Sunspots reaching 1,000-year high

BBC News ^ | Tuesday, 6 July, 2004 | Dr David Whitehouse

[George W. Bush]

Sunspots reaching 1,000-year high

By Dr David Whitehouse
BBC News Online science editor

Sunspots are plentiful nowadays

A new analysis shows that the Sun is more active now than it has been at anytime in the previous 1,000 years.

Scientists based at the Institute for Astronomy in Zurich used ice cores from Greenland to construct a picture of our star's activity in the past.

They say that over the last century the number of sunspots rose at the same time that the Earth's climate became steadily warmer.

This trend is being amplified by gases from fossil fuel burning, they argue.

'Little Ice Age'

Sunspots have been monitored on the Sun since 1610, shortly after the invention of the telescope. They provide the longest-running direct measurement of our star's activity.

The variation in sunspot numbers has revealed the Sun's 11-year cycle of activity as well as other, longer-term changes.

In particular, it has been noted that between about 1645 and 1715, few sunspots were seen on the Sun's surface.

This period is called the Maunder Minimum after the English astronomer who studied it.

Ice cores record climate trends back beyond human measurements

It coincided with a spell of prolonged cold weather often referred to as the "Little Ice Age". Solar scientists strongly suspect there is a link between the two events - but the exact mechanism remains elusive.

Over the past few thousand years there is evidence of earlier Maunder-like coolings in the Earth's climate - indicated by tree-ring measurements that show slow growth due to prolonged cold.

In an attempt to determine what happened to sunspots during these other cold periods, Dr Sami Solanki and colleagues have looked at concentrations of a form, or isotope, of beryllium in ice cores from Greenland.

The isotope is created by cosmic rays - high-energy particles from the depths of the galaxy.

The flux of cosmic rays reaching the Earth's surface is modulated by the strength of the solar wind, the charged particles that stream away from the Sun's surface.

And since the strength of the solar wind varies over the sunspot cycle, the amount of beryllium in the ice at a time in the past can therefore be used to infer the state of the Sun and, roughly, the number of sunspots.

Latest warming

Dr Solanki is presenting a paper on the reconstruction of past solar activity at Cool Stars, Stellar Systems And The Sun, a conference in Hamburg, Germany.

He says that the reconstruction shows the Maunder Minimum and the other minima that are known in the past thousand years.

But the most striking feature, he says, is that looking at the past 1,150 years the Sun has never been as active as it has been during the past 60 years.

Over the past few hundred years, there has been a steady increase in the numbers of sunspots, a trend that has accelerated in the past century, just at the time when the Earth has been getting warmer.

The data suggests that changing solar activity is influencing in some way the global climate causing the world to get warmer.

Over the past 20 years, however, the number of sunspots has remained roughly constant, yet the average temperature of the Earth has continued to increase.

This is put down to a human-produced greenhouse effect caused by the combustion of fossil fuels.

This latest analysis shows that the Sun has had a considerable indirect influence on the global climate in the past, causing the Earth to warm or chill, and that mankind is amplifying the Sun's latest attempt to warm the Earth.

[ChessExpert]

But the most striking feature, he says, is that looking at the past 1,150 years the Sun has never been as active as it has been during the past 60 years.

Over the past few hundred years, there has been a steady increase in the numbers of sunspots, a trend that has accelerated in the past century, just at the time when the Earth has been getting warmer.

The sun is causing the earth to warm - a Captain Obvious moment.

Current usage of “global warming” means that man-made CO2 causes the earth to warm with catastrophic consequences. It is becoming increasingly clear that this is no more valid than the claims made in 1976 that man-made pollution (CO2?) causes the earth to cool with catastrophic consequences.

The primary argument in either case is “the argument from authority.” I was taught in college that this is a fallacy. The example given in my state (government) school was that of citing the authority of the Bible. It also applies to citing the authority of “scientists,” or to citing “a consensus of scientists.” In all cases, it is a fallacy. In addition to logic, we have seen that the scientists were wrong in 1976 in predicting Global Cooling.

The socialist model is that we surrender power to “experts.” Economists would plan our economy. Educators would change human nature. Environmental experts and computer modelers, cited in post 1, predicted doom and gloom if government did not reign in free enterprise (and freedom). The simple fact is that socialism has been shown to have no merit. It works poorly. It has a poor track record. Experts claim too much and are self serving. The “experts” have a poor track record, from Malthus to Marx, to Erlich, to DDT hysterics, to nuclear power hysterics, to global cooling hysterics, and now to global warming hysterics. In the case of Global whatever, I doubt that surrendering power to national governments will be “sufficient.” It is likely that global problems will inevitably require “solutions” from global government. But whether the solutions are national or international, they will be bad. They will reduce freedom and prosperity, and, ironically, this will hurt the environment.

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Fred.

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[little jeremiah]

Check this later. (note to self.)

[Danae]

Ok, so who started global warming on the sun? Come on now! fess up! Al? Where are ya? We NEED answers to this!

Ok in all seriousness... the planet is getting a bit warmer, the real issue here is NOT stopping it, there is gonna be NONE of that idiocy. Lets start planning on getting people moved to higher ground. Because THAT is the issue! Not Stopping it! Good lord, want to try and tell me how to stop the Ocean? Don’t go pointing at New Orleans, we all know how THAT is turning out.... lets get realistic, if ocean levels are truly rising, then we should be holding concerts to help people move to higher ground, we should be sending all those scammed “Carbon Coupon” (or what ever the hell it is) dollars to helping the Nation of Bangladesh move inland. If there is such a MAGNITUDE of EMMINENT DIASTER looming, why are people not actually addressing solving it, by getting the hell out of the way??? I mean good LORD, we evacuate when a Hurricane is coming right? You can no more stop the warming of the planet when it is caused by the sun!!

This is the main reason I am CERTAIN that all this global warming stuff is complete CRAP, because the supporters of this utter NONSENSE are not espousing PRACTICAL solutions to the problems they say we face if their theorys are true. If the Sea level is gonna rise, why are they not going about trying to get people OFF THE COAST LINES??? Uh yea, exactly!

[John 6.66=Mark of the Beast?]

Could the increase in sun spots and the increase of land and undersea volcanic activities be contributing to the heating of the seas? From what I understand there are massive underwater volcano's in the Arctic region of the planet. Just my thought on the subject. Are we not due for a 12,000 ice age too?

[qam1]

Sulfate aerosol forcing explains the majority of the cooling.

Bull

1) Most of the cooling between 1940-1976 occurred between 1945-1950 when most of the world was recovering from WWII

and between 1950-1960 when everything ramped up the world warmed slightly only to again fall. Sorry but there's no consistent pattern there to suggest sulfate aerosols or any other pollutant had anything to do with the cooling

2) While we in the US reduced Sulfate Aerosols since the 1940's-1970's, back then China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, etc weren't as industrialized as they are today, so there are actually more "sulphate aerosols" being released today in the world then there was back then when it was basically just us,

Here see for yourself

This photo was taken by NASA in 2001, of Aerosol pollution over Northern India and Bangladesh

Thick aerosols blanket much of China's Huang He, or Yellow River, in this true-color MODIS image from October 22, 2001

Nothing we released back then approached those levels, yet the Earth isn't cooling

[Tolsti]

Wish I was in a house instead of apartment. It’ll be great for shortwave/ham radio.

[Smokin' Joe]

It's telling that the scientific mainsteam has to discard simple notions of thermodynamics to cling to their human-caused global warming religion grant funding.

(8^D) fixed it!

[Robert A Cook PE]

A “year” (in terms of time measurement for science) is always an “earth-year” and “earth-second when shorter intervals need to be measured) - and for this article, I agree with you that the precise 11.29 interval is rounded out.

Accurate enough.

What was not immediately clear is how the author extrapolated back from direct measurements to get the nbr of sunspots before Galileo started watching the sun itself. Since the 1600’s, we can count them (have counted them) but before then ...

[wildbill]

They are the modern Luddites.

[cogitator]

Just conceding there probably is a human component is different than placing some high confidence level on something that we really know little about.

It's your opinion that "we" know little about climate change. The scientists studying it know a lot more about it than you think they do, or want them to. Bias cuts both ways.

[cogitator]

Post-WWII industrialization with dirty coal emissions is one of the main reasons for the rapid increase in sulfate aerosols. Maybe you should take a look at this IPCC figure.

The blue band is modeled global temperature only including natural forcings. The red band is modeled temperatures including anthropogenic forcing. The black line is observed temperatures. The key thing I want you to note is how much bigger the drop in North America ca. 1950 was, compared to other continents. Why? Hmmm....

Sorry but there's no consistent pattern there to suggest sulfate aerosols or any other pollutant had anything to do with the cooling

Wishful thinking, not in accord with scientific understanding. An interview with Dr. Simon Tett

"All attempts at detecting and attributing climate change signals need a reliable observed data set and simulations with mechanisms that drive climate change included. In a nutshell, this paper is important because it was the first study to investigate the effect of sulphate aerosols in a general circulation model of the climate system. The general circulation model we employed had 20 layers in the ocean and 19 for the atmosphere. The experiments simulate the climate back to 1860 (which is when the global records of surface temperature became reliable), and they are projected forward to 2050. We found that the greenhouse-gas forcing increased slowly from 1860-1960, but then accelerated markedly. After 1970 our model with greenhouse gases alone begins to depart significantly from the observations. However, when we included sulphate aerosols, which have a cooling effect, the model agreed with the data from the 1930s and onwards. The rapid warming that has taken place since 1970 is, according to the model, attributable to a heating effect from greenhouse gases and a cooling effect from sulphate aerosols. Fundamentally we showed that climate models cannot simulate the observations unless forcing factors additional to greenhouse gases are included."

back then China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, etc weren't as industrialized as they are today, so there are actually more "sulphate aerosols" being released today in the world then there was back then when it was basically just us,

Assertion. Show quantified estimates, please. India's smoke does not have an appreciable sulfate component, for example.

[steelyourfaith]

Once again, it’s the sun.

[Psycho_Bunny]

Ice cores record climate trends back beyond human measurements

But......they're being measured....by humans.

Do people even read what they're writing, anymore?

[Always Right]

It's your opinion that "we" know little about climate change. The scientists studying it know a lot more about it than you think they do, or want them to. Bias cuts both ways.

Puh_leez. They don't even know how much sunspots effect us or if additional cloud cover will add to or subtract from global warming. Those are two huge factors, perhaps the the two biggest, and they don't know. And to think all these ice core data and tree ring data really gives us an accurate picture of previous climates is just bazaar. Global Warming scientist paint a picture that they know a lot, but the truth is they are missing much more than they know.

[cogitator]

Do you know why 1993 was chosen as the start date? That’s when reliable global sea level measurements from satellite radar altimetry began. Irregardless of what the rate of rise was compared to, the observed increase has been consistent at about 3 cm a year, due to ocean thermal expansion primarily.

[cogitator]

Lindzen says warming is happening and that mankind's fossil fuel emissions are a component of the warming. According to the blanket statement I addressed, he'd be classed as a liar along with everyone else that is far less skeptical and trying to maintain a skeptical face. And that's extreme.

And take a look at this plot, just posted in another thread:

he meant that some amount of warming as a result of increasing GHG's is undeniable, but not the main force behind the recent warming.

Unfortunately, Dr. Lindzen's skepticism is erroneous.

The blue band is the modelled global temperature with only natural forcings. The red band includes anthropogenic forcing. The black line is the observed temperature record.

[Kozak]

http://www.crm114.com/algore/quiz.html

Take the quiz and see if you can tell the loons apart.....

[cogitator]

Gotta keep up, man. Bob Carter claims its not warming

What on earth could be going on? Well, if you look at the fine print on Carter's graph you find the data set he plotted was "uahncdc.mt", and "mt" stands for mid troposphere. His "Global Average Temperature" is the temperature 6 kms up in the sky, where nobody lives. And what does that silly greenhouse hypothesis predict for the mid troposphere? Well, it says that the lower troposphere will warm (see second graph above), the stratosphere will cool (Look!) and in between them, temperatures in the mid troposphere will not change. Yes, far from the greenhouse hypothesis failing the test, Carter's graph shows that it passed with flying colours."

Gee, I wonder if Carter got the erroneous graph from Junk Science, since his article was on April 11th and JunkScience made it on April 10th? Makes sense to me.