"ALL CAPS IN DEFENSE OF LIBERTY IS NO VICE."

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

SCIENTISTS DISCOVER ANOTHER NATURAL SOURCE FOR INCREASES IN LEVELS OF ATMOSPHERIC GREENHOUSE GASES

BBC:
Thawing Siberian bogs are releasing more of the greenhouse gas methane than previously believed, according to new scientific research. Scientists from Russia and the US measured methane bubbling from a number of thawing lakes. ... Methane's contribution to present-day global warming is second only to CO2.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that atmospheric concentrations are about two and a half times those seen in pre-industrial times. "Thaw lakes in north Siberia are known to emit methane, but the magnitude of these emissions remains uncertain," the scientists write.

"We show that methane flux from thaw lakes in our study region may be five times greater than previously estimated." ... Using radiocarbon techniques, the researchers showed that some of the escaping methane molecules had been formed more than 40,000 years ago.
Er, um... the methane was obviously frozen during the last Ice Age. Before that it was er... um... WARMER. And before that... cooler. You see, fluctuations of global climate are natural and pre-date industrialism and all other possible anthropogenic causes. The current warming trend may very well be an entirely - or juts mopstly - NATURAL event. And completely unavoidable.

This article points out once again that climatoloigist don't know more than they know. As in my previous posts about iron-deficient plankton and the old age of most trees in the Amazon, it proves that the models climatologists use are quite approximate - too the point of admitted gross inaccuracy. It's like they're just guessing!

MY POINT: If global warming is natural, the enacting draconian tax measures in order to limit industrialism in the hope/wish/prayer of slowing global warming is STUPID, and it won't accomplish a dang thing - except to cede power to governments and bureaucracies: whiuch just happens to be EVERY LEFTIST'S DREAM; (in fact, to the Leftiust, it's a TWOFER: they get to raise taxes AND cut industrialism).

OH, AND BTW: Even IF the thawing lakes are releasing MORE methane than previosuly estimated, and even IF this feedback is accelerating global-warming IT DOESN'T PROVE IT'S ANTROPOGENIC. It may all be natural.

17 comments:

Reliapundit said...

global warming may have a natural oprigin - solar, for example, and the ensuing methane releases result from that.

the primary cause - the major, irreversible clause - might not be anthropogenic.

Joe Yangtree said...

I've already shown the fallacy of such arguments with you directly several times before.

Oh, yes, but those were too long and hard for you to read and understand. Pity.

Reliapundit said...

joejoe: please provide links to anything which proves that current global warming is anthropogenic. or stfu.

MY POINT: "anthrogenic input" may have some effect, but there is nothing which proves that this warming cycle is any different than the many which have preceded it. there is no proof that man-made greenhouse gases caused it.

this article proves that there are NATURAL causes for increases in greenhouse gases.

(and thanks for being brief.)

Joe Yangtree said...

"The contribution of these lakes is small compared to the IPCC estimate of total global methane production, 600 Tg per year. More than half of this total comes from human activities, notably farming."

That's from your article. Duh. I have zero work to do. You do it all for me. Even so, here are a few more for you. Does all of this put together make an ironclad case for global warming? Yes. An ironclad case for man-made global warming? No. It's lots of evidence that this warming is man-made. And where is your evidence that it's not that shows all these major scientific organizations know less about this than you?

Reliapundit said...

that human activity may produce more methane than nature is not the point - UNLESS you are arguing that man-made methane is the primary CAUSE of the current global warming trend.

previous warming trends were not caused by man-made methane or c02.

so how can you prove this one is?

that is the question.

BTW: forests produce HUGE amounts of methane:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4604332.stm


Scientists in Germany have discovered that ordinary plants produce significant amounts of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas which helps trap the sun's energy in the atmosphere.

The findings, reported in the journal Nature, have been described as "startling", and may force a rethink of the role played by forests in holding back the pace of global warming.

And the BBC News Website has learned that the research, based on observations in the laboratory, appears to be corroborated by unpublished observations of methane levels in the Brazilian Amazon.

Until now, it had been thought that natural sources of methane were mainly limited to environments where bacteria acted on vegetation in conditions of low oxygen levels, such as in swamps and rice paddies.

Methane 'increase'

But a team led by Frank Keppler of the Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg, Germany, stumbled upon this new effect when studying emissions from the leaves of trees and grasses in conditions similar to those they would encounter in the open air.

To their amazement, the scientists found that all the textbooks written on the biochemistry of plants had apparently overlooked the fact that methane is produced by a range of plants even when there is plenty of oxygen.

Reliapundit said...

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-09/uoea-ccr090406.php

Climate change rocked cradles of civilization
Severe climate change was the primary driver in the development of civilisation, according to new research by the University of East Anglia.

The early civilisations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, South Asia, China and northern South America were founded between 6000 and 4000 years ago when global climate changes, driven by natural fluctuations in the Earth's orbit, caused a weakening of monsoon systems resulting in increasingly arid conditions. These first large urban, state-level societies emerged because diminishing resources forced previously transient people into close proximity in areas where water, pasture and productive land was still available.

In a presentation to the BA Festival of Science on September 7, Dr. Nick Brooks will challenge existing views of how and why civilisation arose. He will argue that the earliest civilisations developed largely as a by-product of adaptation to climate change and were the products of hostile environments.

"Civilisation did not arise as the result of a benign environment which allowed humanity to indulge a preference for living in complex, urban, 'civilized' societies," said Dr. Brooks.

"On the contrary, what we tend to think of today as 'civilisation' was in large part an accidental by-product of unplanned adaptation to catastrophic climate change. Civilisation was a last resort - a means of organising society and food production and distribution, in the face of deteriorating environmental conditions."

Joe Yangtree said...

As usual, you persist in the faulty logic that says,

1. An effect E happened once because of cause A;

2. Effect E is happening again;

3. We have reason to believe cause A is happening again.

In this case, we have very good reasons (laid out here to believe the current warming is man-made. Your most recent article points out that the climate change ~5000 years ago was caused "by natural fluctuations in the Earth's orbit". Are we experiencing similar changes in ordit now? If not, there's no reason that that past warming and the current warming are related.

Reliapundit said...

1 - mars is also warming.

what besides solar activity voyuld explain earth's warming and mars'?

2 - max planck is an inst with many researchers and no monolithic opinion.

you want people to believe there is unanimity in the scitntiofic comm. about anthropogenic gw but there is NOT.
3 - The truth about global warming - it's the Sun that's to blame

By Michael Leidig and Roya Nikkhah

(Filed: 18/07/2004)

Global warming has finally been explained: the Earth is getting hotter because the Sun is burning more brightly than at any time during the past 1,000 years, according to new research.

A study by Swiss and German scientists suggests that increasing radiation from the sun is responsible for recent global climate changes.

Dr Sami Solanki, the director of the renowned Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany, who led the research, said:

"The Sun has been at its strongest over the past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures.

"The Sun is in a changed state. It is brighter than it was a few hundred years ago and this brightening started relatively recently - in the last 100 to 150 years."

Dr Solanki said that the brighter Sun and higher levels of "greenhouse gases", such as carbon dioxide, both contributed to the change in the Earth's temperature but it was impossible to say which had the greater impact.

Average global temperatures have increased by about 0.2 deg Celsius over the past 20 years and are widely believed to be responsible for new extremes in weather patterns. After pressure from environmentalists, politicians agreed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, promising to limit greenhouse gas emissions between 2008 and 2012. Britain ratified the protocol in 2002 and said it would cut emissions by 12.5 per cent from 1990 levels.

Globally, 1997, 1998 and 2002 were the hottest years since worldwide weather records were first collated in 1860.

Most scientists agree that greenhouse gases from fossil fuels have contributed to the warming of the planet in the past few decades but have questioned whether a brighter Sun is also responsible for rising temperatures.

To determine the Sun's role in global warming, Dr Solanki's research team measured magnetic zones on the Sun's surface known as sunspots, which are believed to intensify the Sun's energy output.

The team studied sunspot data going back several hundred years. They found that a dearth of sunspots signalled a cold period - which could last up to 50 years - but that over the past century their numbers had increased as the Earth's climate grew steadily warmer. The scientists also compared data from ice samples collected during an expedition to Greenland in 1991. The most recent samples contained the lowest recorded levels of beryllium 10 for more than 1,000 years. Beryllium 10 is a particle created by cosmic rays that decreases in the Earth's atmosphere as the magnetic energy from the Sun increases. Scientists can currently trace beryllium 10 levels back 1,150 years.

Dr Solanki does not know what is causing the Sun to burn brighter now or how long this cycle would last.

He says that the increased solar brightness over the past 20 years has not been enough to cause the observed climate changes but believes that the impact of more intense sunshine on the ozone layer and on cloud cover could be affecting the climate more than the sunlight itself.

Dr Bill Burrows, a climatologist and a member of the Royal Meteorological Society, welcomed Dr Solanki's research. "While the established view remains that the sun cannot be responsible for all the climate changes we have seen in the past 50 years or so, this study is certainly significant," he said.

"It shows that there is enough happening on the solar front to merit further research. Perhaps we are devoting too many resources to correcting human effects on the climate without being sure that we are the major contributor."

Dr David Viner, the senior research scientist at the University of East Anglia's climatic research unit, said the research showed that the sun did have an effect on global warming.

He added, however, that the study also showed that over the past 20 years the number of sunspots had remained roughly constant, while the Earth's temperature had continued to increase.

This suggested that over the past 20 years, human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation had begun to dominate "the natural factors involved in climate change", he said.

Dr Gareth Jones, a climate researcher at the Met Office, said that Dr Solanki's findings were inconclusive because the study had not incorporated other potential climate change factors.

"The Sun's radiance may well have an impact on climate change but it needs to be looked at in conjunction with other factors such as greenhouse gases, sulphate aerosols and volcano activity," he said. The research adds weight to the views of David Bellamy, the conservationist. "Global warming - at least the modern nightmare version - is a myth," he said. "I am sure of it and so are a growing number of scientists. But what is really worrying is that the world's politicians and policy-makers are not.

"Instead, they have an unshakeable faith in what has, unfortunately, become one of the central credos of the environmental movement: humans burn fossil fuels, which release increased levels of carbon dioxide - the principal so-called greenhouse gas - into the atmosphere, causing the atmosphere to heat up. They say this is global warming: I say this is poppycock."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/07/18/wsun18.xml


THE SOLAR ACTIVITY MAY HAVE TRIGGERED A CASCADING OF OTHER EVENTS - LIKE METHANE PRODUCING THAWING LAKES IN SIBERIA.

IT MAY NOT BE ANTHROPOGENIC - THO' MAN-MADE GASES MIGHT MIGHT MIGHT BE A CONTRIBUTING FACTOR.

TO ENACT DRACONIAN, LEFT-WING ANTI-INDUSTRIAL ANTI-FREE-MARKET ANTI CAPITALIST TAXES AND LAWS IN RESPONSE TO A GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE WHOCH MIGHT BE SOLAR-BASED, AND MIGHT BE UNAVOIDABLKE WPOULD BE WORSE THAN FOLLY: IT WOULD HURT THE WOLRD'S ENTIRE ECONOMY AND HURT EVERYONE'S LIVING STANDARDS AND DIMINSIH OUR ABILITY TO CONSTRUCTIVELY DEAL WITH SOME OF THE POTENTIAL REPERCUSSIONS OF GLOBAL WARMING.

joe - you may reply in equal length. fair is fair.

Reliapundit said...

1 - FACT: history and pre-history prove beyond any and all reasonable doubt that global-warming is natural - it having occured several times before humanity existed, and before humanity was industrialized.

2 - FACT" the current trend has generated debate. some - like you - argue that it is anthropogenic. there are, inarguably new anthropogenic inputs, but this does not equate with causality, irreversibility, or reversiblilty.

3 - no sane person argues that kyoto would've made a damn difference.


4 - NASA has proven that most of the planets are warming nowe - SIMULTANEOULY:

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/pluto_warming_021009.html --- :

"In what is largely a reversal of an August announcement, astronomers today said Pluto is undergoing global warming in its thin atmosphere even as it moves farther from the Sun on its long, odd-shaped orbit."

MARS: http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2006/07/global-warming-becomes-contagious.html

"Not only that, but Jupiter and Neptune's largest moon, Triton, are undergoing global warming as well. Not coincidentally, the sun has been emitting more heat for the last several decades."

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1998/triton.html --- :

"MIT researcher finds evidence of global warming on Neptune's largest moon

June 24, 1998

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- We're not the only ones experiencing global warming. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher has reported that observations obtained by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based instruments reveal that Neptune's largest moon, Triton, seems to have heated up significantly since the Voyager space probe visited it in 1989. The warming trend is causing part of Triton's surface of frozen nitrogen to turn into gas, thus making its thin atmosphere denser.

While no one is likely to plan a summer vacation on Triton, this report in the June 25 issue of the journal Nature by MIT astronomer James L. Elliot and his colleagues from MIT, Lowell Observatory and Williams College says that the moon is approaching an unusually warm summer season that only happens once every few hundred years. Elliot and his colleagues believe that Triton's warming trend could be driven by seasonal changes in the absorption of solar energy by its polar ice caps."

---- MORE HERE: http://motls.blogspot.com/2006/05/global-warming-on-jupiter.html --- lobal warming on Jupiter

Jupiter

A new storm and a new red spot on Jupiter hints at climate change, USA TODAY and dozens of other sources explained yesterday. The temperatures are expected to change by as much as 10 Fahrenheit degrees at different places of the globe. At least close to the new spot and to the equator, nothing less than global warming is expected.

Triton

Triton is Neptune's largest Moon. Some people believe that it used to be an asteroid. Global warming was detected on Triton. Between 1989 and 1998, the temperature jumped by 5 percent on the absolute (Kelvin) scale. The same relative increase would raise the Earth's temperature by 22 degrees Fahrenheit in 9 years. See thousands of other pages about the global warming on Triton.

Enceladus

Another moon of Saturn's, Enceladus, would be also expected to be frozen and cold. Suddenly, Cassini has informed us that Enceladus generates its own heat. Its high temperatures seem to be incompatible with calculations based on solar energy itself, according to existing models.

Saturn

Saturn itself has a rather warm southern pole, and the temperatures in that region suddenly jumped by 3-5 Kelvin degrees. Well, it's warm because it's been exposed to sunshine for quite some time but the magnitude of the temperature jumps is not trivial to calculate.

Pluto

What's going on with Pluto? Well, yes, your guess is right. There is global warming on Pluto. Pluto's atmospheric pressure has tripled in 14 years, and the associated increase of temperature is estimated to be around 3.5 Fahrenheit degrees, despite the motion of Pluto away from the Sun.

Mars

Of course, the global warming on Mars is a well-known story. The warming has been used by this blog to discover the Martians. More seriously, we have explained that the dramatic and speedy melting of the Martian icecaps is caused by the greenhouse effect. 95% of "their" atmosphere is made of carbon dioxide; that's slightly more than 0.038% of our atmosphere.

The warming trend on Mars is undeniable. Some people have tried to blame the global warming on NASA's rovers. Such accusations are pretty serious because NASA is already preparing plans to occupy Mars using the greenhouse effect, as ordered by George Bush. ;-)

Venus

Venus, our planet's evil sister, has already been identified as unusable for life because of ... yes, because of the greenhouse effect that occured in the past. Last month, the Venus express gave us some new hints why Venus has such a thick atmosphere that generated global warming.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060504_red_jr.html --- :

"The latest images could provide evidence that Jupiter is in the midst of a global change that can modify temperatures by as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit on different parts of the globe."

JOE YANGTREE: WAKE UP! Stop swallowing the leftist garbage jerks like gore want you to believe. Anthropogenic global warming is an excuse for leftists to take control of the world economy.
# posted by reliapundit : 9:54 PM

Reliapundit said...

FROM A POSTER/COMMENTER AT "ABOVE TOP SECRET":

The Whole Solar System is Undergoing Global Warming.

This is a fact that not many people know about, and quite a few people, would like that there was no evidence to back this fact, because some people would like the world to believe that human activity is the cause for global warming on Earth. I am not advocating that releasing harmful gases, and chemicals in the oceans and atmosphere are good, but after a few years of research, I have come to understand that global warming is happening in the Solar System, not just on Earth.

Some people just want to listen to what some environmentalists are claiming, that global warming is happening because of human activity, and we are the cause for the extreme changes in climate we have been seeing lately getting worse and worse.

I will let now the facts speak for themselves as to what is really happening.

External Source

Mars may be going through a period of climate change, new findings from NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter suggest.

Odyssey has been mapping the distribution of materials on and near Mars' surface since early 2002, nearly a full annual cycle on Mars. Besides tracking seasonal changes, such as the advance and retreat of polar dry ice, the orbiter is returning evidence useful for learning about longer-term dynamics.

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/odyssey/newsroom/pressreleases/20031208a.html


External Source

Martian Ice Shrinking Dramatically

New gullies that did not exist in mid-2002 have appeared on a Martian sand dune.

That's just one of the surprising discoveries that have resulted from the extended life of NASA's Mars Global Surveyor, which this month began its ninth year in orbit around Mars. Boulders tumbling down a Martian slope left tracks that weren't there two years ago. New impact craters formed since the 1970s suggest changes to age-estimating models. And for three Mars summers in a row, deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near Mars' south pole have shrunk from the previous year's size, suggesting a climate change in progress.

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/newsroom/20050920a.html

External Source

Prediction of a global climate change on Jupiter
Philip S. Marcus

Top of pageJupiter's atmosphere, as observed in the 1979 Voyager space craft images, is characterized by 12 zonal jet streams and about 80 vortices, the largest of which are the Great Red Spot and three White Ovals that had formed1 in the 1930s. The Great Red Spot has been observed2 continuously since 1665 and, given the dynamical similarities between the Great Red Spot and the White Ovals, the disappearance3, 4 of two White Ovals in 1997−2000 was unexpected. Their longevity and sudden demise has been explained5 however, by the trapping of anticyclonic vortices in the troughs of Rossby waves, forcing them to merge. Here I propose that the disappearance of the White Ovals was not an isolated event, but part of a recurring climate cycle which will cause most of Jupiter's vortices to disappear within the next decade. In my numerical simulations, the loss of the vortices results in a global temperature change of about 10 K, which destabilizes the atmosphere and thereby leads to the formation of new vortices. After formation, the large vortices are eroded by turbulence over a time of 60 years—consistent with observations of the White Ovals—until they disappear and the cycle begins again.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v428/n6985/abs/nature02470.html

External Source

Pluto is undergoing global warming, researchers find
October 9, 2002

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.--Pluto is undergoing global warming, as evidenced by a three-fold increase in the planet's atmospheric pressure during the past 14 years, a team of astronomers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Williams College, the University of Hawaii, Lowell Observatory and Cornell University announced in a press conference today at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society's (AAS) Division for Planetary Sciences in Birmingham, AL.

The team, led by James Elliot, professor of planetary astronomy at MIT and director of MIT's Wallace Observatory, made this finding by watching the dimming of a star when Pluto passed in front of it Aug. 20. The team carried out observations using eight telescopes at Mauna Kea Observatory, Haleakala, Lick Observatory, Lowell Observatory and Palomar Observatory. Data were successfully recorded at all sites.

An earlier attempt to observe an occultation of Pluto on July 19 in Chile was not highly successful. Observations were made from only two sites with small telescopes because the giant telescopes and other small telescopes involved lost out to bad weather or from being in the wrong location that day. These two occultations were the first to be successfully observed for Pluto since 1988.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2002/pluto.html

That's a 300% increase in atmospheric pressure in Pluto, which is the highest increase in any planet in the Solar system, and it is increasing as Pluto orbits away from the Sun. If the Sun is the cause for global warming in the solar system, as some scientists say, why is it that Pluto, the planet that is the farthest away from the Sun, experiencing the most severe effects, and it is getting worse and worse as it orbits away from the sun?

External Source

Pluto thought to be warming up
Astronomers at the University of Tasmania have found that the solar system's smallest planet is not getting colder as first thought and it probably does not have rings.

Dr John Greenhill has collected observations from last month's event when Pluto passed in front of a bright star, making it easier to study.

French scientists have shared the measurements they took in Tasmania that night, which indicate that the planet is unlikely to have rings.

Dr Greenhill says the results are surprising because they show Pluto is warming up.

"It looks as though the atmosphere has not changed from 2002, which is pretty surprising because we expected the atmosphere would freeze out as the planet moved further away from the Sun," he said.

"But so far, if anything, the atmosphere has gotten even denser."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200607/s1697309.htm


The following is a site which was made by several scientists who have no links with any government, or corporation, their findings are very interresting and give a different picture as to what is causing global warming. I can't quote any excerpts as there is a copyright issue, but I will post the link. Anyone interested in that information should read that site.

http://biocab.org/Cosmic_Rays_Graph.html#anchor_77

http://biocab.org/Global_Warming.html#anchor_32

External Source

Title:
Is the solar system entering a nearby interstellar cloud
Authors:
Vidal-Madjar, A.; Laurent, C.; Bruston, P.; Audouze, J.
Affiliation:
AA(CNRS, Laboratoire de Physique Stellaire et Planetaire, Verrieres-le-Buisson, Essonne, France), AB(CNRS, Laboratoire de Physique Stellaire et Planetaire, Verrieres-le-Buisson, Essonne, France), AC(CNRS, Laboratoire de Physique Stellaire et Planetaire, Verrieres-le-Buisson, Essonne, France), AD(Meudon Observatoire, Hauts-de-Seine; Paris XI, Universite, Orsay, Essonne, France)
Publication:
Astrophysical Journal, Part 1, vol. 223, July 15, 1978, p. 589-600. (ApJ Homepage)
Publication Date:
07/1978
Category:
Astrophysics
Origin:
STI
NASA/STI Keywords:
ASTRONOMICAL MODELS, DEUTERIUM, HYDROGEN ATOMS, INTERSTELLAR GAS, SOLAR SYSTEM, ABUNDANCE, EARLY STARS, GAS DENSITY, INTERSTELLAR EXTINCTION
DOI:
10.1086/156294
Bibliographic Code:
1978ApJ...223..589V

Abstract
....................
Observational arguments in favor of such a cloud are presented, and implications of the presence of a nearby cloud are discussed, including possible changes in terrestrial climate. It is suggested that the postulated interstellar cloud should encounter the solar system at some unspecified time in the 'near' future and might have a drastic influence on terrestrial climate in the next 10,000 years.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1978ApJ...223..589V

External Source

ESA sees stardust storms heading for Solar System

PRESS RELEASE
Date Released: Monday, August 18, 2003
Source: Artemis Society

Until ten years ago, most astronomers did not believe stardust could enter our Solar System. Then ESA's Ulysses spaceprobe discovered minute stardust particles leaking through the Sun's magnetic shield, into the realm of Earth and the other planets. Now, the same spaceprobe has shown that a flood of dusty particles is heading our way.
...........
What is surprising in this new Ulysses discovery is that the amount of stardust has continued to increase even after the solar activity calmed down and the magnetic field resumed its ordered shape in 2001.

Scientists believe that this is due to the way in which the polarity changed during solar maximum. Instead of reversing completely, flipping north to south, the Sun's magnetic poles have only rotated at halfway and are now more or less lying sideways along the Sun's equator. This weaker configuration of the magnetic shield is letting in two to three times more stardust than at the end of the 1990s. Moreover, this influx could increase by as much as ten times until the end of the current solar cycle in 2012.

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=12353

Reliapundit said...

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/sun_output_030320.html

In what could be the simplest explanation for one component of global warming, a new study shows the Sun's radiation has increased by .05 percent per decade since the late 1970s.

The increase would only be significant to Earth's climate if it has been going on for a century or more, said study leader Richard Willson, a Columbia University researcher also affiliated with NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

The Sun's increasing output has only been monitored with precision since satellite technology allowed necessary observations. Willson is not sure if the trend extends further back in time, but other studies suggest it does.

"This trend is important because, if sustained over many decades, it could cause significant climate change," Willson said.

In a NASA-funded study recently published in Geophysical Research Letters, Willson and his colleagues speculate on the possible history of the trend based on data collected in the pre-satellite era.

"Solar activity has apparently been going upward for a century or more," Willson told SPACE.com today.

Significant component

Further satellite observations may eventually show the trend to be short-term. But if the change has indeed persisted at the present rate through the 20th Century, "it would have provided a significant component of the global warming the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports to have occurred over the past 100 years," he said.

That does not mean industrial pollution has not been a significant factor, Willson cautioned.

Scientists, industry leaders and environmentalists have argued for years whether humans have contributed to global warming, and to what extent. The average surface temperature around the globe has risen by about 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1880. Some scientists say the increase could be part of natural climate cycles. Others argue that greenhouse gases produced by automobiles and industry are largely to blame.

Willson said the Sun's possible influence has been largely ignored because it is so difficult to quantify over long periods.

Confounding efforts to determine the Sun's role is the fact that its energy output waxes and wanes every 11 years. This solar cycle, as it is called, reached maximum in the middle of 2000 and achieved a second peak in 2002. It is now ramping down toward a solar minimum that will arrive in about three years.

Joe Yangtree said...

Let me take one thing out first to highlight it. I think it is the one argument that I make that you might actually have a hope of understanding:

TO ENACT DRACONIAN, LEFT-WING ANTI-INDUSTRIAL ANTI-FREE-MARKET ANTI CAPITALIST...
I'm not in favor of Kyoto or other drastic measures on a global economic scale either, as I've said repeatedly. Here's my main point, reprinted from another, similar debate:

"You, and countless others, are mixing the scientific debate about global warming with the political one. Because you don't like the potential policy consequences of the science, you attack the scientific basis for those proposed policies. You are convinced that the science must not be right, because, if it were not correct, then the policies based on that science would collapse. While this is a reasonable strategy while the science is still questioned, there is eventually a point where arguing in this fashion becomes counter-productive. As the science becomes accepted by more and more people and the evidence that the theory is correct stacks up higher and higher, basing disagreement on the idea that the science is not correct becomes more and more difficult.

"I believe that if you were to examine this issue without any dog in the fight, you'd agree that the case for global warming as a result of increased CO2 in the atmosphere is very, very strong. However, because you fear the implications of that conclusion, you read and write articles questioning the science, highlighting any perceived minor anecdotal issue. Unfortunately, for you, this behavior is very counterproductive. If you don't like the policy propositions that are being made in response to the science, then spend your time arguing against them and promoting research into scientific solutions to the problem.

"To illustrate this point, let's take a hypothetical future 10 years from now. Let's assume that, in 2016, we've had ten more years of increased temperatures and the public has accepted the theory of man-made global warming as a given. What will happen at that point? Who will they trust to set policy to address the situation? People, like you or most Congressional Republicans, that chose to steadfastly refuse to accept the science or the people you currently term "global warming alarmists"? I think considering the answer to that question should be very important to you."

Now, onto the science:

"1 - mars is also warming. what besides solar activity voyuld explain earth's warming and mars'?
If there had to be a common factor that was causing both, it would have to be the sun. One big problem with that theory from NASA: "It's official: Solar minimum has arrived. Sunspots have all but vanished. Solar flares are nonexistent. The sun is utterly quiet."

Fortunately, we have no reason to think that the climate change on Mars is in any way linked to global warming on the earth. For one thing, it's not global. It's the South Polar region of Mars that we've detected warming in, nowhere else. For another, "the south polar climate is unstable" (same reference).

"2 - you want people to believe there is unanimity in the scitntiofic comm. about anthropogenic gw but there is NOT.
I don't want them to belive there is unanimity, just a solid consensus. I've shown that repeatedly. If I haven't then what would a consensus look like? What endorsements of man-made global warming need to be made before we could agree that there is a consensus? You can't ever seem to answer that simple question.

3 - The truth about global warming - it's the Sun that's to blame
The article by Michael Leidig and Roya Nikkhah has been brought up repeatedly and dealt with here. Your only new "insight" other than quoting the entire article again is to say,"max planck is an inst with many researchers and no monolithic opinion." The quoted research was done by Dr. Sami Solanki, the director of the institute. In the paper I have referenced over and over again you know, the one that says, "solar activity affects the climate but plays only a minor role in the current global warming", he is listed as the main contact. He is directly quoted in that paper as stating, "according to our latest knowledge on the variations of the solar magnetic field, the significant increase in the Earth’s temperature since 1980 is indeed to be ascribed to the greenhouse effect caused by carbon dioxide." His opinion of the conclusions of his research is clear. It's only the non-scientific authors of the article and you who choose to mis-interpret his findings.

I dealt with the other planet and moon warming claims in this post. I'm going to skip disussing interstellar clouds and stardust for now, since they don't seem to talk about current climate change at all.

Thank you for indulging my long post.

Reliapundit said...

so you want me to believe that the FACT that earth, mars, venus, jupiter and its satellites, neptune, uranus and pluto are all experiencing warming and the sun is very active is UNRELATED?!

bwahahahahahaha!

and you want me to believe that the warming the earth is experiencing now hads a different cause than all the time before?!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

and you want me to believe this in spite of the fact that the scientistrs who asrgue this point have contiuyally adjusted their models over and ver and over again because they have gotten so litytle right - ie methane from forests and lakes and iron deficient pomankton etc etc etc and so forth.

it is laughable.

at the very least i have prven that there is a great deal of debate about whether the current trend was anthropgenic or whether we have some relatively importnat input.

and there is NO DEBATE as to whether kyoto or any other stae-drvien plan yet offered wll do anyhting to alleviate the warming.

we should expend effort/$ on dealing with it's effects, and dealig with known environmental problems: dirty waste sites, dirty water.

nuff said.

Joe Yangtree said...

Did you actually read my post? Venus is undergoing no new warming. Jupiter and Mars are underging localized warming (Jupiter's poles are cooling and equatorial regions warming; Mars sees warming only at its South Pole). You have made absolutely no claim that either Neptune or Uranus is warming, so there was nothing to refute there. Pluto is probaly undergoing seasonal warming (we have the least data there). Did I miss explaining anything? Did you present any new evidence to refute mine? I think not. I guess "bwahahahahahaha" is what suffices for an argument in your world.

Yes, if the evidence points to a new reason than before and against other potential reasons, it seems reasonable to accept it. As usual, you ignore my simple 5-point case for global warming, since you have nothing to argue it with.

Once again you say the sun is very active. Please tell NASA, based on their quote from above which says exactly the opposite and is from earlier this year. A provably less active sun entirely collapses your point all by itself.

Models are made to be adjusted. That's why they're models, not facts. All of the minor changes that they have had to make that you have pointed out only served to make the predicted warming more dire, not less dire.

"at the very least i have prven that there is a great deal of debate about whether the current trend was anthropgenic"
If you had proven any such thing, you'd have no problem answering my consensus would look like or who agreed with you. You're perpetually long on rhetoric, short on answers.

Reliapundit said...

"Not only that, but Jupiter and Neptune's largest moon, Triton, are undergoing global warming as well. Not coincidentally, the sun has been emitting more heat for the last several decades."

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/sun_output_030320.html

In what could be the simplest explanation for one component of global warming, a new study shows the Sun's radiation has increased by .05 percent per decade since the late 1970s.

"This trend is important because, if sustained over many decades, it could cause significant climate change," Willson said.

In a NASA-funded study recently published in Geophysical Research Letters, Willson and his colleagues speculate on the possible history of the trend based on data collected in the pre-satellite era.

"Solar activity has apparently been going upward for a century or more," Willson told SPACE.com today.

Significant component

Further satellite observations may eventually show the trend to be short-term. But if the change has indeed persisted at the present rate through the 20th Century, "it would have provided a significant component of the global warming the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports to have occurred over the past 100 years," he said.

Joe Yangtree said...

So, we're back down to 1 planet and 1 moon. Your first quote is from "Stingray" in a blog comment -- quite an impressive source. Actual scientists say of Jupiter, "areas around the equator become warmer, while the poles can start to cool down." It's not global warming if the equator is warming and the poles are cooling. It's heat transfer. The reasons for Triton's global temperature increase are explained here. They are not relevant to earth's situation.

Your article about solar radiation is from early 2003. The subsequent data shows that this was not the case. Note I already presented (twice) the 2006 NASA conclusions above about solar activity. Now, I'll provide reasons that the 2003 (and earlier) interpretations were incorrect and some of the raw, up to date data from the satellites that measure the sun's radiation. Pay particular attention to Figure 5 that clearly shows the valley that we're currently in. However, global temps keep going up.

Once again, you totally ignore my 5-point case for global warming. It's simple, to the point, and you have no argument for it. That bears repeating. You also ignore the consensus challenge. I'll ask again, if we don't have scientific consensus on man-made global warming, what would that look like? What organizations would need to join on for us to agree that there was a consensus?

Joe Yangtree said...

Here's Figure 5 that I referred to above by itself, in color -- a little easier to see.