D’Aleo’s work might not be perfect, but neither is Peterson’s shonky garbage, Parker (2006) http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1718, or Jones et al. (1990) who has mysteriously lost his data. I don’t see Tamino picking at those turds.
The IPCC seem to have chosen every half-baked paper that shows no UHI effect, and ignored the greater literature that shows an appreciable effect.
Luke, your cherry-picking has reached new heights. These are nothing but strawman arguments. You’re clearly a greenie shill. Show me the papers!
Wow, so that’s what it feels like to be an alarmist.
Back to the cherries:
http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/snow-fell-on-mt-fuji-aug-9-at-earliest-time-ever
Desperate guys – the Artic melt is the end of your dreams of sucking on coal chips. No UHI !
You guys are finished.
I mean really – Wilkes is sprouting Jen’s graph nonsense – it’s embarrassing guys. Come on.
Artic melt won’t reach last year’s melt.
Coal and oil will keep on burning till something better comes along, don’t be delusional Luke.
Now why would it have to reach last year’s melt exactly. Is it a polar pissing contest? The fact that it’s VERY low again surely is the issue. And how can this be when the world is cooling according to the non-greenhouse theorists?
Why isn’t the Antarctic a record high again – why is it below average?
That’s like saying a temperature of 40 isn’t as bad as a temperature of 41. The trend is directly down.
Actually, if you look at the graph, it looks just like a hockey stick.
“LUKE & NT.
Did you know that the Sun provides 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of the heat to drive the planets climate?”
Of course, but what’s driving the change?
( I would quiblle with the number of .99999’s, though)
Hmmmm…. Mackey seems to have some seriously mixed-up notions about energy, radiation and magnetism…. let’s have a look, shall we?
“The Earth’s geomagnetic field provides a buffer against solar radiation, the solar wind and radiation of all types generated elsewhere in the Universe.” Only partially true. A magnetic field will deflect charged particles, but has no effect whatsoever on electromagnetic radiation (x-rays, microwaves, gamma rays etc).
“The field’s strength depends on solar output and the lunisolar tides.” What is this nonsense about? The earth’s geomagnetic field is produced via a molten iron core. It has exactly zilch to do with sunspots, solar output or what the current sea level in the Bay of Fundy happens to be.
“A stronger geomagnetic field will deflect more cosmic radiation than a weaker one.” Well, at least he knows THAT much!
“A highly active Sun can make the geomagnetic field stronger; a relative inactive Sun will make it weaker.” And a witch weighs the same as a duck. This is pure fantasy, with no basis in fact. Where does this guy get this stuff?
“Other things being equal, a strong geomagnetic field contributes to a warmer climate; a weaker field to a cooler climate.” Wait, what? Exactly how is this related? The earth’s temperature is the result of a balance between energy intake and energy output. A magnetic field has no effect whatsoever on electromagnetic radiation, which is the driving force behind the earth’s energy budget. The earth radiates heat via infrared radiation, and recieves its energy via a broader spectrum of electromagnetic radiation (with a percentage of internally generated heat from radioactive decay).
“But the effect may not be uniform across the planet.” Score two for Mr. Mackey.
“Currently, the geomagnetic field seems to be weakening, contributing to global cooling.” Ummm… yeah. See 2 points above.
“The heliosphere, and the termination shock sphere within it, deflects cosmic radiation. The Earth’s geomagnetic field also deflects cosmic radiation. The strength of the heliosphere depends on the Sun’s activity levels. High levels of solar activity reduce the volume of cosmic rays entering the Earth’s atmosphere, contributing to global warming.” Ok, he had my attention up until he equated higher levels of incoming radiation with global COOLING. Does everyone see the obvious contradiction here?
“High levels of solar activity generate more turbulence in the heliosphere scattering galactic cosmic rays before they reach the inner planets. Conversely, a greater volume of cosmic rays enter our atmosphere during times of low solar activity because the Heliospheric magnetic fields are smoother with less scattering of galactic cosmic rays, resulting in global cooling.” Same as above, but in reverse.
Now, I’m not saying that sunspots don’t somehow correlate with the earth’s climactic trends. I don’t have the answers I’d like to to make that statement. Mr. Mackey obviously does not either. In fact he’s so far off in the weeds on this, I have to wonder if he’s not flirting with insanity since his marriage to physics and logic is apparently headed towards an ugly divorce…..
Luke,
“CO2 powerful medicine. Remember the PETM?
And this Nature paper cinches it:…”
Thanks for the reminder. Reality is nothing. CO2 levels and Climate Papers written by BELIEVERS are all that is important!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Lets do some simple maths on the UHI.
The globe has warmed by 0.8C the last century.
71% of the earth is ocean. An additional ~10% is covered by ice. That leaves 19% of the earth’s surface which can suffer UHI. Lets pretend that 19% is wall to wall cities all built since 1913.
NOW if global warming is due to UHI then the land has to have warmed by (1/0.19)*0.8C = 4.2C… but wait a further 30% of the world’s land is forest and a further 20% is desert. That means the UHI island must be a truly fantastic 8.4C over the last century.
No prizes for why the sceptics never publish anything about the UHI impact on global temperatures…
Once again Jen, well done on showing the globe has warmed by 0.8C and this warming is not caused by the sun.
As for the resident sceptics, your non-published non-science doesn’t survive the giggle test.
“Now, I’m not saying that sunspots don’t somehow correlate with the earth’s climactic trends. I don’t have the answers I’d like to to make that statement. Mr. Mackey obviously does not either. In fact he’s so far off in the weeds on this, I have to wonder if he’s not flirting with insanity since his marriage to physics and logic is apparently headed towards an ugly divorce…..”
Fair comment. I agree entirely. Mr Wackey is a real scream. The very real worry here though is just what inclusion of his weird science piece tells us about……
The only way the AGW bandwagon is going to be faced down is through the use of good old fashioned cold (!) hard science (empirical or theoretical).
We got into this pickle because post-modernism debased modern scientific rigour and group-think started to displace deep-think.
Every day, in numerous ways, the AGW bandwagon ‘scientists’ urinate on the good work of their less egotistical, more humble peers (whose resentment BTW is slowly but surely rising) AND the good work of their numerous, more rigorous predecessors.
For a recent proof just look at the ‘Greenland’s Ice Follows Dramatic Fall in Carbon Dioxide Levels?’ thread i.e. the ineffably silly Nature ‘paper’ which kicked it off – a truly classic example.
We are never, ever, ever going to face down the AGW catastrophist demon with weird science. You can bank that one!
Luke, you know as well as I do that 50/50 predictions abounded based on the fact that much of this year’s ice would be single-year and easier to melt. Last year was a fluke and the fact that there is a recovery is the relevant fact.
The antarctic is oscillating around an average. Nothing significant there. How’s the trend though? You love those.
Did 1998 or 2005 have the lowest ice levels? Of course not. I hate it when you play stupid.
David, thanks for the useless maths. You’ve of course ignored the papers I brought to your attention. Even rural sites in forests or deserts often have stations beside buildings and asphalt.
No one has stated that UHI accounts for all warming. Even if it were 20% this would be very significant in regards to CO2 forcings.
Coverage is not global. Despite your number of 19% land, I can tell you that UAH uses up to 33% weighting of the land readings for the global average. (Global trend of 0.13, land 0.17, ocean 0.11). Similar procedures are adopted for the other temperature metrics.
Joel the UHI is a scientific fact. It is also a fact that it is a tiny contributor to global warming. Your papers don’t have any relevance to this.
By your reckoning the warming trend is 80% correct. Great… you can now join the consensus!
PS I didn’t say 19% land… land covers 30% (but much of this is ice…).
Ok David, since there seems to be agreement that 0.3-0.5 c of the change is due to natural causes, this does not leave very much for co2’s contribution , does it?
And why is the change in temp so much less than models predict for the increase in co2 that we have seen?
And why has the hot spot predicted failed to eventuate, except by making adjustments?
Quite right Steve, it is essential that we do not do what teh warmers excel at. That is try and create change by manipulation or threat. And any of you believers who do not think either of those points are pertinent better go back and look at some of Hansen’s blatant and deliberate lies.
Hansen has done science no favours and the IPCC reports are riddled with references back to his work.
The models are acknowledged to contain large gaps in there understanding and yet we are supposed to believe there output?
If the facts are so clear, why exagerate?
David – “Joel the UHI is a scientific fact. It is also a fact that it is a tiny contributor to global warming.”
David, every paper the IPCC relies on to show no significant impact from UHI is utter crap. Please show me 1 that’s worth the paper its written on.
Perhaps Joel and Toby can get together, and consolidate your ideas. At the moment you two are all over the place with your denial.
You two are giving “sceptics” a bad name.
David, with you logic its no wonder there are so many sceptics!
you state “By your reckoning the warming trend is 80% correct. Great… you can now join the consensus!” so if we agree on 80% of the agreed 0.7c rise …then we have just over 0.55c of real increase. Now listen carefully….if 0.3-0.5c increase over the last century is natural, that doesnt leave much for co2..does it?
how about answering the questions…oh thats right play the man not the question…or the point….
Come on David, one study. Peterson? Parker?
So far you’ve made a sweeping generalisation that UHI doesn’t matter without supporting it other than with some shonky math.
Toby and Joel, I am not sure what you are debating – perhaps you can sumarise. We are in agreement that UHI does not explain global warming – unless you count Atlantis – and Jen has already shown us that the sun does not explain global warming.
That leaves the greenhouse effect. Now you might think 0.5 to 0.8C isn’t much, but it has led to 30cm of sea level rise, a 40% decline in snow cover in OZ in spring, and the collapse of the summer Arctic ice pack. Further a 1C rise translates into a stream-flow reduction in the MDB of 8%. We’ve only increased CO2 by 30%.. just ponder what the world will look like when that number is 300%.
The IPCC has provided you with 100,000s of pages of peer reviewed science over the last 20 years, with many life-times worth of reading. It is not for me to save you the effort of reading what is freely and openly available to you – being a sceptic requires some effort and an inquisitive mind.
The name of Timo Niroma does not seem to come up in these sunspot discussions unless I have missed it. Here is the link:http://personal.inet.fi/tiede/tilmari/sunspots.html
It provides a very interesting analysis.
David yet again you are obfuscating the point. AND you throw in some rubbish about a 30 cm increase in sea level due to a rise from 0.5 to 0.8c? Where is this sea level rise?
My point remains exactly as i made it a few posts a go. 0.7c is the generally accepted temp rise over teh last 100 years, the sun accounts for between 0.3 and 0.5c of this. If the UHI effect reduces the real increase by 20%…..your words “By your reckoning the warming trend is 80% correct. Great… you can now join the consensus!” ( I assume that is your position?)then the temp rise is 0.56c adjusted for UHI. So all this additional co2 has caused 0.26c to 0.056 c increase. DOESNT MAKE MUCH OF A CASE TO BE CONCERNED DOES IT?!
Where do you pluck a 40% decline in snow cover in spring from? recently that would hardly be surprising given teh drought and lack of rain?!..see what happens this year with an unusually good snow season?
The IPCC is a political body that bases its prognosis on models. They make abundantly clear that they do not understand many of the inputs and feedbacks.
The models have been shown to be innacurate and to require fudge factors to get even consistently close in matching with the past, let alone their inability to make predictions about the future events, some of which are now historical events.
The IPCC had to remove the MWP with Mann’s fraudulent hockey stick to try to get people concerned.
Its been shown that the sun has been at its hottest for 1000 years, and low and behold temps are back near where they were during teh MWP.
There are many scientists who dispute the degree of warming likley to occur from a doubling of co2. infact the IPCC seem to be so unsure of it that they refuse to even discuss the science of it in the 4th report and simply refer us back to teh first report. Many of teh numbers in their formulae have been shown in recent blogs here to be highly debatable. try cohenite and J F Pitmtmans comments for starters http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/003366.html#comments
And last but not least, the IPCC has to keep referring to Hansen articles. Anything relying on him has to be questionable because he has made it abundantly clear that it is alright to lie if its for the right reasons.
You seem to think that we sceptics are sceptical because we have not done our homework. On the contrary many here have started from a point of beleiving in the AGW catastrophe, certainly I started from that point. 6 years later and several 1000 hours and the case against continues to mount against in my opinion.
Also let me make clear its the degree of warming that I am highly sceptical about and peoples faith in models to make predictions.
The politics however is what really scares me, and peoples apparent lack of sanity when discussing possible solutions to a possible problem.
Sorry I shoudl also have highlight Barry Moore’s comments from the thread suggested above and several others ongoing at the moment where he is raising serious questions about co2.
As #23 spots aretiill more frequent than those of #24, expect another such month before this time next year.
“Toby and Joel, I am not sure what you are debating – perhaps you can sumarise. We are in agreement that UHI does not explain global warming – unless you count Atlantis – and Jen has already shown us that the sun does not explain global warming.”
No in fact you are lying. And lies ought to have no part in your analysis.