R Mackey, “Rhodes Fairbridge and the idea that the solar system regulates the Earth’s climate”, Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue 50, 2007, pp955-968

http://www.griffith.edu.au/conference/ics2007/pdf/ICS176.pdf

Mackey’s forecast for upcoming cooling is quite short-term, so it won’t take decades to find out

“There *is* a known explanation of global warming”

It’s the talk of absence of evidence as evidence of absence that I am referring to.

The recent Lockwood study has been used to state that there is no significant solar contribution to the measured warning. “Another nail in the coffin” means “we have eliminated another possible explanation”. I.e., CO2 is the culprit because we don’t know other causes.

But look at this instead. As commented by Nir Shaviv, the lack of correlation between solar activity and climate could be used to state that the Sun causes cooling (as the maximum temperature is reached in the afternoon, well after the mid-day peak in irradiation)

http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/07/nir-shaviv-why-is-lockwood-and-frohlich.html

——-

One day historians will have a field day trying to explain why so many science people could not keep their sanity whenever somebody talked about “global warming”.

There *is* a known explanation of global warming… People burning fossil fuels and releasing green house gases into the atmosphere. AGW deniers have proposed a number of alternative explanations of why the Earth is getting warmer. Amongst these are cosmic rays and the Sun getting warmer. These two hypotheses have been shown to not match the data. Leaving increased atmospheric CO2 as an explanation. This is not some non-scientific mumbo jumbo like ID or astrology. The CO2-based green house effect is based on the measurable physical properties of CO2. To deny this, either you have to deny that humans are burning fossil fuels, or somehow explain why either CO2 doesn’t accumulate in the atmosphere, or that something counteracts the greenhouse effect despite the increasing accumulation of CO2. If you succeed there, you still have to explain why the Earth *is* warming anyway. AGW-deniers are building a house of cards, and several more of the cards get yanked out of it every year.

***

Sun’s Future Not-So Bright :
October ,1995, Astronomy magazine

[Summarised from there - ed]

“A study by astrophysicist Sallie Baliunas suggested that our Sun may actually dim by the middle of next century [ie. about 2050 AD –ed] cooling the Earth by about 2 degrees Fahrenheit. This is based on studying other stars esp. star-spot cycles with about 800 stars between 10 & 100 ly away surveyed and is supported by carbon 14 data gathered from 7,000 year old bristlecone pines. The study forecasts that our own Sun will decrease in brightness by about 0.4 % within the next 50 years. Baliuna’s remarked : “Combined with the star survey, this information [C-14 bristlecone pine data] suggest that the Sun’s magnetic activity dwindles roughly one century out of every three.”

The article noted in passing the lower 2 degree F difference equals the temp. difference of the ‘Little Ice Age’ period from 1645-1715 CE.

[end-summary –ed]

***

Seems they were spot on.

The implications of this appear mixed and rather intriguing raising a number of questions. Eg : “So if our Sun _ is_ cooling – is the greenhouse effect hiding this fact or is there a lag factor with our Sun recovering and thus creating a solar effect more than a human one?”

Also worth noting is that the current (May 2007) issue of UK-based astronomy magazine, ‘Astronomy Now’ is focused on ‘Climate Change ‘ with an number of in-depth articles on what it means for the planet, human society and astronomy, compares the climatological evolutions of Mars-Earth & Venus and mentions both accepted greenhouse consensus and alternate causation theories notable cosmic rays and solar variation.

Personally, from all I’ve read and heard I am certain the recent planetary trend is for rising temperatures with receding icecaps and sea level rise posing us real threats. Whether this is human-induced, natural or a mixture of both seems slightly less clear but I think it highly probable (95 %) that human activity and industrial pollution is NOT helping the situation and that taking action to reduce our emissions of CO2, methane and other greenhouse gases is something we are well-advised to do.

So I have to stand with the majority –both scientific and public – who say the planet is warming and that human activity is almost certainly a major factor causing the temperature rise and consequent environmental and social problems.
———————-

Tried topost this on the BAUT buit didn’t seem tobe working … ?

On the one side Phil is unwittingly providing ammunitions to any smart astrologist. On the other, the BA is not walking the walk, applying the ways of healthy skepticism to climatology as he so aptly does about astronomy.

In fact, all it will take is some future result like the infamous “Mars Effect”, for people to state that astrology is right because “there is no known explanation to that result”.

And what is the point of remarking silly scientific mistakes in movies, and proclaim oneself a “skeptic” if there is then not a word spoken about major flaws of contemporary AGW theory, such as the role of clouds and even the whereabout of aerosols?

If the BA can ignore that for the higher goal of combating flawed young-earth creationism and big-oil-driven politicians, well, why couldn’t a movie director ignore the problems with sound in deep space for the higher goal of creating an enjoyable movie?

Once the goals justify the means, everything becomes permissible

There was a letter to the editor in Scientific American (June 2007, don’t have a link to it) asking a similar question:

“In ‘Methane, Plants and Climate Change,’ by Frank Keppler and Thomas Roeckmann, two graphs compare sources of methane in the atmosphere during preindustrial times with those of today. Ruminants are listed as a major source of current emissions but are not included in the preindustrial chard. Did as many as 70 million bison really produce that much less methane than today’s cattle?”

“Keppler replies: Although wildlife certainly produced methane in preindustrial time, this output was just a minor fraction of the 233 million metric tons of yearly global methane emissions. According to estimates made by environmental scientist Susan Subak and her colleagues in a 1994 article for Chemosphere, the total production of methane by wild ruminants in that period was no more than 10 million metric tons a year – a figure that takes into account the North American bison population (which Subak estimates to have comprised 60 million animals) and the natural ruminants of Africa and other continents. An estimated 1.4 billion head of cattle populate the world today – far more ruminants than existed in preindustrial times. Furthermore, modern cattle are bred for productivity, which probably leads them to emit more methane than their wild relatives did. Estimates put their methane production at 115 million metric tons a year.”