Global Cooling Research

[ron]

Yup, PANIC. Here is all you need to know about this "study:"

A lead author, Stephen H. Schneider, Stanford University

Stephen Schneider, IPCC "Scientist" was a lead author. He is a propagandist who admits and is proud of saying:
"[...] we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. "
Source: from his own website:
stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Mediarology/MediarologyFrameset.html?http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Mediarology/Mediarology.html

This is a lead "scientist" of the IPCC, one of its front-men, the self-aggrandizing media wh0re who is on the lecture circuit and every TV station he can get to interview him. I saw him on a panel interview where he advocated the government forcing their way into people's homes to check for energy efficiency. Nobody on the panel even batted an eyelash when he advocated that.

He's the the guy doing the studies, and producing the science. He is a propagandist with an agenda, NOT an objective scientist.

[ebrainsh]

Coral Reefs May Start Dissolving When Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Doubles

CO2 is very potent. SD does it again. Where is the empirical data? Does anyone here have any thoughts on this?

ScienceDaily (Mar. 10, 2009) — Rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the resulting effects on ocean water are making it increasingly difficult for coral reefs to grow, say scientists. A study to be published online March 13, 2009 in Geophysical Research Letters by researchers at the Carnegie Institution and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem warns that if carbon dioxide reaches double pre-industrial levels, coral reefs can be expected to not just stop growing, but also to begin dissolving all over the world.

[nautonnier]

Mar 10, 2009 19:03:05 GMT ebrainsh said:

Coral Reefs May Start Dissolving When Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Doubles

CO2 is very potent. SD does it again. Where is the empirical data? Does anyone here have any thoughts on this?

ScienceDaily (Mar. 10, 2009) — Rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the resulting effects on ocean water are making it increasingly difficult for coral reefs to grow, say scientists. A study to be published online March 13, 2009 in Geophysical Research Letters by researchers at the Carnegie Institution and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem warns that if carbon dioxide reaches double pre-industrial levels, coral reefs can be expected to not just stop growing, but also to begin dissolving all over the world.

Strange - corals actually developed during periods when CO₂ was higher than now. Many of the chalk and limestone deposits were laid down by huge numbers of small molluscs and coral that thrived for thousands of years in higher atmospheric levels of CO₂.

CO₂ has been many times higher than now and life thrived. The problem with some scientists is they appear like the creationists to believe that nothing existed before satellites, or perhaps they view everything in terms of AG - After Gore

[icefisher]

Mar 10, 2009 19:03:05 GMT ebrainsh said:

Coral Reefs May Start Dissolving When Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Doubles

CO2 is very potent. SD does it again. Where is the empirical data? Does anyone here have any thoughts on this?

ScienceDaily (Mar. 10, 2009) — Rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the resulting effects on ocean water are making it increasingly difficult for coral reefs to grow, say scientists. A study to be published online March 13, 2009 in Geophysical Research Letters by researchers at the Carnegie Institution and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem warns that if carbon dioxide reaches double pre-industrial levels, coral reefs can be expected to not just stop growing, but also to begin dissolving all over the world.

Reminds me of the Cranberries cause cancer scare of the 50's. Look narrowly enough at anything and you can find horrors anywhere.

[twawki]

Lets just add it to that list of things supposedly caused by global warming! javascript:add("%20;D")

www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm

ROFL

[hilbert]

IF the AGW hypothesis is proved false by events this could result in a backlash that will be to the disbenefit of science and research as a whole. For example, the Nobel prize system will be totally discredited as will several major 'peer reviewed' journals.

I think that the Nobel Peace Prize has been considered a joke many times. The other prizes are still well-regarded, I believe. (Literature might be thought to be be a bit subjective.)

[gdfernan]

Mar 16, 2009 16:08:38 GMT hilbert said:

IF the AGW hypothesis is proved false by events this could result in a backlash that will be to the disbenefit of science and research as a whole. For example, the Nobel prize system will be totally discredited as will several major 'peer reviewed' journals.

I think that the Nobel Peace Prize has been considered a joke many times. The other prizes are still well-regarded, I believe. (Literature might be thought to be be a bit subjective.)

Paul Krugman got the Economics prize for writing a liberal column in the NYT. Of course the real reason was disguised by claiming that it was for having shown the effects of economies of scale on trade patterns and on the location of economic activity

[ebrainsh]

This just in from our friend Dan Hogan at ScienceDaily. Just Maybe he is starting to take Sun Spots seriously.

Solar Activity And Climate Change: New Sun-Watching Satellite To Monitor Sunlight Fluctuations

ScienceDaily (Mar. 29, 2009) — During the Maunder Minimum, a period of diminished solar activity between 1645 and 1715, sunspots were rare on the face of the sun, sometimes disappearing entirely for months to years. At the same time, Earth experienced a bitter cold period known as the "Little Ice Age."
Were the events connected? Scientists cannot say for sure, but it's quite likely. Slowdowns in solar activity -- evidenced by reductions in sunspot numbers -- are known to coincide with decreases in the amount of energy discharged by the sun. During the Little Ice Age, though, few would have thought to track total solar irradiance (TSI), the amount of solar energy striking Earth's upper atmosphere. In fact, the scientific instrument needed to make such measurements -- a space borne radiometer -- was still three centuries into the future.

"The Glory TIM should be three times more accurate than SORCE TIM, and about ten times more accurate than earlier instruments," said Greg Kopp, a physicist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and leader of the TIM science team.

After examining the historical TSI database, some scientists have suggested that solar irradiance could account for as much as a quarter of recent global warming. But without a continuous and reliable TSI record, Kopp and Lean point out, there will always be room for skeptics to blame global warming entirely on the sun, even when most evidence suggests human activities are the key influence on modern climate changes.

Could a modern day Maunder Minimum offset the warming influence of greenhouse gases or even throw us back into another little ice age? "It's extremely unlikely," said Lean, "but we won't know for sure unless we keep up and perfect our measurements."

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090328163643.htm

[ebrainsh]

Our Friend Dan Hogan from ScienceDaily has awakened from his slumber. I know he’s not totally there yet, but it takes baby steps before you’re able to walk. Mr. Hogan is still in denial when he declares “These changes are not enough to reverse global warming, but there are some other, noticeable side-effects”. Dan’s view will ultimately change when global temperatures start plunging and the Earth’s weather pattern and its effect reflect the new reality.

How Low Can It Go? Sun Plunges Into The Quietest Solar Minimum In A Century

ScienceDaily (Apr. 3, 2009) — The sunspot cycle is behaving a little like the stock market. Just when you think it has hit bottom, it goes even lower.

The year 2008 was a bear. There were no sunspots observed on 266 of the year's 366 days (73 percent). To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go all the way back to 1913, which had 311 spotless days. Prompted by these numbers, some observers suggested that the solar cycle had hit bottom in 2008.

Maybe not. Sunspot counts for 2009 have dropped even lower. As of March 31st, there were no sunspots on 78 of the year's 90 days (87 percent).

It adds up to one inescapable conclusion: "We're experiencing a very deep solar minimum," says solar physicist Dean Pesnell of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

"This is the quietest sun we've seen in almost a century," agrees forecaster David Hathaway of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

Quiet suns come along every 11 years or so. It's a natural part of the sunspot cycle, discovered by German astronomer Heinrich Schwabe in the mid-1800s. Sunspots are planet-sized islands of magnetism on the surface of the sun, and they are sources of solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and intense UV radiation. Plotting sunspot counts, Schwabe saw that peaks of solar activity were always followed by valleys of relative calm—a clockwork pattern that has held true for more than 200 years.

The current solar minimum is part of that pattern. In fact, it's right on time. But is it supposed to be this quiet?

Measurements by the Ulysses spacecraft reveal a 20 percent drop in solar wind pressure since the mid-1990s—the lowest point since such measurements began in the 1960s. The solar wind helps keep galactic cosmic rays out of the inner solar system. With the solar wind flagging, more cosmic rays penetrate the solar system, resulting in increased health hazards for astronauts. Weaker solar wind also means fewer geomagnetic storms and auroras on Earth.

Careful measurements by several NASA spacecraft have also shown that the sun's brightness has dimmed by 0.02 percent at visible wavelengths and a whopping 6 percent at extreme UV wavelengths since the solar minimum of 1996. These changes are not enough to reverse global warming, but there are some other, noticeable side-effects.

Earth's upper atmosphere is heated less by the sun and it is therefore less "puffed up." Satellites in Earth orbit experience less atmospheric drag, extending their operational lifetimes. That’s the good news. Unfortunately, space junk also remains in orbit longer, posing an increased threat to useful satellites.

Finally, radio telescopes are recording the dimmest "radio sun" since 1955. After World War II, astronomers began keeping records of the sun's brightness at radio wavelengths, particularly 10.7 cm. Some researchers believe that the lessening of radio emissions during this solar minimum is an indication of weakness in the sun's global magnetic field. No one is certain, however, because the source of these long-monitored radio emissions is not fully understood.

All these lows have sparked a debate about whether the ongoing minimum is extreme or just an overdue market correction following a string of unusually intense solar maxima.

"Since the Space Age began in the 1950s, solar activity has been generally high," notes Hathaway. "Five of the ten most intense solar cycles on record have occurred in the last 50 years. We're just not used to this kind of deep calm."

Deep calm was fairly common a hundred years ago. The solar minima of 1901 and 1913, for instance, were even longer than what we're experiencing now. To match those minima in depth and longevity, the current minimum will have to last at least another year.

In a way, the calm is exciting, says Pesnell. "For the first time in history, we're getting to observe a deep solar minimum." A fleet of spacecraft — including the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), the twin probes of the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO), and several other satellites — are all studying the sun and its effects on Earth. Using technology that didn't exist 100 years ago, scientists are measuring solar winds, cosmic rays, irradiance and magnetic fields and finding that solar minimum is much more interesting than anyone expected.
Modern technology cannot, however, predict what comes next. Competing models by dozens of solar physicists disagree, sometimes sharply, on when this solar minimum will end and how big the next solar maximum will be. The great uncertainty stems from one simple fact: No one fully understands the underlying physics of the sunspot cycle.

Pesnell believes sunspot counts should pick up again soon, "possibly by the end of the year," to be followed by a solar maximum of below-average intensity in 2012 or 2013.
But like other forecasters, he knows he could be wrong. Bull or bear? Stay tuned for updates.

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090402200749.htm

[ron]

I don't think those are Dan's words -- the piece was plagiarized from NASA.

science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/01apr_deepsolarminimum.htm

[ebrainsh]

Dan, I wouldn't use the word plagiarized. The content you see at ScienceDaily is sent to them by various scientist who would like SD to publish it on their site. SD may summarize the papers to fit their format but they usually do not change the content.

When it comes to AGW I know Dan is very biased. I look at his summaries as a direct reflection of his views.

[ron]

Fair enough .. "taken from"

[nautonnier]

Mar 30, 2009 3:35:49 GMT ebrainsh said:

This just in from our friend Dan Hogan at ScienceDaily. Just Maybe he is starting to take Sun Spots seriously.

Solar Activity And Climate Change: New Sun-Watching Satellite To Monitor Sunlight Fluctuations

ScienceDaily (Mar. 29, 2009) — During the Maunder Minimum, a period of diminished solar activity between 1645 and 1715, sunspots were rare on the face of the sun, sometimes disappearing entirely for months to years. At the same time, Earth experienced a bitter cold period known as the "Little Ice Age."
Were the events connected? Scientists cannot say for sure, but it's quite likely. Slowdowns in solar activity -- evidenced by reductions in sunspot numbers -- are known to coincide with decreases in the amount of energy discharged by the sun. During the Little Ice Age, though, few would have thought to track total solar irradiance (TSI), the amount of solar energy striking Earth's upper atmosphere. In fact, the scientific instrument needed to make such measurements -- a space borne radiometer -- was still three centuries into the future.

"The Glory TIM should be three times more accurate than SORCE TIM, and about ten times more accurate than earlier instruments," said Greg Kopp, a physicist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and leader of the TIM science team.

After examining the historical TSI database, some scientists have suggested that solar irradiance could account for as much as a quarter of recent global warming. But without a continuous and reliable TSI record, Kopp and Lean point out, there will always be room for skeptics to blame global warming entirely on the sun, even when most evidence suggests human activities are the key influence on modern climate changes.

Could a modern day Maunder Minimum offset the warming influence of greenhouse gases or even throw us back into another little ice age? "It's extremely unlikely," said Lean, "but we won't know for sure unless we keep up and perfect our measurements."

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090328163643.htm

I don't think this indicates any seriousness about sunspots at all. The intent of the exercise is to try to prove that the Sun's activity - or lack of it - has no effect on climate. This is the view that appears to be espoused by the editor of science daily.

[ebrainsh]

Global Warming May Result In Some Periods Of Cooling In Southeastern United States[/size]

ScienceDaily (May 19, 2009) — Global warming may include some periods of local cooling, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley. Results from satellite and ground-based sensor data show that sweltering summers can, paradoxically, lead to the temporary formation of a cooling haze in the southeastern United States.

The study, to be published the week of May 18 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that when man made pollutants mix with the natural compounds emitted from forests and vegetation during the hot summer months, they form secondary aerosols that reflect light from the sun. Such aerosols may also contribute to the formation of clouds, which also reflect sunlight.

The results of this study suggest that climate models need to better account for the effects of organic aerosols, the authors said.

The researchers conducted observations of aerosols throughout the earth's atmosphere using space-based satellites in combination with ground-based sunphotometers between March 2000 and February 2007.

"This is the first time a study has shown that the aerosols formed from the combination of man made and natural emissions observed from space are relevant for understanding earth's climate," said study lead author Allen Goldstein, UC Berkeley professor and chair of the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management.

The study began when former UC Berkeley Ph.D. student and study co-author Charles Koven showed Goldstein satellite data that indicated a summertime spike in aerosol haze in the southeastern United States. Goldstein noticed that the increased haziness, which could not be explained by human activities alone, coincided with the known regional pattern of biogenic volatile organic compounds. The emission of these compounds - natural hydrocarbons from plants and trees - increases exponentially when the temperature rises, said Goldstein.

"These natural emissions are highly volatile, and when they react with human sources of pollution in the atmosphere, aerosols are created," said Goldstein, who also holds a joint faculty appointment in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. "Nobody realized until now that enough of these aerosols were forming to influence cooling over an entire region."

The researchers estimated that the cooling effect from the aerosol haze over this region in summer is outpacing the warming effect from carbon dioxide emissions by 2-to-1 in a negative feedback system.

The results do not mean, however, that aerosols negate the effects of carbon dioxide emissions, emphasized atmospheric scientist Inez Fung, co-director of the Berkeley Institute of the Environment and a co-author of the study.

"The cooling effect of the organic aerosols we are reporting here are regional and temporal; they are dwarfed by the changes in the climate we are witnessing globally," said Fung, a UC Berkeley professor with joint appointments in the Department of Earth and Planetary Science and the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management. "Aerosols only remain in the atmosphere for five to 10 days, whereas carbon dioxide lingers for decades. To counter all the warming effects from greenhouse gases with aerosols, levels would have to be so high that we'd have trouble breathing, and the sky would no longer appear blue."

Study co-author Koven is now a postdoctoral fellow at the Climate and Environmental Sciences Laboratory (Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement) in France. The study was also co-authored by Colette Heald, a former UC Berkeley post-doctoral fellow who is an assistant professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University.

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090518172442.htm

I would like to know your thoughts on this aerosol effect. Did this kid Koven stumble upon an important climate effect or is this just regurgitated nonsense? Ebrainsh

[jtom]

Hmm, a negative forcing here, and negative forcing there, and pretty soon global warming will have us in an ice age.

I anxiously await others to expand this bit of negative forcing to include all of the world that is covered with vegetation and forests. The cumulative effect should be quite chilling.