Stop press: the sun is cooling
|
This isn’t going to help anyone caught in the Melbourne heatwave, but the sun is getting cooler. Not by much, only by around 0.1 C averaged across the planet according to NASA’s Goddard Institute but enough to make a cooler sun the hottest emerging topic in the debate about global warming. The Goddard Institute says it “expects a new global temperature record will be set in the next 1-2 years, despite the moderate negative effect of the reduced solar irradiance.” But then again, its forecasts about when the next solar cycle would begin, supposedly in the second half of 2007, are now wrong by two years. And the doors to the doubters, ranging from the barking mad to the scrupulously forensic — when it comes to the industrial greenhouse gases contribution to climate change — have been kicked open. Something interesting is happening on the sun. There have been very few sunspots, which are a proxy indicator of solar irradiance, for the last year. The transition from one solar cycle of around 11 years to the next is marked by the appearance of new sunspot. With a different magnetic polarity, yet new and old cycle sunspots have been increasingly rare, or non-existent, for much of the last 12 months or more. This means a really big field test, one as big as the earth, is being applied to mutually exclusive viewpoints, that there is no proven nexus between small scale solar variability and climate, or that there is. It will challenge the orthodoxy that anthropogenic inputs are largely or completely to blame for a warming world, or the unfashionable minority view, that they count for something between zero and “not much.” So far, just about every supporter of anthropogenic global warming or AGW, has run away from discussing the inconvenience or otherwise of a “quiet” sun. But there are some interesting things to keep in mind. The last well observed slippage from an 11 year solar cycle to a 13 year cycle preceded the Dalton Minimum, a set of three and a bit solar cycles between 1790 and the mid to late 1820s when the sun was very, very quiet, and the world coincidentally or otherwise, rather cool, with widespread crop failures exacerbated by the early social upheavals of industrialization. The last long and directly observed period of a largely spotless sun was the Maunder Minimum, of 1450-1540, which coincided with the middle of the Little Ice Age, which by varying criteria, is dated as starting as early at the mid 1300s and ending by the mid 1800s, including the Dalton Minimum, even though some argue that it really ended in the mid 1700s, when the UK stopped imitating Iceland. How could a drop in 0.1 C in incoming solar irradiance possibly cause so much calamity? Many of the suggested mechanisms involve changes to cloud cover, arguing that the voluminous low level billowing clouds captured by the landscape artists of those times were not just a fad, but real, and capable of reflecting much more solar energy back into space and thus significantly cooling the surface. Others argue that thermally induced changes to ocean currents, particularly the inhibition of the warming Gulf stream that keeps Europe abnormally temperate, were responsible for allowing Siberian weather patterns to invade middle Europe. After the marked retreat of north polar sea ice last summer, the seasonal freeze began early. At this stage, subject to sudden warming, the Arctic sea ice outlook for 2009 is “lots”. One thing is certain. The current solar cycle that was supposed to last 11 years has lasted nearly 13 years. That won’t change. The question now becomes, what will change? |
|
|
|
22 Comments
Ben, thanks for your clarification. I thought you were talking about the science, but like football, tennis and indded any topic these days the politics and intrigue are always more important than the actual issue.
Good article Ben.
You are right to remind us that the sun is the key determinant of temperature.
Touching a nerve with the doom & gloom global warming acolytes is a sure sign if this.
PS: Don’t bother responding to dissenting comments - your thesis stands on its own.
No, my premise about the false premise …. is not false in terms of good science reportage.
As best I can see there is no actual journalism here with a quote or access to known experts on AGW for their response on whether this has been considered or addressed. Who knows you might be vindicated. What I’m looking for is an expert name or referencing.
But if you haven’t asked the experts who do real professional science day in day out then you can’t really know without going to the journals yourself. And even then it’s the time between just before publishing that is really cutting edge. That’s the problem - not that you raise a question - that’s fine. In fact it’s great that anyone and everyone engage with science and questions of science. But don’t treat it as serious or anything more than amateurish musings. To do so is impertinent.
A metaphor might be of use here: Suggesting a brain surgery innovation - that might or might not work - without checking with some actual brain surgeons who spend all day studying the stuff, doing the stuff, and educating themselves about new procedures - whether your suggestion has been tried.
I’m actually with Prince Charles on this: Not everyone can be an expert on everything. As a farmer/AGW denier said to me it’s arrogant to think we can know the complexity of the climate. But Big Science is actually pretty smart like space travel, modern medicine, so I don’t agree with the farmer but I do say it’s ambitious. Very ambitious.
So I say again has your issue of 11 to 13 years sun spot variation been checked with any of the professional practitioners. Maybe that’s a hard thing to do - they all look pretty overwhelmed to me and might be hard to get access to. But that’s the right way to go about it.
Richard McGuire: “Fine Ben, but do some homework before putting pen to paper”.
@ Ben That’s ‘homework’ such as studying the ever balanced Barry Brook like the fair, open and studiously balanced Richard McGuire does.
Ben Sandilands: “I have been writing about climate change and astronomy for a long time.”
For someone who say he’s be writing about climate change for a long time, it is quite surprising that Ben has resorted to contriving a false debate (that being that AGW theory is failing to account for solar irradiance).
Starwman arguments are usually the place of paid up PR stooges Ben, you have been given a great privilege at Crikey and shouldn’t abuse it.
Re dissenting voices being shut out of the media…..Ben if you think dissenting voices are being shut out, you should visit the science blog Deltoid and take a look at the “The Australian’s war on science” series.
The point is that so far in the 21st century, the evolution of the global surface temperature fits a model of high solar influence much better than the low influence built into the climate models. Keep it up, Ben.
Richard,
I’ll stick to anything that the general media ignores. It’s a Crikey thing.
And I have been writing about climate change and astronomy for a long time.
Ben
Tom,
Your premise about my false premise is false. I don’t have any premise at all. But I do know that we have a solar cycle that is unusually long and this is of interest.
It should be discussed in the general media. Whether it matters is something that science will establish, although clearly some of the responses are sensitive to any implication that it might require some recalibration of scientific assessments or public opinions.
Ben
Ben
Thankyou Ben for raising this issue. I have been reading many articles about sun spot activity. Whilst granted, this issue has been magnified by AGW deniers, it deserves greater play in the media. Looking at the blogs written in association with this article, any criticism of AGW modelling or questioning of the assumptions based within, is treated as heracy. This is the point where science passes into the realm of religion.
It will be interesting to see the global median temperature measurements over the next five years, should sun shot activity continue to be flat and the global temperatures continue to trend downward. Maybe the correlation between CO2 concerntrations and temperature will not look as strong. The difference between science and religion is the scientific paradigms change if and when the data no longer supports them. Let us hope that the bureaucracy funding the research remembers this.
Fine Ben, but do some homework before putting pen to paper.
The false premise in this story seems to be that the highly competitive and highly sophisticated Big Science have not analysed these issues already and reached convincing conclusions - conclusions that don’t change the AGM theory?
Just as evolutionary ecologists have been analysing Darwin’s ‘Theory’ for ages and keep on finding it holds, for like 150 years. There are always ‘possible’ falsifications, as many as the human imagination. But are they time wasters, or redundant, or well dealt with?
Where is the news in the mainstream press of writing stories about a possible falsification of AGW which has already been debunked? None, zilch, nada, nil. But there IS news value if you say we have a potential falsification that hasn’t be resolved.
Trouble is with my science degree and having trawled the journals 20 years back I trust James Hansen, IPCC, CSIRO and even Robyn Williams of the science show alot more than an endless procession of already debunked falsification theories that Big Science just haven’t bothered packaging up for gotcha media. Or even popular science press.
So Ben, the onus actually is on you to prove that this falsification theory about solar spots/absence has not already been addressed by the practitioners in the field. That means extensive cross referencing of the expert journal reports, and consulting with the scientists that MAKE A LIVING WORKING ON THIS STUFF. Not just pushing out a loose self aggrandising one off gotcha argument. So have you done the spade work Ben, who did you check with? What experts? What journals did you check the indexes?
Did even one of them say it hasn’t been sorted yet? Because it would be very irresponsible to float tendentious interference on real action of a real problem on something already analysed. Or even cynical to get the best scientists distracted off the highest priority work.
alot of These comments appear at odds with the article. Ben was pointing out facts that should be taken in to account for debate about global warming with no agenda one way or the other but it appears many comments are rather agenda driven rather than comments on articles. noticed a few people commenting on crikey appear agenda driven rather than commenting on the article. sad really
There is evidence of a sunspot forming today but in a location that would make it most likely to belong to solar cycle 23 which was originally predicted to end in the second half of 2007.
If a prolonged quiet sun occurs I don’t think for a moment it renders the need to reduce the rate or volume of fossilized carbon emissions less important.
But I do think that whatever the delayed start of solar cycle 24 means, it will improve our knowledge of space weather and how it influences the terrestrial weather processes.
“So far just about every supporter of anthropogenic global warming has run away from the inconvenience or otherwise of a quite sun.” ……..Wrong……..The topic is number 8 on the ten “Hottest skeptic arguments” at http://www.skepticalscience.com……..A posting I think that dates back to 2007……..Barry Brook covered the topic on his Brave New Climate science blog September 14th last year…….. its all about the forcing……..Stick to aviation Ben.
Jenny,
That’s a very good point. Our point is that the ‘quiet’ sun is not being talked about in the general media, because it may support an ‘unfashionable’ view. When Graeme Pearman gave me a remarkably well argued cover story in ‘The Bulletin’ in 1989 about climate change as the CSIRO’s leading atmospheric scientist the notions expressed, which included efforts to repair halon damage to the ozone layer , were totally unfashionable in the general media. Pearman continued to argue against the conventional wisdom right up to 2006 when he went public over CSIRO attempts to censor science that was unpopular with the Howard Government.
It seems in the general media today that a similar closed mindset applies to dissenting voices in terms of questioning at least some of the dogma of AGW although I am left with the suspicion that Rudd is either of the same view as his predecessor, or incapable of grasping the need for serious affirmative action on sustainable alternatives to coal.
The really important issue is that the truth about our situation needs to be fully explored without excluding anything that research and innovation can deliver.
RJG,
I’m not making an argument for anything. I’m reporting matters related to differing views about climate change inputs and evidence that the solar cycle is exhibiting some of the characteristics associated with the Dalton Minimum. If I was going to advance an argument, it would be along the lines that public discussion of AGW essentially relates to political agendas and not to the pursuit and application of science and technology.
A discussion in “New Scientist” recently warns that it is a decidedly bad idea to try to use the quiet sun as an excuse for not doing as much as possible to reduce anthropogenic global warming - Quiet sun or not, central Australia (where I live) has experienced some record breaking stretches of REALLY hot summer weather, and the local climate has changed noticeably in the last decade.
The report from GISS that Ben mangled is here:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/
The reduction in solar irradiance is not 0.1 C — those aren’t even the right units. As the NASA report shows, it is 0.2 Watts per square metre reduction since the last solar maximum. And the NASA report states:
“However, let’s assume that the solar irradiance does not recover. In that case, the negative forcing, relative to the mean solar irradiance is equivalent to seven years of CO2 increase at current growth rates. So do not look for a new “Little Ice Age” in any case. “
Ben ignored what the report actually said in order to write a beat up about a little ice age.
As for Arctic Sea Ice, if you think that there will be “lots” this year, why not bet on it? I’ll even give you 2 to 1 odds. I’ll bet $200 to your $100 that the 2009 minimum Arctic Sea Ice extent will be below the 1979-2000 average for the minimum (as recorded by the NSIDC).
Ben let me list the bogus statement you make:
1) “that there is no proven nexus between small scale solar variability and climate, or that there is.”- Bogus-The link is well understood.
2) “So far, just about every supporter of anthropogenic global warming or AGW, has run away from discussing the inconvenience or otherwise of a “quiet” sun.”- Bogus, the link is well understood and quantified.
Without these bogus statements your story would more accurately be on the fact that the sun is in a cold phase yet we are still experiencing near record temperature- pitty you missed that point.
Ben, I hate to say it, but I don’t understand what you are talking about. Are you saying solar irradience is higher with sunspots or without? Are you trying to say that climate change is happening or not and if it you are saying it is happening are you trying to say that it is all the sun’s fault or that it is man made? I just don’t get your argument. Could you please enlighten me?
Isn’t that just like the sun though? Always sticking its nose in where its not wanted. The fellas were about to make nice little profit out of that carbon emissions trading scheme thingy and now it looks like its blown. What do we do now? What the heck? Let’s do it anyway and hope they don’t notice! It seemed to work for Henry Paulson.