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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (224262)	3/15/2007 11:10:31 AM
From: Katelew	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

On its face, this seems like a reasonable explanation of global warming. Why then do the majority of scientists reject this as an explanation? P.S. I haven't studied the science one way or the other....wouldn't understand it, if I did. I'm pretty open to all explanations, however commonsense suggests there are limits to the earth's abilities to cleanse itself and that there is, indeed, a fine 'balance' of nature.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (224262)	3/15/2007 11:17:13 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 281500

Not the sun; keep trying. You'll find a reason that doesn't involve us someday. How about abiotic production of CO2 and CH4, deep in da bowels of the mudball? Variations in solar activity may have been responsible for past warm periods, though it's hard to be entirely sure because we have been taking good measurements of it only since 1978. But recent solar increases are too small to have produced the present warming, and have been much less important than greenhouse gases since about 1850. news.independent.co.uk Message 23347124 ============== PARIS -- Six years is not a long time in science. Data may be collected, a paper or two published or a PhD earned. But in the six years since the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Charge (IPCC) report was released, the science and certainty of global warming has grown markedly.,,,, These observational improvements also extend into space, all the way to the SUN, where scientists have used satellite data to better understand the amount of solar energy--and its impact here on Earth. "We therefore can make a comparison statement for the first time and say it is likely that solar forcing is at least five times smaller than the combined human influence," Forster continues. "Over the last 50 years, in particular, the natural forcing (solar plus volcanic) is most certainly negative. Meanwhile we've seen this large positive forcing from greenhouse gases." sciam.com Recent Warming But No Trend in Galactic Cosmic Rays Filed under: Climate Science SUN-earth connections— rasmus @ 8:14 am There is little evidence for a connection between solar activity (as inferred from trends in galactic cosmic rays) and recent global warming. realclimate.org. A critique on Veizer’s Celestial Climate Driver Filed under: Climate Science Paleoclimate SUN-earth connections— rasmus @ 5:11 am In a paper in Geoscience Canada, Veizer (2005) states that ‘the multitude of empirical observations favours celestial phenomena as the most important driver of terrestrial climate on most time scales‘. realclimate.org ===== Another study on solar influence Filed under: Climate Science SUN-earth connections— rasmus @ 9:27 am In a recent paper in Geophysical Research Letters, Scafetta & West (S&W) estimate that as much as 25-35% of the global warming in the 1980-2000 period can be attributed changes in the solar output..... realclimate.org. ============== We have already discussed the connection between solar activity (here , here, here, and here), and this new analysis does not alter our previous conclusions: that there is not much evidence pointing to the SUN being responsible for the warming since the 1950s. Message 23259638

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (224262)	3/15/2007 10:50:29 PM
From: Win Smith	Respond to of 281500

Ok, I looked up this Nir Shaviv, and he seems to be heavily into correlation of a curiously selective sort, apparently somewhat outside his area too. Cf: We review the evidence linking cosmic ray flux (CRF) variations to global climate change. In particular, we summarize recent results demonstrating that the long-term CRF variability associated with galactic spiral arm passages is the dominant climate driver over geological time scales. This can be concluded from the large correlation apparent between the reconstructed CRF history and the geologically reconstructed temperature record, and the lack of any correlation with the amount of atmospheric CO2. The result can be used to quantify the CRF/temperature link and place an upper limit on the atmospheric response to CO2 variations. In turn, we show that this can be used to resolve the faint sun paradox and understand the origin of the global warming observed over the past century. eproceedings.worldscinet.com Ok, nothing about sunspots there and it doesn't look to be worth $20 to read about some random astrophysicist's contribution to the conservative cause. On the alleged "lack of any correlation with the amount of atmospheric CO2" there is by contrast this from the charts and graphs department: www.exo.net/.../globalclimate/IceCores1.gif , from exo.net . Dr. Shaviv is apparently quite, er, conservative in what he considers correlation.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (224262)	3/15/2007 10:59:16 PM
From: Win Smith	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Scorched Earth select.nytimes.com [ Seemingly somewhat more directly related to the "solar activity" contribution to global warming than Dr. Shaviv's cosmic rays is this sad tale. People were actually going to do real research on the matter, it seemed, but the possibility of actually measuring things directly apparently didn't much appeal to the scientist in chief, or the Friends of Cheney, or something. We don't need no stinkin' data, it seems. It's better to keep things purely conjectural. ] January 15, 2006 By ROBERT L. PARK NASA has quietly terminated the Deep Space Climate Observatory, citing ''competing priorities.'' The news media took little notice. Few Americans, after all, had even heard of the program. But the entire world may come to mourn its passing. Earth is growing warmer. Even the most strident global-warming deniers have taken to saying that a little warming is a good thing. If the trend continues, however, it will have catastrophic consequences for life on this planet. Correctly identifying the cause could be the most important problem facing humanity. Most scientists link global warming to unrestrained burning of fossil fuels, which shrouds Earth in a blanket of carbon dioxide, trapping the Sun's energy. Others, backed by industries that spew pollutants into the atmosphere, insist that greenhouse emissions are not the problem. They prefer to attribute warming to natural variations in solar output. Scientists are skeptical, but they don't deny the possibility. The issue cries out to be resolved. Even in a world wracked by wars, battles are not fought over scientific disagreements. In science, nature is the sole arbiter. Disputes are resolved only by better experiments. The better experiment when it comes to global warming was to be the climate observatory, situated in space at the neutral-gravity point between the Sun and Earth. Called Lagrange 1, or L1, this point is about one million miles from Earth. At L1, with a view of the full disk of the Sun in one direction, and a full sunlit Earth in the opposite, the observatory could continuously monitor Earth's energy balance. It was given a poetic name, Triana, after Rodrigo de Triana, the sailor aboard Christopher Columbus's ship who first sighted the New World. Development began in November 1998 and it was ready for launching three years later. The cost was only about $100 million. For comparison, that is only one-thousandth the cost of the International Space Station, which serves no useful purpose. Before Triana could be launched, however, there was a presidential election. Many of the industries favored by the new Bush White House were not anxious to have the cause of global warming pinned down. The launching was put on hold. The disdain of the Bush White House for Triana goes much deeper than just a desire to avoid the truth about global warming. Triana began life in early 1998 as a brainchild of Al Gore, who was then the vice president. Mr. Gore, the story goes, woke up one morning wondering if it would be possible to beam a continuous image of the full Earth back from space to inspire people with the need to care for our planet. The 1972 portrait of the full Earth, taken from the Moon, had inspired millions with the fragile beauty of our blue planet. Why not beam the image live into classrooms, allowing students to view weather systems marching around the globe? Scientists had dreamed of such an observatory for years. They hoped Mr. Gore's influence would make it happen. Mr. Gore's support would end up destroying it. Those who hated him, hated Triana. His dream of inspiring environmentalists and schoolchildren served only to trivialize the project. It was ridiculed as ''Gore's screen saver.'' Triana is terminated, but global warming is not. Someday, there will have to be an observatory at L1. Perhaps the most important lesson from our exploration of the solar system is that the most terrible place on Earth is a Garden of Eden compared to the best place anywhere else. We must find out how to keep it that way. Robert L. Park, a professor of physics at the University of Maryland, is the author of ''Voodoo Science: The Road From Foolishness to Fraud.''