Sun & climate: moving in opposite directions
What the science says...
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The sun's energy has decreased since the 1980s but the Earth keeps warming faster than before. |
Climate Myth...
It's the sun
"Over the past few hundred years, there has been a steady increase in the numbers of sunspots, at the time when the Earth has been getting warmer. The data suggests solar activity is influencing the global climate causing the world to get warmer." (BBC)
Over the last 35 years the sun has shown a cooling trend. However global temperatures continue to increase. If the sun's energy is decreasing while the Earth is warming, then the sun can't be the main control of the temperature.
Figure 1 shows the trend in global temperature compared to changes in the amount of solar energy that hits the Earth. The sun's energy fluctuates on a cycle that's about 11 years long. The energy changes by about 0.1% on each cycle. If the Earth's temperature was controlled mainly by the sun, then it should have cooled between 2000 and 2008.
Figure 1: Annual global temperature change (thin light red) with 11 year moving average of temperature (thick dark red). Temperature from NASA GISS. Annual Total Solar Irradiance (thin light blue) with 11 year moving average of TSI (thick dark blue). TSI from 1880 to 1978 from Krivova et al 2007. TSI from 1979 to 2015 from the World Radiation Center (see their PMOD index page for data updates). Plots of the most recent solar irradiance can be found at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics LISIRD site.
The solar fluctuations since 1870 have contributed a maximum of 0.1 °C to temperature changes. In recent times the biggest solar fluctuation happened around 1960. But the fastest global warming started in 1980.
Figure 2 shows how much different factors have contributed recent warming. It compares the contributions from the sun, volcanoes, El Niño and greenhouse gases. The sun adds 0.02 to 0.1 °C. Volcanoes cool the Earth by 0.1-0.2 °C. Natural variability (like El Niño) heats or cools by about 0.1-0.2 °C. Greenhouse gases have heated the climate by over 0.8 °C.
Figure 2 Global surface temperature anomalies from 1870 to 2010, and the natural (solar, volcanic, and internal) and anthropogenic factors that influence them. (a) Global surface temperature record (1870–2010) relative to the average global surface temperature for 1961–1990 (black line). A model of global surface temperature change (a: red line) produced using the sum of the impacts on temperature of natural (b, c, d) and anthropogenic factors (e). (b) Estimated temperature response to solar forcing. (c) Estimated temperature response to volcanic eruptions. (d) Estimated temperature variability due to internal variability, here related to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. (e) Estimated temperature response to anthropogenic forcing, consisting of a warming component from greenhouse gases, and a cooling component from most aerosols. (IPCC AR5, Chap 5)
Some people try to blame the sun for the current rise in temperatures by cherry picking the data. They only show data from periods when sun and climate data track together. They draw a false conclusion by ignoring the last few decades when the data shows the opposite result.
Basic rebuttal written by Larry M, updated by Sarah
Update July 2015:
Here is a related lecture-video from Denial101x - Making Sense of Climate Science Denial
Last updated on 2 April 2017 by Sarah. View Archives
[DB] Rambling dissertations aside, do you have a point with this?
[DB] If you wish to discuss the science of the OP, fine. Shamelessly self-promoting your book here is not. Future comments of this nature posted here will simply be deleted and your commenting privileges may be revoked.
Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can be rescinded if the posting individual treats adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.
Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.
[DB] Moderation complaints snipped.
[DB] Inflammatory tone snipped.
"I offered a free pdf of the 'proofs'."
If no peer-reviewed published citable sources exist your claims devolve to "climastrology". QED.
[DB] "...in 1990. There were no 'peers' to review such work at the time."
So you maintain that peer-review did not exist prior to 1991? Or that Gaddes the Elder had no peer?
"The fantasy of El Nino ruled the waves."
If making a funny, using a smiley or Poe's Law kicks in.
"Alex Gaddes died in 1997, leaving his forecasts at 2001."
He published in 1990, yet his data you cite runs after his death...via Ouija board?
"I do not indulge in 'Mathturbation' or 'Climastrology'"
In all seriousness, extraordinary claims require an extraordinary burden of proof. If you maintain what you do in the absence of physical mechanisms in the face of centuries of published research (which you seek to overturn with a non-peer-reviewed source) which says otherwise, then you do.
QED.
Inflammatory snipped.
[DB] "I'm saying there were no 'peers' working in the field of 'Dry Cycle' prediction. A S Gaddes sought and followed the advice of many scientific 'peers' at the time and many of them provided him with important papers and discussion pertaining to his work."
Now you resort to "termastrology". Uncontent with the standard definition of peer review, you redefine it to make the term more convenient to your position. By not publishing the work in a peer-reviewed, scientifically relevant journal the work by definition is not peer-reviewed.
This is a forum in which the science of climate change is discussed and explored. By science meaning peer-reviewed articles published by working scientists in the field in scientifically relevant papers. Nothing you have presented thus far meets those standards.
Thus, the reader of this blog will be unable to differentiate between what you have presented thus far and the works of Hapgood, Velikovsky, Burroughs (my favorite is where the famed scientist Tar Zan exlores the inner world of Pellucidar) and Hubbard. But lacking the entertainment value.
If you wish to further explore your claims, pick the ONE mechanism you feel most strongly about (the one you wish to "hang your hat on"), use the Search function in the upper left corner to find the most relevant thread and initiate a dialogue on it there. You waste everyone's time here with this Gish Gallop approach.
I will post a separate comment with what I consider to be the failings in his efforts, but I don't want to diminish them. He was an intelligent and yet uneducated (formally) man who took wholeheartedly to his hobby, pursued it with intelligence and diligence, and whether correct in his conclusions or not he demonstrated both a humility and an investment in the importance of the subject which now deserves respect, not derision. But I would ask you to read his book a little more closely, and to read between the lines, imagining what he might say today, faced with the mounting evidence, rather than what you perceive that he had said back then. He is at a disadvantage in having you as his only advocate. I believe you owe it to him to consider all of his words, and what he himself seemed more than ready to accept, which is the idea that he might be wrong, that it is frighteningly important to be right about this, and that doing so -- being right -- means being willing to always keep an open mind, and to always adjust your reasoning to the facts as they become available.
There is no mention of the development of the basic tenet of the book (ie. The Ratios Principle)or its subsequent and future application. The assertion that A S Gaddes only depended on Australian Rainfall records is erroneous.He very much used Deep Ice Core And Tree-ring data to generate his tables. His discussion of the importance of volcanic activity has not been 'nailed down' by current Climate Science, it is in fact ignored or considered irrelevant. What caused the so called 'La Nina' events in Southern Australia at the time of the eruption of Mt Pucon in Mexico 2011? Or the bitterly cold Northern Hemisphere winter at the time of the eruption of Eyjatjallajokull in Iceland? Finally,(for the moment,) are the forecasts generated by the Ratios Principle correct? If they are then the 'method' must have had something to do with it. It took me many readings to 'understand' this work, I expect it will take those more astute and qualified than myself more than one reading.[DB] Again you continue to prosecute your agenda of curve-fitting without plausible, physical mechanisms for support nor do you provide testable references. As such you are a practitioner of climastrology.
As noted earlier, pick the element you feel strongest about & post on it on the most appropriate thread. Further comments of this nature constitute Gish Gallop and will perforce be deleted. Failure to follow this guidance is cause for a rescinding of posting privileges.
No further warnings shall be given.
See (921) for my answer to the queries on temperature readings (or lack of them.)The Ratios Principle predicts 'Dry Cycles' not Heat Fluctuations.I suspect the current predilection for temperature fixation is just an attempt to 'prop up' AGW. For the queries on Drift of Magnetic Field. It is my understanding that the Earth revolves around the Sun once every Earth/Solar Year, 360 degrees, 30 degrees/month. I believe we are accompanied on this journey by our Magnetic Field. Does the Magnetic Field 'drift, undulate, waft or cavort?' Probably all of the above. I stand by the 'Ratios Principle' and the methods used to obtain it. Apart from my own observations it should be perfectly simple for anyone to check the veracity of the forecasts from 1976 (or before,)to 2011. KR(939) I appreciate your 'moderate approach' The Metonic cycle of the Moon's Nodes is an important 'Constant' in the Ratios Principle calculation. It appears to affect the severity and duration of 'Dry Cycles.' (see where the Metonic Cycle appears in the Forecast Tables, and accompanying comments.)Perhaps you can use Sphaerica's copy,(apparently he wont be using it any more.) It is now cold and dry in America, 'physically indicating' the predicted passage of the 'Dry Cycle' due to reach Australia in early January 2012.[DB] "Does the Magnetic Field 'drift, undulate, waft or cavort?' Probably all of the above."
Now you resort to trolling by argumentarium. If you honestly cannot understand what you are talking about in this point you must then also summon the intellectual honesty to admit it and then get more knowledge.
"Apart from my own observations it should be perfectly simple for anyone to check the veracity of the forecasts from 1976 (or before,)to 2011."
Eyecrometers do not cut it in science. You must perform statistical significance tests to provide a scientific basis for your claims. You still practition climastrology as a result.
"It appears to affect the severity and duration of 'Dry Cycles.'"
IBID.
"It is now cold and dry in America"
Winter approaches. For many parts of America this means rain, not drought. Or do include the seasons in your collection of semimythical cycles?
Either step it up and provide real scientific evidence (via significance testing) to support your extraordinary claims (which bear the burden of proof of extraordinary evidence to support them) or take your agenda elsewhere. Many "alternatives-to-science" blogs exist that will gladly welcome you.
Evasion struck out.
[DB] Point taken. ;)
[DB] You were warned here to provide significance testing to support your claims. Failing that, to provide links to peer-reviewed articles published by working scientists in the field in scientifically relevant papers (in this comment here).
The comments that you posted that failed to follow this course of action were deleted. As will subsequent comments, unless you step it up with the requisite testing and citations. Nothing you have presented thus far meets those standards.
Your practice thus far is to employ circular reasoning:
A continuation of this course of action is simply wasting everyone's time.