My belief in Global Warming is getting shaky

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by Flying Binghi

Moontanman, my understanding of the underlined part of your post is a 4 degree celsius drop over several weeks - have I understood correctly ? perhaps a typeing error ?

The ISA surface temp (thats where we humans live) is about 15C International Standard Atmosphere - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Oh No, I am talking average low temps globally, inland the temps would fall to well below freezing within a few days to weeks. The 4C is the actual average temp due to the oceans resisting freezing as they radiate stored heat. Not a 4c drop but actual average surface temp. Once the oceans were frozen over temps would plummet fast. Within a couple of years all you would have as gas at the surface would be traces of helium and hydrogen.

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by Eclipse Now

In the meantime, why is Venus so much hotter than the Earth? Closer to the sun? OK then... why is it so much hotter than Mercury!?

Venus is so hot mainly because of it's atmosphere of CO2, the air pressure on Venus is around 1350 psi, the Earth's is a little less than 15 psi. The super greenhouse effect of all that CO2 is why Venus is around 900 degrees F or around 480 C. The Earth will one day be the twin of Venus with a similar temperature and pressure.

[Turtle]

Give a hoot, don't pollute! Anyway, here's another little glitch on the problems with the climate models.

Originally Posted by NASA

Solar Wind Loses Power, Hits 50-year Low
...
The solar wind isn't inflating the heliosphere as much as it used to," says McComas. "That means less shielding against cosmic rays."

In addition to weakened solar wind, "Ulysses also finds that the sun's underlying magnetic field has weakened by more than 30% since the mid-1990s," says Posner. "This reduces natural shielding even more."
...
These extra particles pose no threat to people on Earth's surface. Our thick atmosphere and planetary magnetic field provide additional layers of protection that keep us safe.

But any extra cosmic rays can have consequences. If the trend continues, astronauts on the Moon or en route to Mars would get a higher dose of space radiation. Robotic space probes and satellites in high Earth orbit face an increased risk of instrument malfunctions and reboots due to cosmic ray strikes. Also, there are controversial studies linking cosmic ray fluxes to cloudiness and climate change on Earth. That link may be tested in the years ahead.

NASA - Solar Wind Loses Power, Hits 50-year Low

[Eclipse Now]

"Controversial studies"? Do you mean, 'not peer reviewed or accepted by the authorities'? Come on, this is straight out of Martin Durkin's "Great Global Warming Swindle".

Pffffffft. That movie was just another example of Durkin jerkin his gherkin.

If you want the latest on the Solar Variation Theory try the wiki which highlights the apparent initial links between solar and climate variations... and then more thorough studies differentiating and accounting for the actual percentages of influence (somewhere between 15% to 20% depending on what else is happening in the climate that year).

Solar variation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You've basically added nothing new here, and just recycled one of the 26 common myths being recycled and reused and respun all over the net. It's debunked here.
Climate myths: Global warming is down to the Sun, not humans - climate-change - 16 May 2007 - New Scientist Environment

and here
Climate myths: It’s all down to cosmic rays - climate-change - 16 May 2007 - New Scientist Environment

and here are the rest of it's 26 friends — if you're going to quote one, you may as well bring the rest along and have a party.
Climate change: A guide for the perplexed - earth - 16 May 2007 - New Scientist Environment

[modest]

Originally Posted by Turtle

Give a hoot, don't pollute! Anyway, here's another little glitch on the problems with the climate models.


NASA - Solar Wind Loses Power, Hits 50-year Low

I think we need to better-understand the relationship between the sun's magnetic field and solar irradiance.

Sunspots have been cataloged for a long time,



wikipedia comments on this data saying,

Originally Posted by wikipedia

On longer time scales, the sun has shown considerable variability, including the long Maunder Minimum when almost no sunspots were observed, the less severe Dalton Minimum, and increased sunspot activity during the last fifty years, known as the Modern Maximum. The causes for these variations are not well understood, but because sunspots and associated faculae affect the brightness of the sun, solar luminosity is lower during periods of low sunspot activity. It is widely believed that the low solar activity during the Maunder Minimum and earlier periods may be among the principal causes of the Little Ice Age.

So, it's generally acknowledged that less sunspots means less solar irradiance and tends toward a colder climate. But, there is also a slight discord between data involving total solar irradiance:



http://www.warwickhughes.com/agri/So...NY_Mar2_08.pdf

and sunspot number:



In post 290 the correlation between irradiance and temperature was discounted by virtue of sunspot numbers lagging temperature change while irradiance preceded it. But, I think this is something we need to better understand. Why exactly does the sun's magnetic field affect Earth's climate so and are sunspots really a good indication of solar activity?

Hopefully craft like Ulysses can give us a better understanding of these relationships over the next few years. That kind of data can be put directly into climate models giving ever-more accurate results. There can be no doubt that accurate solar forecasting would greatly improve climate models. I'm not sure I'd call our inability to do so now a "glitch", even a "little glitch", but it is an area that needs improving upon. It's a potential vulnerability.

~modest (reading about the sun's magnetic field)

[Michaelangelica]

China is doing a LOT more than USA to curb GHG emissions than USA at the moment.

What is the US (the biggest polluter and source of CO2) doing?

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by modest

I think we need to better-understand the relationship between the sun's magnetic field and solar irradiance.

... Why exactly does the sun's magnetic field affect Earth's climate so and are sunspots really a good indication of solar activity?

Hopefully craft like Ulysses can give us a better understanding of these relationships over the next few years. That kind of data can be put directly into climate models giving ever-more accurate results. There can be no doubt that accurate solar forecasting would greatly improve climate models. I'm not sure I'd call our inability to do so now a "glitch", even a "little glitch", but it is an area that needs improving upon. It's a potential vulnerability.

~modest (reading about the sun's magnetic field)

None of those graphs you gave plot the feature the article from NASA is talking about, which is the pressure of the solar wind.

Originally Posted by NASA

"The average pressure of the solar wind has dropped more than 20% since the mid-1990s," says Dave McComas of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. "This is the weakest it's been since we began monitoring solar wind almost 50 years ago."

Let's not get into the trend malarky again, so here's the way they plot the solar wind pressure decrease. http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2...Image-full.jpg


You say "ever-more accurate results', I say ever less error ridden. Room to improve is our common fulcrum. Since this is new data, then it obviously is no part of any recent climate model, and complex systems being sensitive to initial conditions, a missing data point is a good as a bad data point. GIGO

Originally Posted by Michael

China is doing a LOT more than USA to curb GHG emissions than USA at the moment.

What is the US (the biggest polluter and source of CO2) doing?

Practicing democracy & trying to elect Barack Oboma who has a reasoned plan to get us doing what we have always done better than any y'all who have saw fit to mimic our constitution since we writ it, and that is invent, baby, invent. China's doing a LOT more to run folks over with tanks than we are too, but hey, who cares about that?

[Eclipse Now]

You say "ever-more accurate results', I say ever less error ridden. Room to improve is our common fulcrum. Since this is new data, then it obviously is no part of any recent climate model, and complex systems being sensitive to initial conditions, a missing data point is a good as a bad data point. GIGO

Even if it is a new forcing that we need to reckon with it still has to fit around what we KNOW about spectroscopy and Co2. So your second sentence is an exaggeration. We know that, all things being equal, temperature would rise commensurate with Co2. We know this from testable, repeatable science in a lab. If anything, you may have found another forcing, but this theory has already been disproved many times. It's just not a contender.

[modest]

Originally Posted by Turtle

None of those graphs you gave plot the feature the article from NASA is talking about, which is the pressure of the solar wind.

That's my point Turtle. In order to accurately forecast solar irradiance we need to better understand the mechanisms that bring it about. The article you give and the science behind it is helpful in that regard. I do not think that counting sunspots and accounting for solar cycles is adequate. Given that sunspot data has been used in this thread to discount irradiance / temp correlation, I think it needs pointed out that other factors are involved... which your article does.

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by modest

That's my point Turtle. In order to accurately forecast solar irradiance we need to better understand the mechanisms that bring it about. The article you give and the science behind it is helpful in that regard. I do not think that counting sunspots and accounting for solar cycles is adequate. Given that sunspot data has been used in this thread to discount irradiance / temp correlation, I think it needs pointed out that other factors are involved... which your article does.

Agreed. I have also pointed out that the models lack data on submarine volcanism's role in climate forcing, and again do largely to a lack of data. Also a while back a piece challenging the models for not including the feedback of the clouds. More of my 'glitches'.

I am pointing things out that I see as problematic issues with the science of modeling, not discounting human CO2.