🚀 go-pugleaf

Hi everybody,
these are some comments on the mail by Mike Flaugher N9LLX=20
<flaugher@THEPOINT.NET> on >>GLOBAL COOLING non-evidence<<.=20

I think a couple of wrong conclusions might respire from that mail and
since nobody else seemed to have reacted I thought I stick my neck out.
Mike's statements are those with the > and I haven't deleted anything
although I'm not going to comment on everything.

>I think many people are looking in the wrong directions for evidence of
>global climate change. There was indeed a measure of global cooling in the
>70's following some particularly low years of solar activity. The last two
>cycles have been whoppers, but now look at the new comparisons for the
>current cycle at http://www.dxlc.com/solar/ .The best evidence for change=
 is
>in the stratosphere and upper troposphere which have undergone considerable
>cooling since the demise of Cycle 22. The current El Nino warm pool, I
>believe, is the result of green and certain UV from 22 which was the most
>powerful even-numbered cycle in 300+ years.

Well, we've had faily strange El Ninos the last couple of years and whether
that warm pool now is really related to the last sun cycle seems=20
difficult to prove. It rather seems to me that it is yet another strange
one due to some current disorder in the climate system.

>Understand here that solar variability poses consequences to
>environmentalists who legitimize via computer models. These models consider
>the sun a fixed value. If indeed it can be proven to be a variable, with
>century-level cycles as evidenced in the ice core and dendrochrono data,
>then much of the impetus for man-made cause is lost, perhaps even all,
>because what has transpired in the last three centuries is well within the
>capability range of solar variance.

First of all, it's wrong that "these models consider the sun as a=20
fixed value" There have been simulations with a variable sun output.
Secondly, to my knowledge, what we find in the ice core data and the=20
dendrochrono data is some climate variability. Whether this is due to solar
variability is an entirely different question and seems very difficult=20
to prove.=20
If you consider that the suns output has varied less than 0.1% during the
last decades (you find this somewhere in the web pages kindly supplied by
Mike) then this seems hard to imagine. Consider moreover that the most
prominent sun cycle we understand is on the 11 year time scale and the
climate variability as power on much longer frequencies it becomes even
more difficult to make a connection.
The third point touches now the question whether we can observe
man-made climate change today. To answer this question we have to decide
whether the climate variability we observe today is natural or not, i.e.=20
whether it is in the range the climate system exhibits by itself or not.
For this question it is a priori not relevant how the natural variability
is caused. The sun might have some part in it but natural variability will
not be caused by the sun only and it will be larger than what is caused
by the sun. Obviously do contain the above named observations the sun's
part already since they are integrating observations of the earth system=20
and not model results.
It is therefore not clear how and why the sun should cause larger=20
variations as witnessed in these observations - at least on the time=20
scales in question - some centuries.
But, in fact it is true that an estimate of the natural variability
is important for concluding that we already observe anthropogenic climate
change. However it is difficult to get a reasonable estimate of natural=20
climate variability due to our limited observations. Therefore modeled
climate variablity was sometimes used. This is what Mike points at.
However poeple have started to look at pattern resulting from a=20
CO2 induced greenhouse climte. This is a more powerful method, as it
does not rely on the global annual average temperature as the sole
indicator. The difficulty here is to find out what you think should be
greenhouse signals. For this estimation again models have been used.
The predicted pattern are generally present in the current observations,=20
possibly however not at sufficiently significant levels and they might
be present to some other cause than anthropogenic climate change.
Thus, if you consider the question whether we already observe anthropogenic
climate change is maybe not that straightfoward to answer. It kind of
hinges on the question whether you want to believe the current climate
models or not. The satellite derived temperature data (MSU) only add
another aspect to that. People claim that they contradict the model
simulations and the surface observations. But it gets very confounded
here. In fact the cooling of the strathosphere, as observed, is a greenhouse
signal predicted by the models.
That the models simulate a too smooth transition in the troposphere is a=20
point to be kept in mind and might well point at a deficiency.
The satellite data are only in a limited sense comparable with the surface=
=20
data since they measure in a considerable height above ground. Further I=20
think the time series is yet too short for any trend analysis which allows
to get rid of volcano and shorter period climate variablity.

Ok, now the other question. Will there be climate change due to a CO2
induced greenhouse effect? The strategy of many pro fossil fuel burning/
unconstrained usage people has been to say, well we don't observe anything
and the model predictions are flawed because the models are flawed. And the
surface temperature observations are flawed too, as the satelitte data are
much better. Well they have a lot of problems, too. Anyway. The silient
implication has always been that's all "environmentalist hype" and=20
nothing is going to happen.
But - CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Even if we don't find any conclusive
evidence for climate change today this does not mean that there will not
be a change. Our system might well be working in a way that it compensates
for a while, or has just a large inertia. Then it might adjust. And,
if our models and understanding is really flawed how do we find out what=20
is going to happen? The hypothesis that nothing is going to happen has to=20
be proven just as the opposite one. This implies to explain why the=
 greenhouse
character of CO2 and it's amplification by water vapor should not show up=20
over time. Do we really just want to try?

That's it. Hope it was of some use.
Regards
Joerg

>
>I've made up a list of links that might prove useful for those who want to
>examine some of the research into solar variability.
>
>An NCAR press release about solar coupling with the stratosphere and upper
>troposphere which is at
>http://www.ucar.edu/publications/newsreleases/1998/suncycle.html.
>
>Dr. Roy Spencer at NASA s Goddard Manned Spaceflight Center has information
>and a nice graphical presentation of satellite measured cooling of the
>stratosphere beginning with the decline of the last solar cycle at
>http://wwwghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/MSU/msusci.html.
>
>The CPC also has information regarding stratospheric global cooling at
>http://cops.wwb.noaa.gov/products/assessments/assess_94/strat.html
>
>Several new articles have been released by NCAR (National Center for
>Atmospheric Research) at
>http://www.ucar.edu/publications/newsreleases/1998/radiance.html
>
>The Space Environment Center produced two reports on predictions for Cycle
>23. The latest update tells of significant irregularies in the present=
 cycle
>at http://www.sel.bldrdoc.gov/. Click on Sept 1997 Update.
>
>The HK Project at Mt. Wilson Observatory looked into variability of=
 Sun-like
>stars and found that most of them spend up to a quarter of their time at a
>lower than normal activity level. Their site is at
>http://www.mtwilson.edu/Science/HK_Project/. Click on "Extra-Cyclic
>Activity".
>
>For general information on sunspots and the solar cycle, I like web sites
>including http://www.sec.noaa.gov/primer/primer.html which is the NOAA=
 Space
>Environment, and also
>http://ispec.ucsd.edu/student-pages/sunspots/overview.html
>
>Another site with good information, including a nice picture of the solar
>decline in the early 1800 s which produced the Year Without a Summer, is
>from the National Solar Observatory/Sacramento Peak at
>http://ftp.sunspot.noao.edu/PR/answerbook/sunspots.html#q96
>
>Last year, Dr. Kenneth Schatten of NASA (on loan to the NSF) and Sabatino
>Sofia of Yale produced this paper on solar decline at
>http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~dra/sunspots.html. Their paper was published in
>the Astrophysical Journal. The NASA news release is at
>http://pao.gsfc.nasa.gov/gsfc/service/gallery/fact_sheets/general/1997/97-0=
5
>htm.
>
>Dr. Schatten and Douglas Hoyt also have a book available through the Oxford
>University Press. An abstract is at
>http://mnemosyne.oup-usa.org/docs/019509414X.html.
>
>The most recent media coverage of the new theories came from the BBC
>Sci/Tech department at
>http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid%5F56000/56456.stm.
>
>USA Today produced an article on the coming cooler space weather at
>http://www.usatoday.com/life/science/environ/lse010.htm.
>
>Joseph D Aleo, Chief Meteorologist at Intellicast, seems to be on the solar
>bandwagon at http://www.intellicast.com/drdew/library/sunspot.html.
>
>A French engineer, Jean-Pierre Desmoulins has an interesting theory that
>solar declines are related to syzygies of three planets. His paper is at
>http://www.alpes-net.fr/~j_p_desm/sun.html.
>
>Another interesting article/theory is proposed by John Eddy s Consequences
>Magazine which put out a nice graph of solar activity based on 14C and 10=
 Be
>concentrations in the atmosphere at
>http://www.gcrio.org/CONSEQUENCES/winter96/article3-fig2.html
>
>
--
J=F6rg Kaduk                           phone:  +1 (650) 325 1521 ext 416
Carnegie Institution of Washington   fax:    +1 (650) 325 6857
Department of Plant Biology
260 Panama Street                    e-mail: joerg@jasper.stanford.edu  =20
USA - Stanford, CA 94305            =20