Re: [asa] Effect of Solar variability

Can I post your thoughts (w/o attribution) on RealClimate.org?

Or perhaps you'd like to do so. It is a reputable site.

To post -- go to www.realclimate.org and click on the main title. Then
press "end" to go to page bottom where an opportunity is given to post
a comment. Generally, your post will appear in about 5 minutes.

Burgy

"With 25 years' experience as a professional Earth scientist, I say
Earth is extremely complex and messy, difficult to characterize. I
would not be surprised to learn of significant holes in currently
accepted scenarios. Anyone with solid credentials who's willing and
able to look into alternative explanations should be encouraged. For
people without qualifications to choose sides and cheer for one side
or the other can't help and may hurt. (But when I see a lot of
cheering on one side and little on the other--when the issues aren't
fully settled--I tend to take the other side to help restore balance.)

Everyone should be able to agree that CO2 is a GHG, that human
activities are releasing large quantities of it, and that its
atmospheric concentration is rising. The next step, that humans are
contributing to global warming by releasing so much CO2, is also quite
reasonable. How much global warming we are causing and what
contributions there may be from other sources, however, are not fully
understood.

It would seem prudent to cut down on the amount of GHG we release, but
given national and world economic and political forces and
complexities, it's not at all clear to me that any effort we make will
have a significant effect on what ultimately happens. Most of the
human thought and energy devoted to global warming would probably be
better focused on adaptation than control. "

On 2/12/09, Don Winterstein <dfwinterstein@msn.com> wrote:
> With 25 years' experience as a professional Earth scientist, I say Earth is
> extremely complex and messy, difficult to characterize. I would not be
> surprised to learn of significant holes in currently accepted scenarios.
> Anyone with solid credentials who's willing and able to look into
> alternative explanations should be encouraged. For people without
> qualifications to choose sides and cheer for one side or the other can't
> help and may hurt. (But when I see a lot of cheering on one side and little
> on the other--when the issues aren't fully settled--I tend to take the other
> side to help restore balance.)
>
> Everyone should be able to agree that CO2 is a GHG, that human activities
> are releasing large quantities of it, and that its atmospheric concentration
> is rising. The next step, that humans are contributing to global warming by
> releasing so much CO2, is also quite reasonable. How much global warming we
> are causing and what contributions there may be from other sources, however,
> are not fully understood.
>
> It would seem prudent to cut down on the amount of GHG we release, but given
> national and world economic and political forces and complexities, it's not
> at all clear to me that any effort we make will have a significant effect on
> what ultimately happens. Most of the human thought and energy devoted to
> global warming would probably be better focused on adaptation than control.
>
> Don
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Alexanian, Moorad<mailto:alexanian@uncw.edu>
> To: Kenneth Piers<mailto:Pier@calvin.edu> ;
> asa@calvin.edu<mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2009 8:44 AM
> Subject: RE: [asa] Effect of Solar variability
>
>
> There is a reference by Scafetta of Foukal's 2006 Nature paper. I am not
> in this field but was highly impressed with Nicola's presentation. I thought
> his work is thorough and complete ---Foukal, P., C. Fro¨hlich, H. Spruit,
> and M. L. Wigley (2006), Variations in solar luminosity and their effect on
> the Earth's climate, Nature, 443, 161–166.
> http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/2007JD008437.pdf<http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/2007JD008437.pdf>
>
> Moorad
> ________________________________________
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu<mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu>
> [asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of Kenneth Piers [Pier@calvin.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2009 9:17 AM
> To: asa@calvin.edu<mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
> Subject: Re: [asa] Effect of Solar variability
>
> Friends: Which refereed research Journal published this paper about solar
> irradiance? The findings are almost surely bogus. In the fall of 2006, P.
> Foukal's group (Britain) published a paper in Nature in which his group
> evaluated solar output data from satellite measurements since 1978 (the
> first
> year that direct satellite measurements of solar irradiance became
> possible and
> probably the best data we have on solar output) . Near the close of their
> paper
> the authors state: "…we can find no evidence for solar luminosity
> variations
> of sufficient amplitude to drive significant climate variations….". Here
> is
> the citation for anyone who wants to read the paper:
> Solar Output
> P. Foukal, et.al., Nature, 443, Sept. 14, 161-166 (2006).
>
> These are the same conclusions reached by IPCC in their 2007 report. Their
> conclusion is based on a survey of all refereed research papers on this
> topic
> through about 2005 (so would likely not include the Foukal paper). IPCC
> has
> this to say about solar irradiance in their report:
> "Changes in solar irradiance since 1750 are estimated to cause a radiative
> forcing of +0.12 W/m2. The net radiative forcing from all contributors is
> 1.6
> W/m2, so that changes in solar irradiance accounts for less than 10% of
> the
> climate forcing being measured."
>
> ken piers
>
>
>
> Ken Piers
>
> "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when
> we created them."
> A. Einstein
>
>
> >>> Rich Blinne <rich.blinne@gmail.com<mailto:rich.blinne@gmail.com>>
> 2/11/2009 8:26 PM >>>
> On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 11:27 AM, Christine Smith <
> christine_mb_smith@yahoo.com<mailto:christine_mb_smith@yahoo.com>> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > Nevertheless, like I said, I'd like to do some more digging on it.
> Perhaps
> > Rich and others who are more acquainted with the details of the topic
> will
> > have more to add here?
> >
> >
> This fails the common sense test. Solar variability has been measured
> since
> the 1950s. The Sun varies in the neighborhood of 0.1% following the Sun
> spot
> cycle.
> http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/SOLAR/IRRADIANCE/irrad.htmlThere<http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/SOLAR/IRRADIANCE/irrad.htmlThere>
> is a
> slight climatic effect from this but again it's cyclical. Global warming
> is
> up and to the right which also matches what happens with CO2. Physics
> Today
> is not a peer-reviewed journal while the PNAS most definitely is. Note the
> following paper that looked for a long-term trend for Solar variation.
>
> http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1810336<http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1810336>
>
> Despite the direct response of the model to solar forcing, even large
> solar
> > irradiance change combined with realistic volcanic forcing over past
> > centuries could not explain the late 20th century warming without
> inclusion
> > of greenhouse gas forcing. Although solar and volcanic effects appear to
> > dominate most of the slow climate variations within the past thousand
> years,
> > the impacts of greenhouse gases have dominated since the second half of
> the
> > last century.
>
>
> Have you ever wondered why all these solar papers go back to 1900? It's
> because if there is a long-term trend it's too slow to explain the recent
> warming. Global Warming really took off starting around 1980 while
> directly
> measured solar irradiation oscillated very slightly for three sun spot
> cycles.
>
> Rich Blinne
> Member ASA
>
> To unsubscribe, send a message to
> majordomo@calvin.edu<mailto:majordomo@calvin.edu> with
> "unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
>
>
> To unsubscribe, send a message to
> majordomo@calvin.edu<mailto:majordomo@calvin.edu> with
> "unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
>

-- 
Burgy
www.burgy.50megs.com
To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.