Global Cooling

[MSimon]

http://weatheraction.wordpress.com/2014 ... i-ice-age/

The chart at a little after 34:00 of this video http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/49735731 is very interesting it shows we are at the start of a little ice age. The speaker is Habibullo Abdussamatov.

http://iceagenow.info/2012/02/ice-age-2014/

Habibullo Abdusamatov, a scientist from the Pulkovo Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences considers that the sharp drop in temperature will start on the Earth in 2014.

http://iceagenow.info/2013/05/ice-age-coming-2014/

There is beginning to be a fair number of people who think that CO2 has no effect on the climate. It is ALL the sun.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... lunge.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/earths-magn ... es-faster/

[djolds1]

http://weatheraction.wordpress.com/2014 ... i-ice-age/

The chart at a little after 34:00 of this video http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/49735731 is very interesting it shows we are at the start of a little ice age. The speaker is Habibullo Abdussamatov.

http://iceagenow.info/2012/02/ice-age-2014/

Habibullo Abdusamatov, a scientist from the Pulkovo Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences considers that the sharp drop in temperature will start on the Earth in 2014.

http://iceagenow.info/2013/05/ice-age-coming-2014/

I get antsy around apocalyptic predictions. OTOH, they work well for the Warmists, so why fight effective propaganda tactics?

Certainly global temperature has been flat to declining since 1998. Solar Cycle 23 ended in 2008 and the PDO switched to negative in 2008. So we should expect a minimum of another 15 years of cooling (using the shortest estimates of PDO length). The current Solar Cycle 24 is near its peak and unimpressive, and there is decent evidence that Solar Cycle 25 will be similarly subdued - another Dalton Minimum. That also points to global cool temperatures enduring until the 2030-'40 window.

OTOH, this prediction does closely mirror the more extreme claims David Archibald made in his recent book "The Twilight of Abundance."

There is beginning to be a fair number of people who think that CO2 has no effect on the climate. It is ALL the sun.

Eh. There have to be SOME negative-feedback system stabilization effects in place on the Earth. Just not overly dominant ones.

[MSimon]

Eh. There have to be SOME negative-feedback system stabilization effects in place on the Earth. Just not overly dominant ones.

Water vapor serves that purpose nicely. It transports heat and reflects solar energy (clouds).

[williatw]

Eh. There have to be SOME negative-feedback system stabilization effects in place on the Earth. Just not overly dominant ones.

Water vapor serves that purpose nicely. It transports heat and reflects solar energy (clouds).

In fact it is a stronger greenhouse gas than CO2; I believe it absorbs over a wilder range of the EM spectrum.

[GIThruster]

http://online.wsj.com/articles/australi ... 4?mod=e2fb

[tomclarke]

Well there is certain uncertainty.

This load of links does not fill me with any confidence that its being looked at clearly.

There are three ideas here:
(1) earth magnetic field changes are extraordinary and will change climate
(2) solar changes are extraordinary and will change climate
(3) CO2 changes (known extraordinary) will not change climate

Let's go for it:

(1) This looks a pretty fair summary:
http://phys.org/news/2014-05-earth-magn ... imate.html

If we really have a field reversal over the next 200 years that would be a big deal. I'm inclined not to accept this without more evidence, especially because although the high rate of change of field as now revealed by the satellites is interesting the changes are patchy and non uniform - we don't know what they will add up to.

However we do not the overall effect on temperature is small because this is a change in temperature way above where there is any real atmosphere - 100-500km. It will have no direct effect on temperature of the layers below. It could have an indirect effect of mag field changes alter precipitation etc (there are mechanisms, Lundqvist etc, but currently they don't seem very significant. Jury is still out but its a long shot).

(2) The direct effect of sunspot cycle changes is known and quite small. (If it were big we'd see a strong 11 year signature in the earth climate correlated to sunspot cycles - we don't). Insolation is now measured accurately and the changes with solar activity which are real are not large enough to have much effect, even for an extreme Maunder minimum type change - whether we are currently headed for that or not is unclear. You have to suppose some indirect effect where long-term changes in the sun that affect sunspots also emerge as solar wind changes etc and then affect climate on earth. It is not impossible, but again it is a long shot.

maybe there is some decent (ie substantial decent science) information on this - I have not found anything much.

(3) This is just wrong, taken literally. We know the forcing from CO2 in climate. We known the change in CO2. With neutral feedbacks it is pretty small, though not insignificant. What are feedbacks is the big bone of contention - but they affect all forcing sources equally - the feedback mechanism is temperature and it does not matter what this came from.

If we had no climate models and no paleo studies or volcanic aerosol studies to inform us then would the default position be neutral feedback?
Certainly not, because the basic physics of GHGs in the atmosphere is dominated by H2O and the change in H2O vapour concentration is governed by temperature. Hotter air => more moisture in air. RH stays the same is a pretty good first approximation, though obviously it will not always hold. And we know the equilibration time for water in the air (in equilibrium with ocean water) is about 2 weeks, so this is a fast-acting feedback.

That gives us a definite medium-size positive feedback. Which makes the effect of CO2 larger - though still not alarming large, maybe 1.5C/doubling.

The debate is then whether other feedbacks: vegetation, albedo, clouds, are positive or negative and what magnitude they have. That is complex.

The only way to get lower CO2 sensitivity is to have more negative feedbacks - and that also scales down climate variability from all other causes.

[tomclarke]

It tends to be forgotten.

BB radiation from earth will make a negative feedback that stabilises any possible forcing, with power loss ~ T^4. Things modify this - like GHGs that change the effective temperature of earth as seen from space relative to its surface temperature - but it is a powerful negative feedback that will always dominate for large temperature changes.

The reason it's forgotten is we calibrate a forcing against this anyway to view it as temp change per power/area.

Eh. There have to be SOME negative-feedback system stabilization effects in place on the Earth. Just not overly dominant ones.

Water vapor serves that purpose nicely. It transports heat and reflects solar energy (clouds).

[MSimon]

The only way to get lower CO2 sensitivity is to have more negative feedbacks - and that also scales down climate variability from all other causes.

The reason CO2 sensitivity is zero is that water vapor absorbs/emits in the same bands. Those bands are already saturated.

[GIThruster]

(2) The direct effect of sunspot cycle changes is known and quite small. (If it were big we'd see a strong 11 year signature in the earth climate correlated to sunspot cycles - we don't). Insolation is now measured accurately and the changes with solar activity which are real are not large enough to have much effect. . .

Sorry but this is just wrong. the effects are enormous. They're about 0.1% or more than 1 watt per square meter. Think about how much power that is, 1 watt. That's a scorching amount of power. Solar variability accounts for far, far more climate change than anything else, save a planet killing event and to pretend it is not much effect is just more AGW gibberish and nonsense. You need to start checking your facts, Tom; instead of regurgitating the party line nonsense.

[MSimon]

(2) The direct effect of sunspot cycle changes is known and quite small. (If it were big we'd see a strong 11 year signature in the earth climate correlated to sunspot cycles - we don't). Insolation is now measured accurately and the changes with solar activity which are real are not large enough to have much effect. . .

Sorry but this is just wrong. the effects are enormous. They're about 0.1% or more than 1 watt per square meter. Think about how much power that is, 1 watt. That's a scorching amount of power. Solar variability accounts for far, far more climate change than anything else, save a planet killing event and to pretend it is not much effect is just more AGW gibberish and nonsense. You need to start checking your facts, Tom; instead of regurgitating the party line nonsense.

In addition there appears to be multiplying effects from magnetic fields and cloud albedo.

If you want to drive a climate "scientist" nuts get him to explain the Maunder and Dalton minimums. Low sunspot numbers = little ice age. CO2 explains none of that.

[Skipjack]

(2) The direct effect of sunspot cycle changes is known and quite small. (If it were big we'd see a strong 11 year signature in the earth climate correlated to sunspot cycles - we don't). Insolation is now measured accurately and the changes with solar activity which are real are not large enough to have much effect, even for an extreme Maunder minimum type change - whether we are currently headed for that or not is unclear. You have to suppose some indirect effect where long-term changes in the sun that affect sunspots also emerge as solar wind changes etc and then affect climate on earth. It is not impossible, but again it is a long shot.

That is what I have heard as well.
Here is what NASA has to say:
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/sc ... unclimate/

In this context, this is interesting as well:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-a ... ediate.htm

[MSimon]

Insolation is not measured accurately. There are fairly large discrepancies. See the Willie Soon portion of the talk here:

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/49735731

[tomclarke]

I think perhaps you should do calculations for yourself.

You are possibly confusing power difference at TOA with power difference at surface. They have very different effects and so are not comparable.

At TOA a very rough calculation using Black Body power ~ T^4 with a TOA temp of say 250K we get 0.1% change ~ 0.025% change on T or 0.06K TOA temperature change.

That is not huge by any standards.

Would you care to retract your comment, or tell me where my calculation is wrong?

(2) The direct effect of sunspot cycle changes is known and quite small. (If it were big we'd see a strong 11 year signature in the earth climate correlated to sunspot cycles - we don't). Insolation is now measured accurately and the changes with solar activity which are real are not large enough to have much effect. . .

Sorry but this is just wrong. the effects are enormous. They're about 0.1% or more than 1 watt per square meter. Think about how much power that is, 1 watt. That's a scorching amount of power. Solar variability accounts for far, far more climate change than anything else, save a planet killing event and to pretend it is not much effect is just more AGW gibberish and nonsense. You need to start checking your facts, Tom; instead of regurgitating the party line nonsense.

[GIThruster]

No Tom, you're obviously wrong, because you're puking up the nonsense given you instead of thinking for yourself. You're talking about 0.1*K temperature change observed inside a single year, which is FAR MORE than any other observed to date and you're talking about a perfect correspondence between the observation of the spots and the observation of the altered temperature.

Seriously Tom, you need to stop pandering to the political nonsense. You don't even need to calculate to know this stuff. Just read the real data instead of the bullshit data that comes out after it's been through the phony "models".

[MSimon]

Tom,

And if the solar magnetic field changes the earth's albedo? That will swamp any TSI effect.

And what do you know about the models? They don't include the solar magnetic fields or the effect on clouds.

The modelers admit they don't do water vapor well.

And if they can't explain the Maunder minimum? Well that is a very big hole. What could the modelers hide in such a hole? They don't know.

Let me repeat that for effect:

They don't know.

Given that what are the odds of CO2 being significant?

They don't know.