Not sure whether this research has been covered on this ng already
but
Imperial College and Colorado have got together to study this old
chesnut. Although the effect of solar activity on the Earth's
atmosphere has been Joanna Haigh's claim to fame for a long time.
Summary: A decline in solar activity leads to a warmer Earth.
There is a lack of detail in the press release below, I suppose you
need to read the paper in 'Nature' for more info. Surprised they
published it on so few years data.

http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandev...%3Dsun_climate

Len Wood
Wembury, SW Devon

"Len Wood" wrote in message
...
Not sure whether this research has been covered on this ng already
but
Imperial College and Colorado have got together to study this old
chesnut. Although the effect of solar activity on the Earth's
atmosphere has been Joanna Haigh's claim to fame for a long time.
Summary: A decline in solar activity leads to a warmer Earth.
There is a lack of detail in the press release below, I suppose you
need to read the paper in 'Nature' for more info. Surprised they
published it on so few years data.

http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandev...%3Dsun_climate

Len Wood
Wembury, SW Devon


Yes it has and as Nigel Calder sums it up nicely especially relating to the
eager pouncing on just 3 years bloody research, by the usual suspects.

http://calderup.wordpress.com/2010/1...aft/#more-1649

"Let's say that the satellite results are surprising, but as they concern
solar irradiance and not variations in cosmic rays, there's no reason to
expect a big climatic impact. And Haigh's wish to invert the active Sun's
influence from positive to negative does nothing to explain all the
historical data on solar activity and climate change, going back to William
Herschel, 1801, and the link between sunspots and the price of wheat.

And I'm afraid that just as Al Gore had to share his Nobel Prize with the
Pachauri Gang, Haigh must split my award of three raspberries with the
editors of Nature and with the BBC's environmental team.

Suppose someone offered to Nature a paper saying, "We've got three years of
satellite data here and a computer model suggesting that an increase in
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere cools the world." Would Nature publish it?
Would the BBC greet it with enthusiasm and carry the remark on its website,
"The view that carbon dioxide may be driving modern-day climate change has
clouded policy discussions"?

You may doubt it, yet the doughty Richard Black of the BBC, who has made a
career of rubbishing the solar contribution to climate change, uses the
flimsy Haigh report to try to put the knife in once again: "The view that
the Sun may be driving modern-day climate change has clouded policy
discussions." "

On 28/10/2010 21:54, Lawrence Jenkins wrote:
"Len wrote in message
...
Not sure whether this research has been covered on this ng already
but
Imperial College and Colorado have got together to study this old
chesnut. Although the effect of solar activity on the Earth's
atmosphere has been Joanna Haigh's claim to fame for a long time.
Summary: A decline in solar activity leads to a warmer Earth.
There is a lack of detail in the press release below, I suppose you
need to read the paper in 'Nature' for more info. Surprised they
published it on so few years data.

http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandev...%3Dsun_climate

So am I, but on the other hand publishing it means that anyone with
similar data that could possibly be used to confirm or refute their
observations about UV band solar emissions will go take a look at any
historic data that they have to hand. The variation with the solar cycle
represents about 0.1-0.2% of TSI so it isn't a big change.

The ozone hole over Antarctica had been observed by fancy US satellites
for quite a while before UK ground based observations alerted everyone
that it was real and not some instrumental artefact.

Yes it has and as Nigel Calder sums it up nicely especially relating to the
eager pouncing on just 3 years bloody research, by the usual suspects.

http://calderup.wordpress.com/2010/1...aft/#more-1649

"Let's say that the satellite results are surprising, but as they concern
solar irradiance and not variations in cosmic rays, there's no reason to
expect a big climatic impact. And Haigh's wish to invert the active Sun's
influence from positive to negative does nothing to explain all the
historical data on solar activity and climate change, going back to William
Herschel, 1801, and the link between sunspots and the price of wheat.

There is no doubt at all that the suns output does affect the Earths
climate or that the sunspot cycle has a small but measurable effect. It
has been in the IPCC science report from day 1. However, the sense of
that effect on the ground might just be in doubt if these data are
confirmed and can be verified over a full solar cycle. I think three
years data is nothing like enough to come to that conclusion (as the
authors themselves admit it could be a temporary anomoly).

I have to say that when I take the CRU data and remove the slow trends
the residuals binned onto an 11 year cycle do appear slightly
anticorrelated with sunspot cycle (ie. sunspot minima are warmer - but
the effect is so tiny I'd say it was down in the measurement noise).

Note that Herschels data shows that there is a link between sunspot
number and the price of wheat. It does not say in which sense the
driving force for low prices acts it could easily be due to more rain
for the growing phase rather than better sunshine and drought.

And I'm afraid that just as Al Gore had to share his Nobel Prize with the
Pachauri Gang, Haigh must split my award of three raspberries with the
editors of Nature and with the BBC's environmental team.

You are entitled to your ignoRANT opinions I suppose.

Suppose someone offered to Nature a paper saying, "We've got three years of
satellite data here and a computer model suggesting that an increase in
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere cools the world." Would Nature publish it?
Would the BBC greet it with enthusiasm and carry the remark on its website,
"The view that carbon dioxide may be driving modern-day climate change has
clouded policy discussions"?

The satellite data in other bands they have published is interesting. I
am for the moment sceptical that their modelling really does reflect
reality - although as I said above when I tried to model the CRU data I
did get an antiphase answer for the sunspot correlated component.

You may doubt it, yet the doughty Richard Black of the BBC, who has made a
career of rubbishing the solar contribution to climate change, uses the
flimsy Haigh report to try to put the knife in once again: "The view that
the Sun may be driving modern-day climate change has clouded policy
discussions." "

There is no-one in the climate science community that doesn't think that
at least part of the warming in the past 150years is not due to the suns
luminosity increasing slightly. This is expected on strophysical grounds
over geological timescales output is increasing. Most practitioners
reckon that about half of all the increase is down to changes in TSI and
the rest which only became non-negligible after about 1970 is due to GHG
forcing. Even sceptical scientists admit to this since otherwise they
cannot balance the energy books for the Earth.

Regards,
Martin Brown

On Oct 29, 9:27*am, Martin Brown
wrote:
On 28/10/2010 21:54, Lawrence Jenkins wrote:

"Len *wrote in message
...
Not sure whether this research has been covered on this ng already
but
Imperial College and Colorado have got together to study this old
chesnut. Although the effect of solar activity on the Earth's
atmosphere has been Joanna Haigh's claim to fame for a long time.
Summary: A decline in solar activity leads to a warmer Earth.
There is a lack of detail in the press release below, I suppose you
need to read the paper in 'Nature' for more info. Surprised they
published it on so few years data.

http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandev...ollege/newssum....

So am I, but on the other hand publishing it means that anyone with
similar data that could possibly be used to confirm or refute their
observations about UV band solar emissions will go take a look at any
historic data that they have to hand. The variation with the solar cycle
represents about 0.1-0.2% of TSI so it isn't a big change.

The ozone hole over Antarctica had been observed by fancy US satellites
for quite a while before UK ground based observations alerted everyone
that it was real and not some instrumental artefact.



Yes it has and as Nigel Calder sums it up nicely especially relating to the
eager pouncing on just 3 years bloody *research, by the usual suspects.

http://calderup.wordpress.com/2010/1...aft/#more-1649

"Let's say that the satellite results are surprising, but as they concern
solar irradiance and not variations in cosmic rays, there's no reason to
expect a big climatic impact. And Haigh's wish to invert the active Sun's
influence from positive to negative does nothing to explain all the
historical data on solar activity and climate change, going back to William
Herschel, 1801, and the link between sunspots and the price of wheat.

There is no doubt at all that the suns output does affect the Earths
climate or that the sunspot cycle has a small but measurable effect. It
has been in the IPCC science report from day 1. However, the sense of
that effect on the ground might just be in doubt if these data are
confirmed and can be verified over a full solar cycle. I think three
years data is nothing like enough to come to that conclusion (as the
authors themselves admit it could be a temporary anomoly).

I have to say that when I take the CRU data and remove the slow trends
the residuals binned onto an 11 year cycle do appear slightly
anticorrelated with sunspot cycle (ie. sunspot minima are warmer - but
the effect is so tiny I'd say it was down in the measurement noise).

Note that Herschels data shows that there is a link between sunspot
number and the price of wheat. It does not say in which sense the
driving force for low prices acts it could easily be due to more rain
for the growing phase rather than better sunshine and drought.



And I'm afraid that just as Al Gore had to share his Nobel Prize with the
Pachauri Gang, Haigh must split my award of three raspberries with the
editors of Nature and with the BBC's environmental team.

You are entitled to your ignoRANT opinions I suppose.



Suppose someone offered to Nature a paper saying, "We've got three years of
satellite data here and a computer model suggesting that an increase in
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere cools the world." Would Nature publish it?
Would the BBC greet it with enthusiasm and carry the remark on its website,
"The view that carbon dioxide may be driving modern-day climate change has
clouded policy discussions"?

The satellite data in other bands they have published is interesting. I
am for the moment sceptical that their modelling really does reflect
reality - although as I said above when I tried to model the CRU data I
did get an antiphase answer for the sunspot correlated component.



You may doubt it, yet the doughty Richard Black of the BBC, who has made a
career of rubbishing the solar contribution to climate change, uses the
flimsy Haigh report to try to put the knife in once again: "The view that
the Sun may be driving modern-day climate change has clouded policy
discussions." *"

There is no-one in the climate science community that doesn't think that
at least part of the warming in the past 150years is not due to the suns
luminosity increasing slightly. This is expected on strophysical grounds
over geological timescales output is increasing. Most practitioners
reckon that about half of all the increase is down to changes in TSI and
the rest which only became non-negligible after about 1970 is due to GHG
forcing. Even sceptical scientists admit to this since otherwise they
cannot balance the energy books for the Earth.

Regards,
Martin Brown

Good points made Martin

cheers
Len

On Oct 29, 8:27*am, Martin Brown
wrote:


There is no-one in the climate science community that doesn't think that
at least part of the warming in the past 150years is not due to the suns
luminosity increasing slightly. This is expected on strophysical grounds
over geological timescales output is increasing. Most practitioners
reckon that about half of all the increase is down to changes in TSI and
the rest which only became non-negligible after about 1970 is due to GHG
forcing. Even sceptical scientists admit to this since otherwise they
cannot balance the energy books for the Earth.

I am not sure if I can claim to be a member of the climate science
community, but if I am then there is at least one person who is not
convinced that the sun has contributed to the warming over the last
150 years. It seems to me that it is wishful thinking to believe that
the warming is not all due to Man, and it is quite possible that the
natural effects would have led to a cooling. Therefore, Jo Haigh's
results should not be dismissed because they do not fit within the
standard "groupspeak".

Moreover, on astrophysical grounds the climate should be cooling! The
effect of the Milankovitch cycles peaked about 10,000 years ago and
now are all leading to a cooling. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocen...kovitch_cycles
(Negative years in the diagram are before present).

But as Len said in a previous post we do not yet have all the answers.
I suspect that it takes high energy photons to provide ice molecules
with enough energy to sublime. So it takes an Increase in the UV bands
of the solar spectrum to melt ice, even it the total energy from the
sun increases. The melting of ice affects the global albedo and hence
the global temperature. This fits with what Jo Haigh has found. But it
is only speculation.

Cheers, Alastair.

Regards,
Martin Brown

On 29/10/2010 11:58, Alastair wrote:
On Oct 29, 8:27 am, Martin
wrote:


There is no-one in the climate science community that doesn't think that
at least part of the warming in the past 150years is not due to the suns
luminosity increasing slightly. This is expected on strophysical grounds
over geological timescales output is increasing. Most practitioners
reckon that about half of all the increase is down to changes in TSI and
the rest which only became non-negligible after about 1970 is due to GHG
forcing. Even sceptical scientists admit to this since otherwise they
cannot balance the energy books for the Earth.

I am not sure if I can claim to be a member of the climate science
community, but if I am then there is at least one person who is not
convinced that the sun has contributed to the warming over the last
150 years. It seems to me that it is wishful thinking to believe that
the warming is not all due to Man, and it is quite possible that the

The models say exactly the opposite. Either one of TSI or GHG forcing
can explain a proportion of the observed climate variation, but taken
together they explain the bulk of it. Even Baliunas & Soon have had to
concede this point in their scientific papers see for example:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1996ApJ...472..891S

What she says to righttard think tanks in the US is another matter.

natural effects would have led to a cooling. Therefore, Jo Haigh's
results should not be dismissed because they do not fit within the
standard "groupspeak".

See for example Lean et Al (and later work) on proxies for TSI using
radioisotopic methods. Online in slightly mangled form at:

http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/245.htm

I hold out some hope for the method used by this Swiss group being
extended to obtain a more accurate TSI proxy back to the 1000 but it
will be painstaking work. The time range covered is not enough to be
interesting yet but it shows promise.

http://helene.ethz.ch/papers/haberre...l_subm2007.pdf

Moreover, on astrophysical grounds the climate should be cooling! The
effect of the Milankovitch cycles peaked about 10,000 years ago and
now are all leading to a cooling. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocen...kovitch_cycles
(Negative years in the diagram are before present).

There are a lot of competing effects. Be very careful that your green
activism does not run away with you - it helps the anti-science
opposition when well meaning green environmentalists make ludicrous
claims about the short to medium term future which fail to come true.

But as Len said in a previous post we do not yet have all the answers.
I suspect that it takes high energy photons to provide ice molecules
with enough energy to sublime. So it takes an Increase in the UV bands
of the solar spectrum to melt ice, even it the total energy from the
sun increases. The melting of ice affects the global albedo and hence
the global temperature. This fits with what Jo Haigh has found. But it
is only speculation.

And wild speculation at that. If the higher UV level does anything it
will alter the high level ozone distribution. Very little UV reaches the
surface of the Earth.

Regards,
Martin Brown

On Oct 29, 11:39*am, Martin Brown
wrote:

There are a lot of competing effects. Be very careful that your green
activism does not run away with you - it helps the anti-science
opposition when well meaning green environmentalists make ludicrous
claims about the short to medium term future which fail to come true.

Since you are resorting to ad hominem arguments by accusing me of
being a green activist I see no point in continuing this discussion.

But can I just point out that it is the refusal of people like you,
Will, Philip, and Dr Vicky Pope to face up to the real dangers of
climate change, and your denial of its consequences such as the
melting of the Arctic sea ice, the Moscow and the Paris heat waves,
and the record flooding in the UK, which is providing the real comfort
to the sceptic movement. What are the public supposed to believe when
time and again the scientist say that they do not know if each
disaster is caused by climate change. When are they going to be honest
and admit that it probably is?

And wild speculation at that. If the higher UV level does anything it
will alter the high level ozone distribution. Very little UV reaches the
surface of the Earth.

Oh good, does that mean I should ignore those warning from the Met
Office about UV levels?

Cheers, Alastair.

On 29/10/2010 16:27, Alastair wrote:
On Oct 29, 11:39 am, Martin
wrote:

There are a lot of competing effects. Be very careful that your green
activism does not run away with you - it helps the anti-science
opposition when well meaning green environmentalists make ludicrous
claims about the short to medium term future which fail to come true.

Since you are resorting to ad hominem arguments by accusing me of
being a green activist I see no point in continuing this discussion.

It is not an ad hominen attack. It is a statement of fact.

You wear your heart on your sleeve and are determined to interpret
everything as evidence of AGW even when some of it clearly is not.

But can I just point out that it is the refusal of people like you,
Will, Philip, and Dr Vicky Pope to face up to the real dangers of
climate change, and your denial of its consequences such as the
melting of the Arctic sea ice, the Moscow and the Paris heat waves,
and the record flooding in the UK, which is providing the real comfort
to the sceptic movement. What are the public supposed to believe when
time and again the scientist say that they do not know if each
disaster is caused by climate change. When are they going to be honest
and admit that it probably is?

Single events cannot easily be blamed on AGW but the long term trends
can be firmly laid at its door. The problem is that by the time this is
absolutely clear there will be a lot of thermal inertia and a serious
overshoot. Sea level rise is pretty much inevitable now. Certainly plans
are needed to bolster the Thames Barrier if it is not to be overtopped
by a storm surge in the coming century.

There is no political will to do the right thing no matter what the
scientific advice. But the scientific advice that is given must rest on
very firm foundations. You only have to look at the fiasco over the
ludicrous WWF claim about vanishing Himalayan glaciers by 2035 to see
what damage careless claims that are trivial to disprove can do to
scientists credibility. The fact that the glaciers *ARE* retreating and
fairly quickly too has been totally lost in the noise now.

[I note that you snipped your mad idea and take my comment out of
context here - this is very typical of activists and propagandists]

And wild speculation at that. If the higher UV level does anything it
will alter the high level ozone distribution. Very little UV reaches the
surface of the Earth.

Oh good, does that mean I should ignore those warning from the Met
Office about UV levels?

It will likely make them a bit worse in spring.

Regards,
Martin Brown

On Oct 29, 3:53*pm, Martin Brown
wrote:

It is not an ad hominen attack. It is a statement of fact.

You wear your heart on your sleeve and are determined to interpret
everything as evidence of AGW even when some of it clearly is not.

Well if that is what you think, then it is certainly not worth my time
giving you the facts.

Single events cannot easily be blamed on AGW but the long term trends
can be firmly laid at its door. The problem is that by the time this is
absolutely clear there will be a lot of thermal inertia and a serious
overshoot. Sea level rise is pretty much inevitable now. Certainly plans
are needed to bolster the Thames Barrier if it is not to be overtopped
by a storm surge in the coming century.

There is no political will to do the right thing no matter what the
scientific advice. But the scientific advice that is given must rest on
very firm foundations. You only have to look at the fiasco over the
ludicrous WWF claim about vanishing Himalayan glaciers by 2035 to see
what damage careless claims that are trivial to disprove can do to
scientists credibility. The fact that the glaciers *ARE* retreating and
fairly quickly too has been totally lost in the noise now.

Political will comes from the voters not the scientists. The
scientists have to speak to the people (voters) to get them to put
pressure on the politicians. The best way to do that is through
journalists. Journalists use one liners, and the scientists have to
speak to the journalists in one liners.

The Himalayan glacier fiasco was not an attempt to mislead the public.
It was just one of those accidents that can happen. It seems to have
begun with a misprint of 2035 for 2350, but the IPCC editor should
have known that it was wrong and removed it. In fact I think he was
told but forgot. It is hard to discipline volunteers :-(

What you seem to be missing is there is huge movement, financed by the
oil, coal and automobile industries but really driven by right wing
ideologues in the US who see the IPCC as a UN attempt to take over the
world and remove their FREEDOM! It is as if all Tory Party supporters
had the same beliefs as Lawrence. Or if you realise that they have the
same attitude to Washington that we have to Brussels, so just imagine
their attitude to the UN telling them how much oil they can use!

[I note that you snipped your mad idea and take my comment out of
context here - this is very typical of activists and propagandists]

Your comments were all based on proxies and models not real data.
Since my response would just have been dismissed as "very typical of
activists and propagandists" ther edid not seem much point in
discussing them.

Oh good, does that mean I should ignore those warning from the Met
Office about UV levels?

It will likely make them a bit worse in spring.

So you admit UV does reach the surface?

Cheers, Alastair.