Re: [asa] Serious scientists getting closer to the cosmic connection to climate

Sadly enough Janice forgets to differentiate between the sun being a
cause in the warming of the globe and the sun being the cause of
global warming.

The case for CO2 increase, human contributions to such and global
warming has been made in quite a compelling manner, so the question
now becomes: How do we explain Janice's 'worries' about other
potential causes. Mostly it can be linked back to a lack of
understanding of the relevant science invoved.

Thus we see Janice continue to make the following fallacious argument,
even though I have corrected it at least once before

<quote>
This argument has always been beyond stupid because CO2 accounts for
less than 3% of greenhouse gases. 80% of such gases is water vapor,
for which man is not responsible. Further, the earth has been warming
since the end of the Little Ice Age in the mid-1800s, yet there was no
appreciable increase in atmospheric CO2 until over a century later in
the mid-1900s. </quote>

See how continued ignorance becomes a liability in the sense of
Augustine. These are all 'valid observations' of little or no
relevance to the arguments involved. And yet, Janice seems to believe
that they are relevant without explaining to us their relevance, and
even though I have shown how they are irrelevant.

Now we have the issue of solar radiation. Let's first put the findings
in proper context

http://www.euronet.nl/users/e_wesker/zonklim.gif

Now I understand why some are quick to jump to the conclusion that
discrepancies in some data should be indicative of the failure of the
hypothesis about Global Warming, however common sense dictates that
one first establishes if there are not more likely explanations of the
data, or even if the data is of any direct relevance.
In case of solar radiation, it can be stated that the sun may indeed
have some effect on the warming of the earth and that a more detailed
analysis shows that this is in addition to anthropogenic effects.

I do not fault Janice for limiting herself to information which is
definitely one sided but as a scientist in the earth sciences, I find
that one needs to take the whole dataset into consideration rather
than cherry pick results.
In this case much is made of the work by Friis and Christensen and an
unfamiliarity can be detected with the rebuttals by for instance Damon
and Laut.

I can appreciate that people may not have sufficient expertise in the
necessary sciences and I would like to point out that it took me less
than an hour to familiarize myself with the relevant papers and
arguments. There is just no excuse for not doing the research... For
instance Damon and Laut showed how there were errors

<quote>
Nevertheless,the authors and other researchers keep presenting the old
misleading graph.
The authors,too,have published an update of Figure 1a [Lassen and
Friis-Christensen,2000]
using precisely the same data as are used in Figure 1c.However,because
of some trivial arithmetic errors,they arrive at a different curve
(Figure 1b), a curve that still exhibits some of the originally
claimed agreement with the recent global warming.They draw special
attention to this
agreement,but actually the upward bend of their solar curve is only a
consequence of
their arithmetic errors.A correct calculation based upon their data
leads to Figure 1c.
Also,the article published in 1995 by Lassen and
Friis-Christensen,investigating the possible
correlation of solar activity and terrestrial temperatures over the
extended period of four
centuries,contains unacceptable data procedures [Laut,2003].
</quote>

That should raise at least some concern...

<quote>
Public Impact of Misleading Information

Several of the figures discussed here have attracted worldwide
attention.One example
of the exploitation of the graphs in the public debate is a 2001 TV
documentary,"The Climate
Conflict,"produced for Danish state television by Lars Mortensen.It
featured Henrik Svensmark
and Eigil Friis-Christensen as the ingenious mavericks of today's
climatology,who discovered the dominant influence of solar activity
upon our climate and now fight a stubborn scientific
establishment—represented by the United Nations Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change—and the ruthless proponents of the "so-called
greenhouse theory."The film
has made a tremendous impact upon public opinion in Denmark and
several other countries and is now part of the curriculum in many
Danish high schools.It won an impressive series of international
awards:Special Prize of H.M.The Prince Rainier III in 2001 at the 41e
Festival de ́Telévision de Monte-Carlo;Best Environmental Film at
́science in Montreal
2001;Best Science Film at Telecencia,Portugal; and the Silverserpent
at Filmobidos 2001 in
Obidos,Portugal.The suggestive basis for the solar claims—as
presented personally by
Svensmark and Friis-Christensen on the screen— are the misleading
graphs from the above
mentioned 1991 and 1998 articles. </quote>

For those interesting in doing some in depth research I suggest the
following references

References:

Benestad, R.E. (2002) Solar Activity and Earth's Climate,
Praxis-Springer, Berlin and Heidelberg, 287pp, ISBN: 3-540-43302-3

Damon, P.E. and P. Laut (2004), Pattern of Strange Errors Plagues
Solar Activity and Terrestrial Climate Data, Eos, vol 85, num 39, p.
370

Friis-Christensen, E. and K. Lassen (1991), Length of the solar cycle:
an indicator of solar activity closely associated with climate,
Science 254: 698-700

Meehl, G.A., W.M. Washington, T.M.L. wigley, J.M. Arblaster, A. Dai
(2003): Solar and Greenhouse Gas Forcing and Climate Response in the
Twentieth Century, J. Climate, 6: 426-444

Shindell, D., D. Rind, N. Balachandran, J. Lean and P. Lonergan
(1999): Solar Cycle Variability, Ozone and Climate, Science, 284:
305-308

Svensmark, H. (1998), Influence of Cosmic Rays on Earth's Climate,
Physical Review Letters, vol 81, num 22, 5027-5030

On 1/16/07, Janice Matchett <janmatch@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>
> These are the results of a controlled experiment by serious scientists, not
> some GIGO (garbage-in/garbage-out) computer climate modeling. They
> experimentally demonstrate how the cause of global warming or "climate
> change" is the sun:
>

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Received on Tue Jan 16 14:23:56 2007