Going back to this climate change debate, one of the claims I see by some of the people that don't believe mankind has polluted and don't agree that man has changed the Earth's environment, their say in the debate is to claim global warming is due to the Sun.

Now it would be great to see this climate change concluded and solved, but is it really all due to the Sun ? Some on the far right have been accused of distorting facts and selling out to the fossil fuel companies. On the other far left and radical environmentalist side of the coin we sometimes see doomsday scenarios painting a picture of how the Earth will be soon destroyed in a global warming apocalypse. However the fact remains that man has polluted our planet and the majority of well respected scientists think that man has played some kind of role in this climate change.

One of the claims that keeps popping up again and again is that global warming is happening on Mars. One of the anti-CO2 claims, basically says Mars is mirroring what has been happening on Earth and since nobody lives on Mars (unless you listen to crackpots like Hoagland) and Mars is not producing vast quantities of CO2 by geological means then Earth's warming can also be explained by some Solar cycle ?

The trouble I find with this claim is that when I dig any deeper to look for the Mars warming facts and evidence of the Sun causing global warming on the planets in our solar system, all I find is a quote of a measurement made by Viking-1 on Mars and MGS orbiter pics of a smaller southern polar cap. Is there any website or paper that finally confirms, debunks or busts this claim ?

Indeed. The Bad Astronomer and Frasier of Universe Today have each addressed this. See:

Is global warming solar induced?
The Sun Isn't Responsible for Climate Change

There's also an active thread about this here in this forum, Global warming: Humans' fault, or the sun's fault?

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

Thanks for the links DA

A summary of the 2007 report of the International Panel on Climate Change appears in the August edition of Scientific American. That report, of course, doesn't address the question of warming on other planets, but it does address the issue of whether the sun is responsible for a significant part of global warming. The IPCC presents several lines of reasoning on this question, and each line indicates that the sun is not a central player.

1. The radiative forcing from the sun is presented along with a number of other forcings in a bar graph on p 67. The solar forcing is very small compared to some others and, quite significantly, is accompanied by small error bars.

2. Graphs on page 58, show that when natural forcings only are fed into climate models, the agreement between the graphs and historical temperature records is quite poor, whereas, when anthropogenic forcings are included, the agreement becomes excellent.

3. While the troposphere (lower atmosphere) is heating, the stratosphere (upper atmosphere) is cooling. If solar changes provided the dominant forcing, we would expect the straosphere to heat as well.

4. Two other lines of reasoning are also presented to rule out solar changes as the main driving force, but they did not make as much sense to me, so I will let you read about them in the report if you want. The report is available online at ipcc.ch.

This claim that GW is due to the Sun has been refuted numerous times and yet still persists.

Yawn.

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The dose makes the poison--Paracelsus (1493-1541) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracelsus

I don't know. That's why I'm asking--Noclevername

Intelligence may not be clearly defined, but you know stupid when you see it--Noclevername

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge--Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

Because the sun is nowhere near as well understood as people think it is, and it is the main source of heat for the Earth.

The sun does change its behavior, such as the Maunder minimum. How this affects the Earth is not well known, if for no other reason that the sun has been in the same mode since modern instrumentation started observing it.

To simply dismiss the Sun's role in climate change is foolish. It is about the only thing that if it does change, there will be an effect.

It would be foolish to do that, but no one is doing it.

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

oh yeah?



Statements like that indicate to me a person for whom the GW issue is mostly political and emotional. They *demand* that people agree with everything they say, and they demonize those who stray from the The Truth (tm). Next he'll start labeling people "Deniers" as if they were denying the holocaust or something. Eventually, I promise you, there will be an even more politically rhetorical label (like pro-life, meaning your opponents must be anti-life, or pro-choice meaning your opponents want to deny your free will). It'll happen.

It doesn't surprise or bother me. I mean, this is the internets. People here on BAUT have heated, angry arguments over heavy lift vehicles for crying out loud. Certainly, global warming is a more worthy issue to get upset about. I'm just calling a spade a spade.

I'm going on the assumption that you meant the above quote to be taken literally and seriously, tofu. My response below is tailored to that assumption. If you meant it to be taken as humorous, then I beg your pardon in advance. So, here we go:

First off tofu, I'm a 'she' not a 'he, as you might have gathered had you bothered to read my profile.

Two: You are reading so much into one little word. My point with 'Yawn' is that the 'it's not CO2 it's the sun that is causing the observed warming' has been hashed and re-hashed several times on this forum. 'Yawn' was my expression of boredom that this point was coming up yet again. I'm not saying that the sun has no role in the climate or that cycles in radiative intensity have no effect on the climate. They have and DO--and I've started threads to that effect. However, there is plenty of evidence available in the literature that shows that the observed GW is not due to increased solar radiative forcing.

Three: I don't label people with anything--at least not publicly. You are the one labeling me.

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The dose makes the poison--Paracelsus (1493-1541) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracelsus

I don't know. That's why I'm asking--Noclevername

Intelligence may not be clearly defined, but you know stupid when you see it--Noclevername

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge--Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

Well if the shoe doesn't fit, then you certainly don't have to wear it. Tell you what, I'll leave that comment up there even though it doesn't apply to you. And then, a page or two from now, when the inquisition starts and people are shouting, "look there! An unbeliever! A denier is in our midst!! Burn him!!" then I can just cut and paste my comment into a new post where it will make more sense.

Am I the only one who's noticed that an Apollo HB can ask why there aren't stars in a photograph and he'll get links to previous threads and fresh responses. (back when 9-11 discussions were allowed) a "truther" could ask why there's no debris in pentagon photos and he'd get pics of debris. But someone asks a GW question and they get social pressure. "yawn. (You're boring)"

That's the entirety of my point.

Fair enough.

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The dose makes the poison--Paracelsus (1493-1541) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracelsus

I don't know. That's why I'm asking--Noclevername

Intelligence may not be clearly defined, but you know stupid when you see it--Noclevername

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge--Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

How did this become a political question at all? To me, it is a purely scientific question. If the proposition that human emission of CO2 and other gases is causing a significant change to the global climate is true, then it will be borne out by science. Politics dose not change a scientific fact.

I am no climatologist, and have not even studied the matter enough to draw my own conclusions, and am therefore pretty much have no (valid) opinion on this issue. However, to be honest, the tactics used by the proponents of the above proposition remind me strongly of those used by moon hoaxers and Hoagland supporters. I even went so far at one point to refer to them here as "woo woos" because the way they act approximates the actions of others called "woo woos" to a very high degree. However, I was told that this characterization constitutes ad hominem, and is not allowed. I was never given a satisfactory explanation for why the same characterizations of groups that behave in a similar fashion was completely accepted.

I guess there is more politics to science, even in a forum that is purportedly dedicated to rational seeking of the truth, than I previously suspected.

I don´t think mainstream GW science is an inquisition. We are all waiting for a decent peer-reviewed article about the alleged Sun´s role in GW.

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What brings us together is stronger than what pulls us apart

Which you'll never see, because environmentalists are running around like Charleton Heston with an obnoxious scarf around his neck screaming "ITS PEOPLE!!! GLOBAL WARMING IS PEOPLE!!!"

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The last time I felt a warm fuzzy feeling, I was informed by my doctor that it was just gas.

There are already plenty of peer-reviewed articles about the Sun's role in GW, including the IPCC reports, but they happen to conclude that that role is negligible, as far as the recent warming is concerned.

That's naive, though. This will always be an issue with political ramifications.

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

The ramifications are certainly political. The science does not have to be political, but unfortunately it is.

I misunderstood your point also. Sorry 'bout that

I did know you are a she tho

There seems to be a bit of basic misunderstanding, or a poor choice of terminology being used in this thread.

Alot of people here are saying that the sun plays no role in global warming. This is incorrect. The sun is the source of, to first order, ALL the heat on the surface of the Earth.

The discussion is wether the change in temp is due to a change in solar flux, or a change in the heat flow at the Earth. Current thought is that the solar flux hasnt changed enough to explain the recent changes in temp.

I may be picking a nit, but hey, that's what nits are for

No prob, korjik! Have had a rather crappy day today, but your post made my day a little less crappy.

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The dose makes the poison--Paracelsus (1493-1541) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracelsus

I don't know. That's why I'm asking--Noclevername

Intelligence may not be clearly defined, but you know stupid when you see it--Noclevername

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge--Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

I too have a problem with the terminology that is used, IMHO, too loosely.

1) Is there global warming? Yes there is, we are in an interglacial period. I live on the Lake Erie coast and own land that has been modified by glacial transgression and regression as the last retreat started, stopped, expanded, and retreated again. Lake Erie is the product of the latest retreat from the last glacial maximum, the Wisconsin. As the ice retreated larger lakes were formed starting 14000 ya , Lake Maumee, followed only 400 years later by Lake Arkona, a low water phase was next Lake Ypsilanti, 13000 ya Lake Whittlesley when a glacial pulsation occurred called the Port Huron occurred, followed by a retreat of the ice forming Lake Warren and Lake Lane and then Lake Lundy…. I could go through all the stages but Lake Erie came to be in its approximate current position only about 4000 ya. The point is there have been many glacial expansions and retreats in North America within a geologic instant of 14000 years while humans were living here. (See link below for reference).

2) Have human actions increased the rate of change? Possibly, but personally, the question that has to be answered is, is the rate of carbonate deposition (limestone in the making) world wide sequestering the additional carbon that we are putting into the system increasing, decreasing, or staying the same. This is an impossible question to answer. It can only be estimated at spot locations and extrapolated. Would it lag behind our inputs, yes, but by how much, unknown, it can only be estimated. Increased CO2 accelerates weathering of rocks transferring HCO3- into ground water and then into the oceans for deposition. Possibly sedimentation is increasing as it has in the past in similar situations.

3) The Little Ice Age ended only 200 ya. Could it be that our industrial activity is staving off a reoccurrence of an ice advance that could be very deleterious to those living in the northern hemisphere; that would be most of us? I would suggest that we are not sure, but probably not.

4) Being good stewards of the planet only makes sense. More research and study makes sense. But, thinking that, on the big scale of things, we have control over this planets climate is nothing short of arrogant.


My personal observation is that as I learn more, I find that there is more to know. Let’s hope that the Yellowstone super plume doesn’t erupt. Let’s hope that the rate of sea floor spreading doesn’t increase. I f they do, there isn’t anything that we can do about it. Let’s also hope we can duck any big rocks that are floating around.

THE HISTORY OF LAKE ERIE by Michael C. Hansen

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(By the way, I hate it that so many papers in the areas of planetary science and geology are not easily available to the dreaded "non-subscribers". It is like they are screaming at me: "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH". Good, I feel better now.)

"Quaerendo inventis"

dogs and cats

Answering that question with "possibly", at this point in time, is simply ignorant. The science is clear and publicly available. You can even download it on the Internet.

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

I am sorry that you interpted the term possibly as a negative. I must point out however that I am discussing an increase in the rate of change which implicitly acknowledges an increase. To know the increase in the rate of change one has to know what the rate of change would have been and that is somewhat problematic. So, at worse, I err on the side of caution.

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(By the way, I hate it that so many papers in the areas of planetary science and geology are not easily available to the dreaded "non-subscribers". It is like they are screaming at me: "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH". Good, I feel better now.)

"Quaerendo inventis"

dogs and cats

Excellent point! If we think in words and express our thoughts so, the more discipline in the choice of words can lead to more accurate conclusions.

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For those inclined to oppose human meddling with the structure of the universe or the composition and configuration of objects and groups of objects within the universe, consider:
Whether there is a limit to the magnitude of a modulation of chaos below which order remains invariant? Or, is order but a fiction invented by perspectives applied over finite, however large, time intervals?

From what I have read on this subject, the claimed warming due to variation in solar output has at least 3 sources:

1. Change in solar irradiation that correlates with sunspot cycle.
2. Change, concurrent with 1, that effects magnetic field shielding from cosmic rays. Reduced cosmic rays entering the atmosphere result in decreased aerosol formation which in turn results in decreased cloud formation and thus increased heating. Increased cosmic rays result in cooling.

These two have probably been discussed here, as they have been discussed at length in other forums.

3. Joule heating of the earth atmosphere caused by variation in the solar wind. I believe this is a relatively new finding after about 10 years of data taking, and is now starting to be included in climate models. It may be the largest solar effect found to date.

TomT

the fourth would be long term changes in the solar constant. That one should be slowly increasing on a geologic scale if current solar physics is correct.

I have been wondering about 3 for a couple years. The Earth's field gets banged on quite a bit, so I was wondering if

curl E = -dB/dt would get you some resistive heating in the atmosphere.

I wouldnt think it is a major contributor tho.

We'll see

I haven't heard about this one. Any references I could read?

I haven't come across any reference to the equation (term from Maxwell's Equations?) you reference in regard to climate studies.
This link gives a good description of the study and simulation of Joule heating of the atmosphere.
http://www.pmodwrc.ch/eugene1560/sowa/simul.phtml

TomT

I think this an overstatement. The changes in stratospheric temperatures are seasonal and vary in the lower stratosphere vs. the upper. Depending on time of year, northern vs southern hemisphere, and altitude within the stratosphere, there may be heating or cooling at a given time period. The Joule heating model I referenced above shows how solar wind variation matches this observed trend.