Big Drop In Solar Activity Could Cool Earth 569
coondoggie writes "Scientists say the Sun, which roils with flares and electromagnetic energy every 11 years or so, could go into virtual hibernation after the current cycle of high activity, reducing temperatures on Earth. As the current sunspot cycle, Cycle 24, begins to ramp up toward maximum, scientists from the National Solar Observatory and the Air Force Research Laboratory independently found that the Sun's interior, visible surface, and corona indicate the next 11-year solar sunspot cycle, Cycle 25, will be greatly reduced or may not happen at all."
Global Warming is Over! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Global Warming is Over! (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't go counting your Told-you-so Chickens quite yet.
Global temperatures continued to rise during the previous, unusually long solar minimum, so this potential lack-of-solar-maximum will probably not reverse the trend, either.
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I do hope you were trying to be ironic.
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I was going to moderate this discussion, but wanted to respond to your trollish comment.
Here's the reality of the situation: we do not know the effect of mankind on the climate and the ecology. However, we do know that certain activities *have* an impact. The fact remains that complex systems, be they markets, ecologies, or climate, remain unbelievably complex, and we have no way of knowing what our actions could do.
And as far as banalities go, how about this -- do not mess with complex systems you don't fu
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Then how about that is your talking point rather than make up stories of gloom and doom? I agree with everything you're saying about human impact, but let's make that the main part of your campaign, rather than this global warming nonsense. The problem is, Gore and company choose the latter, and lost credibility as a leader for these issues.
Let's go with the facts: Humans use a lot of resources. We don't know what effect they have on the planet, so let's try to be conservative and waste as little as pos
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Re:Global Warming is Over! (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Global Warming is Over! (Score:5, Insightful)
Your post and opinion is about 15 years, or more, old.
It's pretty simply to know the CO2 is increasing, now when it was release(in some cases where) and to look at the temperature.
When other cycles go into a 'cooling' cycle, the temperature stops going up, but it DOES NOT return to previous temperature; which is what would happen if it was only a cycle effect and not a non cycle effect, like man spewing billions of tons of CO2 into the air.
COULD there be another cause? well there isn't anything in the data to indicate any other cause; however in science we know that there could very well be some currently unknown for causing this, or anything. That is why nearly all studies on any subject are seldom 100%. It becomes more accurate with time and modification. Just like Germ Theory, Evolution or gravity.
Re:Global Warming is Over! (Score:4, Interesting)
COULD there be another cause?
You mean, aside from the fact that the last forty or fifty years we were in a grand maximum of solar activity, the highest seen on earth since the very beginning of the Holocene? And that, given the unknowns and the egregious speculation that has occurred in lieu of actual research concerning the feedback, this is a confounding factor that has been more or less completely ignored by the AGW zealots? Do you mean to ignore (as those zealots wish to) the Maunder minimum and Dalton minimum, the "Year without a summer" in the Dalton minimum, and the other, substantial evidence that global climate is first and foremost driven by solar activity and at most modulated by everything else?
To put it more seriously, think about putting error bars on the parameter that controls the feedback. Be sure to make them as large as the current estimates of the parameter itself, as we have no measurements to support one value over any other, only oversimplified model computations that ignore enormous amounts of the complex dynamics of the climate that are in indifferent agreement with the past and incapable (so far) of predicting the future. If we don't even know the correct sign of that parameter, let alone its magnitude, it is really easy to build a model that explains global warming over the last 160 years -- variations in solar activity that almost precisely parallel the observed increases in temperature, right up to the grand maximum (in both solar activity and global temperature) in the last few cycles of the twentieth century. Don't forget to allow for the 10-20 year lag in solar forcing and response in terms of global temperature change (clearly evident in the data and completely understandable given the vast heat capacity of the ocean and the complex feedback loops associated with the major oscillations in circulation).
As for the "every chemistry or physics student knows" -- well, I teach physics including electrodynamics, and to me it is by no means clear that we have a particularly good idea of the full dynamics of heat trapping by CO_2 in the upper atmosphere, including all feedback loops and the climate sensitivity. It is hard to even build an accurate model, given that the trapping is such a small effect that NASA's satellites cannot directly measure it (and the concentrations we are talking about are very small indeed).
The fundamental problem is that impending doom sells. It sells everything. It sells careers. It sells grants. It sells congress on providing money for those grants. It sells a completely artificial market with numerous opportunities for con men to get rich involving things like "carbon futures" or "carbon credits" (look carefully at just where Al Gore and his cohorts are invested, and I mean financially invested, if you want to see what I mean). It sells newspapers. It sells scientific journals. It sells novels and television shows. Even complete crackpot whacko doom such as Harold Camping's incredible shrinking Rapture sells -- sells to the tune of a hundred million dollars. The end of the world in 2012 sells. The earth being hit by entirely speculative and improbable coronal mass ejections in 2013 -- specifically, in 2013, not 2012 or 2014 -- sells. Asteroids hitting the earth sells. Back in the day, nuclear war and MAD sold. A glance at Hollywood's list of disaster movies, TV ditto, novels ditto, and sure, speculative science publications galore ditto, is enough to prove rather conclusively that impending doom sells!
Science -- and I mean good science, the kind that is cautious and pessimistic and that hesitates to state unproven speculations as if they are definite proven facts -- does not sell, alas. Not in our bored and jaded culture. Do a study of earthworm mating habits that concludes with the observation that earthworms globally are doing rather well and that their critical contributions to our ecology are proceeding in an entirely natural and appropriate w
Re:Global Warming is Over! (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean, aside from the fact that the last forty or fifty years we were in a grand maximum of solar activity, the highest seen on earth since the very beginning of the Holocene? And that, given the unknowns and the egregious speculation that has occurred in lieu of actual research concerning the feedback, this is a confounding factor that has been more or less completely ignored by the AGW zealots?
Completely ignored? So responses like the three explanations listed here [skepticalscience.com], as well as all of the discussion in the comment section, is "completely ignoring" the issue? Or how about this article [stanford.edu], featuring Stanford University "completely ignoring" the impact of solar activity. New Scientist also "completely ignored" solar activity in this article [newscientist.com] as well.
For something that the "AGW zealots" have "completely ignored", Google [google.ca] seems to find a hell of a lot of sources discussing how solar activity has some effect on global warming, but is not the primary cause.
Re:Global Warming is Over! (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact remains that complex systems, be they markets, ecologies, or climate, remain unbelievably complex, and we have no way of knowing what our actions could do.
And as far as banalities go, how about this -- do not mess with complex systems you don't fully understand.
More than fair. The problem is, there is a HUGE political wing that not only believes it understands the complexities of ecological change, but understands them well enough to want to impose corrective measures. Those corrective measures themselves invariably involve "messing with" markets, economies, and yes, ecologies, all at public expense.
Complexity is a double-edged sword. I'm all for not meddling with things I don't understand, and treating the planet with respect; I am consequently somewhat mistrustful of those who claim to understand our gigantically complex ecosystem well enough to tell me what I should be doing to fix it.
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And there's the wing that believes "business as usual" is just as good since, obviously, THEY understand the complexities...
Re:Global Warming is Over! (Score:5, Insightful)
And that political wing's corrective measures are overwhelmingly "minimize how much we mess with complex systems we don't fully understand." Which is a pretty logical approach.
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Yup, that sounds like a winner!
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The problem is, there is a HUGE political wing that not only believes it understands the complexities of ecological change, but understands them well enough to want to impose corrective measures.
IF by "Political Wing" you mean almost every human being who has intensely studied the subject I agree completely.
Re:Global Warming is Over! (Score:4, Insightful)
More than fair. The problem is, there is a HUGE political wing that not only believes it understands the complexities of ecological change, but understands them well enough to want to impose corrective measures. Those corrective measures themselves invariably involve "messing with" markets, economies, and yes, ecologies, all at public expense.
And the other HUGE political wing believes...
With a list like that, I would start to wonder if they understood anything.
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"do not mess with complex systems you don't fully understand."
Yeah, that's gonna make for some scientific progress right there.
"And more importantly, it belongs to every single living thing growing on it."
Says who? In our cold and ultimately absurd universe, that's not really how it works. Volcanoes and hurricanes don't respect existing habitats or life, why should humans? Polar bears have no "right" to exist or to continue existing and neither do humans.
Understand that I agree with your sentiment in some r
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Re:Global Warming is Over! (Score:5, Insightful)
You're absolutely right. If you're a sociopath, if you honestly give no fucks when other human being suffer because of the things you do and the things you fail to do, you have no reason to take any action that will benefit anyone other than yourself. I don't mean this as a personal attack; I want to believe that you actually are capable of doing good things without the threat of eternal damnation hanging over your head, but if you honestly cannot, you are broken.
I can't make you want to do good things, like save the Earth for people who aren't born yet. But, on a social level, there are still enough people who give a shit to put pressure on sociopaths to do good things. If you don't, we will use our laws to make you. If you break those laws, we will take your things and lock you up.
Why should we, as a society, make those laws? It is the only way that the "Society" system can outlast any given member. When we reach the point where we stop making and enforcing laws that benefit the long-term stability of society over the individuals currently in it, society will collapse as a system, and something more stable will take its place. Something with a lot fewer people in it, probably. Evolution will weed out the unfit and replace them with new systems able to deal with changes, the way it always has. That's how life operates.
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So, wait a moment here.
You're saying that we (as in humanity) do not really know if what we do affects the climate, but we should stop doing all the little impactful things that we might be doing in case those things actually be affecting the climate at large?
I'm all for ending wanton pollution and disregard for the environment, but some of what's being proposed was sold to us as a 'do this or else' proposition, and was based on iron-willed certainty when spoken, not "we do not know the effect of mankind on
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Never did he say that those were man-made issues, he simply used them to illustrate how fickle and changing nature can be, which is entirely appropriate and not up to questioning.
You should read what it is you're replying to, it helps.
Re:Global Warming is Over! (Score:4, Insightful)
Nature is not fickle.
It is amazingly robust, self healing, and self preserving and resilient.
It is consistent over eons, with constant change within limits based on energy input from the sun.
Nothing "meddlesome man" can do will have as much effect as a 2% change in the sun's output.
So your assertion that it is appropriate is questionable, and your claim that it is "not up to questioning" is just simply flat wrong.
Re:Global Warming is Over! (Score:4, Interesting)
Says more about the meteorologist than nature....
Re:Global Warming is Over! (Score:4, Insightful)
There will always be global warming, so long as there is money to be made from it.
- Dan.
My GW Theory (Score:4, Insightful)
It will get warmer.
It will get colder.
Repeat.
It is irrefutable.
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even on Earth life has only existed for a very short time.
You've got this basic fact wrong: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_evolution [wikipedia.org]
According to the above, life has existed for 3.8/4.5 billion years on Earth.
Re:Global Warming is Over! (Score:4, Insightful)
You should have moderated.
You would have had more effect, because after all, the only thing you accomplished by posting was to prove my point.
How can you claim that he proved your point? What exactly is it that he says that proves your point?
Your point was that people like to blame everything (eg, any change in climate or environment) on humans. His point was that there's no way of knowing what effect we actually have on the environment.
Both lead to the idea that we should leave stuff alone, but they aren't the same point...
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Not really. I had the Japanese earthquake in mind, and nowhere in my post do I try to connect the planet's forces and meddlesome mankind. Any connection that you assume is entirely in your head.
But just so I'm clear, let me reiterate. We're dependent on the stability of the planet and its climate and ecosystem. This has been demonstrated by countless natural disasters that we've been powerless to stop, and has taken us gargantuan efforts to even get back to a semblance of normalcy. Our interference in the
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The planet doesn't care what we do, it'll be here long after we're gone. Sustainability makes sense for us if we'd like to continue to exist on this planet, but it means nothing to the planet. We could make this planet uninhabitable to most forms of life for the next 100,000 years and it won't matter to the planet. The most catastrophic disasters in the history of the planet have not destroyed all life on this planet, so why should we think that this is within our capability? Life is persistent and the
Re:Global Warming is Over! (Score:4, Funny)
There does not exist on earth more carbon than the earth can process.
All the carbon came from the earth. It was "processed" into the earth in the past after the living material was "done" with it.
Re:Global Warming is Over! (Score:5, Insightful)
I am often confused by this attitude. Let's assume for just a moment that all research into climate change is completely bunk. There is no man made influence on the climate at all. I don't happen to think this is the case, but purely for argument's sake let's pretend that there is no argument at all. You are completely right. We can burn all the fossil fuels we want forever and it will never change the temperature of the planet by a single degree.
What does that really change about environmental policy? We still know that these chemicals are poisonous, and that burning them as freely as we do causes health issues both for ourselves and other animals. We still know that there are limited supplies of them, and if we don't find alternatives we'll eventually run out. We still know that burning them creates unpleasant things like smog and acid rain, which, even ignoring their health affects, are not nice to have around.
Ignoring completely the idea of climate change and the affect that we may or may not be having on the long term health of the ecosystem, shouldn't we be doing exactly what climate change research says we should be for all kinds of reasons besides climate change itself? Now add in the possibility, the very real possibility, that climate change theories are correct. It's really just one more reason on top of lots of others, not a sole driver of policy. Unless you believe that Jesus will return before the last drop of oil is burned, there's every reason to curb our dependence on fossil fuels and come up with viable and sustainable alternatives.
(Note: I'm not a peak oil nut. I have no idea whether we're going to start running out of oil in 20 years, 50 years, or 100 years; and yes, I have every confidence that the clever buggers in the oil industry will continue to figure out new ways to extract it. However, unless you believe that the Earth is some sort of oil factory that we can crank up at our convenience, you must know that eventually there won't be anymore. Even if the entire interior of the planet is a giant vat full of the stuff, that's still a finite amount.)
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There was an article in Scientific American (about 2004?) which asserted that we were due to go into another ice age about 5000 years ago, but the advent of farming (clearing land makes for warmer local temperatures) has so far prevented the ice age from settling in. According to the article, the line of difference between the temperature as it is and as it 'should' be fits nicely with the area of land cleared for farming over the last 5000 years. It's an interesting concept and the analysis made sense (p
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Re:Global Warming is Over! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Global Warming is Over! (Score:5, Insightful)
There are enough precedents to indicate that it is not an excess of concern for our environment that is the fundamental problem. I just don't understand why people see it necessary to vilify the few who are.
Re:Global Warming is Over! (Score:4, Informative)
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But at least we know who to call when they leak.
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Global warming was a clumsy name. People hear of and think they'll have nicer summers, or take a particularly cold spell as evidence against climate change. On a similar note, survival of the fittest is a poor description to use with laymen because many imagine it to mean that evolutionary processes favour the physically strongest or fastest species.
Oh good... (Score:2, Insightful)
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They are all over the thread already. Can't be arsed to engage them anymore, to be honest. Well, we can bask in the warm glow of burning Al Gore strawmen....
I'll still feel guilty. Straw is high-carbon.
Re:Oh good... (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Oh good... (Score:4, Informative)
I'll go away as soon as you explain the difference between the 1990 IPCC predictions for and the actual measured temperatures reported in HadCRUT for 1990-2011.
No you wont, because the temperatures are well within the prediction envelope. As is sea level rise. Sea level rise stands a chance of breaking through the top of the prediction envelope soon.
A slight reduction in insolation can only be good. But it's temporary reduction and therefore not a solution to the problem.
Are you going away?
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Even if global warming happens, there's not much we can do about it. If everybody stopped burning only completely, the rise in temperature would still be 2.29 instead of the predicted* 2.3 degrees. So basically: We've already acted too late.
We should be seeking alternatives, not because of GW, but because the oil will eventually become scarce. Better to prepare for it now, rather than wait until it costs $40 a gallon and causes widespread disruption (like food scarcity). Personally I'd like to trade my
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Yeah, I'd like to do more, but they sure don't make it easy.
We could have much, much more efficient conventional cars. We had some in the 90's-- cars that got around 50 to 60 mpg. We can do 100 mpg, and we can do it cheaply and in comfort, no need for exotic lightweight alloys, rare earth magnets, cramped seating, and all that. But currently the best thing I can get only does 40 mpg? Not one, NOT ONE, manufacturer has stepped up and sold a nice little conventional gas sipper in the US at a reasonable
Re:Oh good... (Score:4, Interesting)
This has the potential to make Global Warming so much worse. Lets assume global warming is real and we're headed for a maunder minimum level of hibernation. The expected temperature increases are pretty similar to the temperature drops associated with the last major minimum. It would convince people that global warming was all a big sham or even a blessing, and in the short term the blessing idea wouldn't even be totally incorrect, since the effects of a half century long solar minimum would almost certainly be at least as devastating to civilization as global warming.
But, that means that in 50-70 years, when the little ice age ends, we could be faced with the full force of global warming in less than a decade, instead of spread out over the course of half a century. It would be even more so to late to do anything about it, short of geoengineering at a massive scale, and even I, techno-optimist that I am, have difficulty accepting the idea that we'll be able to accurately manipulate the kinds of energy needed to alter the Earth's climate in a controlled way.
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This has the potential to make Global Warming so much worse. Lets assume global warming is real and we're headed for a maunder minimum level of hibernation. The expected temperature increases are pretty similar to the temperature drops associated with the last major minimum. It would convince people that global warming was all a big sham or even a blessing, and in the short term the blessing idea wouldn't even be totally incorrect, since the effects of a half century long solar minimum would almost certainly be at least as devastating to civilization as global warming.
But, that means that in 50-70 years, when the little ice age ends, we could be faced with the full force of global warming in less than a decade, instead of spread out over the course of half a century. It would be even more so to late to do anything about it, short of geoengineering at a massive scale, and even I, techno-optimist that I am, have difficulty accepting the idea that we'll be able to accurately manipulate the kinds of energy needed to alter the Earth's climate in a controlled way.
Global Warming/Climate Change is not about the Earth being at all time record temps and therefore when it cools all is okay. Call it Global Heat Redistribution because all the Climate Patterns are changing. It's the Change that is screwing with the Earth's general climate patterns. Sudden drops in electromagnetic energy from the Sun will provide a rapid shift in those Climate Patterns, once again, and during the change the Earth will take a beating. Repeat and rinse. Our increasing of pollution that weakens
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Lets assume global warming is real
Lets assume you are not joking and that you don't buy into the FUDstering....
Re:Oh good... (Score:5, Informative)
And they're going to be sorely disappointed when the warming continues despite reduced solar output.
Even if the Sun went into a new Maunder Minimum Global Warming will continue because the forcing from increased GHG's (primarily CO2) overwhelms the change in insolation. There is a peer reviewed paper on the subject here: On the Effect of a New Grand Minimum of Solar Activity on the Future Climate on Earth (Feulner & Rahmstorf 2010) [agu.org].
So what will the "naysayers" response be to continued warming despite reduced insolation?
Re:Oh good... (Score:4, Informative)
That link requires AGU membership. For non-members: Feulner and Rahmstorf's paper (pdf) [pik-potsdam.de]
Re:Oh good... (Score:4, Informative)
Yep, as long as you don't look at the real data we've been steadily cooling since 1998. My weather girl says it's colder now then it's been since God created weather. She's pretty and blond, so she must be smart.
But if you actually look at the temperature record, last year was the warmest on record and the one before was the third warmest and we've been on a steady warming trend for 40 years.
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Continuously repeating that lie won't make it true.
Re:Oh good... (Score:4, Informative)
Except for the fact we've been cooling for the last 13 years, ...
Yes, if you cherry pick 1998 as your starting point you can contrive to make it look like maybe there's been a little cooling. But seriously, who uses 13 years periods for something like this? Climatologists generally use 30 year periods. CO2 is like the rising carrier signal that the natural variability noise signal sits on. Rising CO2 levels don't lead to a monotonic rise in temperatures, just a bias toward higher temperatures. Natural variability can overcome that bias over periods of less than 15 or 20 years.
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In the business, they call this "we need more data, because our models not only may not be complete -- we know they aren't complete -- they may be be missing major modulators of the energy balance" uncertainty. Because for most of the last eleven thousand years, the Sun's activity has been much lower than it was for the last century, and it has been quite
So, we should be producing more greenhouse gases? (Score:5, Funny)
Does this mean that we should be polluting more to compensate?
No need to buy a sweater. (Score:3, Insightful)
The Europeans are going to save us by switching from nukes back to coal.
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Germany is not switching to coal, they are switching to renewable energy sources, which already provide about 17% of the country's electricity consumption even before the old nuclear plants were shut down and before the decision to close down the remaining nuclear power plants was made. If the political will is there, replacing the 11% provided by nuclear and more by 2021 shouldn't be a problem, renewable energy has more than doubled in the past 10 years in Germany.
Re:No need to buy a sweater. (Score:4, Insightful)
> Germany is not switching to coal...
Putin will be very happy to hear that. He'll sell you the gas you'll need. Of course, there will be a price...
> If the political will is there...
So you are switching to coal after all.
Didn't they say this about the last solar cycle? (Score:2)
This is what they said about the last solar cycle, especially since we went into a deep solar minimum, and now the sun is waking up and we have had some nice Geomagnetic storms and solar flares already.
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Better article (Score:4, Informative)
why Network World ? (Score:3)
Because 'coondoggie' posts summaries of all of blog articles on here, it seems, with only links back to his blog.
At least Roland Piquepaille learned, and started linking to places other than his blog ... especially as coondoggie's blog spam tends to just be regurgitated press releases with mostly self-referrential links or broken links when he does link externally (eg, whenever he tries linking to the SDO website).
Check Google News -- there have been well over a hundred groups responding to the press -- Nat
Awesome (Score:2)
Hopefully this balances out all the environmental stuff. The question then is do we call it Global Luke-Warming, or Anthropoheliogenic Climate Constancy?
Sun is getting too old... (Score:4, Funny)
So... (Score:4, Funny)
A quick refresher on the greenhouse effect (Score:5, Informative)
Decreased solar output will have an impact on global temperatures, but it will take time.
Greenhouse gasses (Water, CO2, CH4, etc) do not directly interact with incoming shortwave radiation from the sun. Rather, they interact with the longwave radiation coming from the surface of the Earth. With no greenhouse gasses, the Earth would radiate (based on its temperature) and this radiation would be lost to space. What greenhouse gasses do is absorb the emitted longwave which adds energy to the molecule absorbing it. The excited state either results in a temperature increase of the molecule, or the emission of radiation. Some of this re-emitted radiation is directed downward, toward the Earth. The net result is that some energy that would be lost to space is absorbed by molecules in the atmosphere, warming it, and some is redirected back to the Earth, increasing the net incoming radiation.
The effect can be directly observed. If you look at the measured longwave radiation emitted at the top of our atmosphere, the global average temperature you would calculate would not support life as we know it (much too cold). The difference from that and our directly observed average surface temperatures are due to the greenhouse effect (the energy based on those temperatures is not making it to the top of the atmosphere).
Decreasing solar input would change part of the energy budget, but the greenhouse effect will act as a buffer (from absorbing and re-emitting longwave radiation) that would cause a delayed response.
Note that I am not a climate scientist, just a regular meteorologist who has taken a few classes in radiative transfer.
Earth orbit changes still best explanation (Score:2, Informative)
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No they don't.
Thank The Great Noodle! (Score:4, Funny)
...hmmm why does that not sound right..
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Sun - Earth Connections (Score:3)
An examination of sunspots over the last 10+ years by looking at Fe lines shows that the magnetic fields and temperatures in the sunspots are decreasing. There is apparently a "minimum" value for the magnetic field for a sunspot to form. The average value has been decreasing rather rapidly of late (10 years or so). This leads to smaller and less intense sunspots. If the magnetic values generated are no longer strong enough to generate sunspots, how is the magnetic field of the sun affected? Will it still go through a 22-year cycle (I suspect yes, the lack of sunspots should not affect that cycle)? So simply the 11-year SUNSPOT cycle will be affected.
Further to this, I (as an actual real life scientist) have been looking at the activity of the solar magnetic field. Specifically the transition from a dipolar field (at solar minimum) to a non-dipolar field (near solar maximum) and back again. Given the long relationship the Sun and Earth have had (some 4 billion years) I thought I'd throw in some macroscale effects seen on the Earth for comparison. Very surprisingly, the sunspot cycle and the El Nino/La Nina cycle is actually reasonably correlated (remember, correlation does not equal causation). There is a bit looser relationship better the solar cycle and Typhoons (though this may be more related El Nino) and monsoon rains (very likely correlated to the El Nino cycle).
However, solar variation in radiation is not the cause (this is what is taken into account in climate models) but the magnetic fields and the solar wind appear to play a much larger role (See multiple articles by Scafetta and West for example). The solar wind interacts with polar atmosphere and there is a suggestion (questionable) that is may link the Quasi-biennial ocsillation to solar activity. There seems to be relationship, however, it is not clear what it is or how a lack of solar activity would affect the Earth (or what the "lag time" might be).
Will it get cooler if there is an extended period of low to no solar activity? Yes, there is strong evidence of that based on previous examples (Maunder and Sporer minimums for example). Will the cooling completely counteract the greenhouse gas warming? Good question.
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I would not be so sure about that since there is a bit of a blind spot in the theories, models and observations: EUV and X-Ray radiation. Take, for example, this time graph [usc.edu] of the 26-34 nm EUV band. A factor of three or so variation in flux over the course of the solar cycle.
Look at any EUV or X-Ray image [lmsal.com] of the sun, and it
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> Don't we all know the Earth is warming up due to human activity ?
In what way does the possibility that the sun may reduce its output in the future contradict that?
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The effect of the solar flare cycle signal on earth's average temperature is already being swamped by an order of magnitude by mankind's fossil fuelish addiction.
So don't expect any respite by quiescent sun, it's going to get hot, real hot, and the first thing to go is dependable crop yields. Mass starvation is already written in the cards..
Re:Watch for Hidden Warming (Score:5, Insightful)
I love this. You think the existing models don't take solar variation into account? You have reduced a complex, multi-factor system of equations to one independent variable. Congratulations on letting anything that sounds like it agrees with you at all prove all other ideas wrong even if there's nothing contradictory at all. Sun cycles are 10 year data cycles that don't explain 100 year trends in the slightest. If you look at the climate data since the invention of the thermometer, the waves produced are already quite visible. This was the same argument they made in the 70s, when global warming was first introduced as a theory(but it was far less understood then).
Instead of offering useless conjecture about what people are going to say, how about you give us a nice solid hypothesis about how much cooler it will be when, and how that relates to existing global warming projections. I dare you to actually make a meaningful falsible claim instead of putting words in the mouth of people you disagree with.
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Sun cycles are 10 year data cycles that don't explain 100 year trends in the slightest.
Uh, I take it you've never heard the words 'Maunder Minimum'?
The only place that long-term solar changes don't appear to affect temperatures is in 'Global Climate Warming Disruption Change' models. Or whatever they're calling it today.
I dare you to actually make a meaningful falsible claim instead of putting words in the mouth of people you disagree with.
I'd love to see one of the computer modelers making a meaningful falsifiable claim about 'Global Climate Warming Disruption Change'.
Re:Watch for Hidden Warming (Score:4, Informative)
Local solar astronomer here - Current global warming trend is definitely not Sun driven. We went through a prolonged period of solar inactivity over the last 5 years and what do you know, temperatures kept going up. We also monitor the Sun in every conceivable wavelength and from multiple angles, so it would be pretty hard to have some significant amount of energy hitting us that we don't know about.
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Everyone knows the biggest greenhouse gas (something that absorbs/emits radiation in the thermal-IR band) is water vapor. Water vapor is responsible for about 50-60% of the greenhouse effect, but there's not much we humans can do about it since you have the ocean constantly able to refresh the water vapor in the air.
The 2nd and 3rd biggest greenhouse gasses are CO2 and CH4. Although CH4 is a more effective greenhouse gas (about 20x), there's much more CO2 and that currenty has a bigger impact (~15-20% vs
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Earth isn't warm because of CO2, it's because of H2O vapor.
Increases in CO2 increase temperature which drives increases in H2O vapor which also increases temperature. Increases in temperature also cause solubility of CO2 in water to decrease, so the oceans also release CO2. It's called a positive feedback mechanism, and climate scientists have known about it for a long time.
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I don't know if they considered this effect and that effect and this possibility, so I'll assume they didn't and all the science is crap and that what I want to be true is true, rather than checking it out and possibly finding out that what I want to be true isn't.
Trust me. Climate scientists are smarter than you give them credit for, and have considered all of those effects, and those possibilities, and have corrected for them, or have convinced themselves and the rest of the scientific community that they weren't causing current temperature changes. You aren't thinking of anything they haven't already considered.
I know that with all the denialist propoganda out there it's hard to find reliable information. http://skepticalscience.co [skepticalscience.com]
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Well that sounds like a totally plausible theory that those dastardly scientists might have.
Having the oceans absorb more CO2 would be very bad, that would make ocean acidification worse.
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Just randomly doing end of the world predictions. Doesn't this sound perfect for Fimbulvetr, or the winter before Ragagnarok to happen?
No idea, but you should keep your battle axe handy. Never hurts - if Fimbulvetr does not come, you can still go a-viking and have some fun.
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Remember the 2008 Rice Shortage?
No. And that tells you everything you need to know about how far we are from the food production precipice.
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For certain First World values of "we".
Oh, I don't have any problem with that. If Johnny Foreigner would rather starve (said Rogerborg) he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.
Re:Starvation (Score:5, Informative)
Solar activity had nothing to do with "The Year Without a Summer". It was the eruption of Tambora that caused that.
Mod Parent Up (Score:3)
Solar activity had nothing to do with "The Year Without a Summer". It was the eruption of Tambora that caused that.
Indeed. Tekrat (the GP) is quite confused.
More about Mount Tambora [wikipedia.org], which blew its top in April 1815 with enough ejecta to darken skies worldwide and reduce agricultural yields.
Cheers,
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, the Dalton Minimum had its part to play in the Year Without a Summer [wikipedia.org] as did several other large eruptions (~VEI-4) in 1812, 1813 and 1814 but the April 1815 Tambora eruption, a VEI-7 event [wikipedia.org], was the straw that broke the camels back and led to snow in Upper New York to Maine in June of 1816 among other things. You could say the pump was primed by those other things but it wouldn't have been half as bad without Tambora.
To respond to your straw men:
a) Solar activity is of course completely relevant to gl
Re: (Score:2)
"At some point, we will chew up enough resources that the planet will not recover."
What does that even mean? Not recover? It's "recovered" for worldwide fires and volcanoes and the entire planet being basically a frozen over the top. Tectonic plates shift against one another and consume and excrete land. In a billion years I doubt you'll have much of an idea that our species was even here.
"When we have fished the oceans to empty sea, and the land will no longer sustain crops, only then will we discover how
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From 10 years of data I can tell you what is definitely going to happen in 15 years, you're obviously not trying hard enough.
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Wow...
Just because it's been cooler at your house for the last two years, does not mean the earth, as a whole, is not getting warmer in general.
It's perfectly plausible that the average temperature on the planet could rise significantly while a region, like Europe, gets colder. For instance, general warming could result in polar warming diminishing the northern ice caps (as we're seeing). Should those ice caps melt enough, the iceberg melting in the north atlantic would dramatically lesson since no glaciers