In article ,
Retief wrote:
On Sun, 12 Nov 2006 10:38:57 +0000, John Beardmore
wrote:

If the temperature of the sun increases, the rate at which energy
radiates away from this hotter object increases.

Yes. And the extent of this is ?

Quite substantial:

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/irradiance.gif
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/p...olar_variabili
ty/lean2000_irradiance.txt

Doesn't look like a huge increase, though I grant it may make some
difference.

1.5-2 W/m^2 since about 1910, depending on whose data you use.


"Regardless of any discussion about solar irradiance in past centuries, the
sunspot record and neutron monitor data (which can be compared with
radionuclide records) show that solar activity has not increased since the
1950s and is therefore unlikely to be able to explain the recent warming."


http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...n-hit-record-h
ighs-over-the-last-few-decades/

http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/br...ll_03/fig2.gif

BTW, the sun makes _all_ differences (the sun being the source of
energy). What AGWers seem to claim is that the solar flux variations
will have no real effect on the largest amplifier: water vapor (and
water's positive feedback loop). The contributions of water vapor are
very poorly understood, so claiming that we understand the various
atmospheric interactions extremely well is nonsense (as is the claim
that "we can reject water vapor as a main driver").

Are you asserting that climate modellers haven't taken this
into account ?

http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/fig6-8.htm, figure C.

Indicates that they use _perhaps_ as high as 0.2 w/m^2, but probably
less than that (assuming they arrived at this number by averaging this
over the Earth's surface, that's still only 0.8 W/m^2 flux increase
from the sun, which they may have folded into their models). If they
didn't average to arrive at this result, then they even more grossly
underestimated the flux.

And we note that these "models" are largely curve fits, and not ab
initio calculations...

"The conclusion that can be drawn from all of this is that 50 years is
the absolute minimum sea level record length that should be considered
in an analysis of global sea level rise or acceleration from tide
gauge data alone."

This may be true in some sense, but it stands to reason that if the
planet warms, the ocean will expand, so there is more than one approach
to considering this issue.

People have calculated thermal expansion effects for the ocean. It's
not as much as you might think -- you can compare that variation to
natural variations such as tidal activity, and storm surge.

The problem with measuring "sea level" is not dissimilar to measuring
a global "average temperature". By what method do you choose to
average these data? Weighted by latitude? Weighted for population?
Weighted for area? Unweighted?... What determines an "area of
interest"?

Further there does seem to be real world experience of more frequent and
extreme tides from sites like the Thames Barrage which is now required
to operate to protect London much more frequently than it was thirty or
so years ago.

Thirty years is nothing, on the time scales of natural variation.
Recall that the sunspot period averages about 11 years.

http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml

And there are much longer cycles which occur in the solar activity.

While there may be "low-frequency fluctuations of sea level" of
considerable complexity, there seems no reason to assume that the
warming of the planet isn't contributing as well.

Other than Occam's Razor. There is no doubt that human action results
in "changes" on the Earth's surface. Heat islands, concrete,
blacktop, growing/harvesting crops, clear cutting... But even YOUR
breathing, your water use, your home heating, and your computer use
contribute (and yet we can see that you are still using your computer,
and burning electricity)...

The question is, what is the magnitude of these contributions
(particularly compared to natural variations)? Small changes are
inevitable, so live with it. Not all changes are harmful.

The second question is, will any changes resulting from these
contributions, be deleterious? If it's not harmful, why do you care?

Which leads to the third question, how would you mitigate them, if you
determine that they are both anthropogenic and harmful -- or more
correctly, how would you mitigate those changes without murdering a
billion people or so... (and yes, if you take an action -- such as
shutting off heat, food, water, etc -- that results in the "natural
death" of billions, it is _murder_).

The US and a couple other "bread baskets" feed much of the world.
Sure, we could stop burning fuel to produce those crops. And/or we
could convert all those crops to alternative fuels. And, of course,
we simply could let the world starve... Is that the desired solution?

We presume that Parker is prepared to support this claim with data...

A trivial google search finds

Nice, but Parker's claims are in general based on nothing at all.

Hmmm... Not that I'd noticed, but I guess that sort of bickering can
stay between you and him.

Then you shouldn't step in the middle of it...

U.S. Hurricane Strikes by Decade:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pastdec.shtml

Doesn't seem to show an increase in hurricane frequency...

What about intensity ?

That was also in the table. An average of 6.0 major hurricanes per
decade, with a high of 10 and low of 1. I have merely presented the
data as it was reported.

But do note, that "proving" anthropogenic causes for observed
variations requires more than simply stating "it's different than it
was in the past". Neither does correlation prove causality.

It is unclear how the various natural forcings contribute to these
weather variations. There are people who dabble in predictions:

http://typhoon.atmos.colostate.edu/forecasts/


Retief