BBC spin on the sun and AGW

[byz]

Does anyone know who this bloke is?

according to Prof Mike Lockwood of Southampton University, this view is too simplistic.
"I wish the Sun was coming to our aid but, unfortunately, the data shows that is not the case," he said.
Prof Lockwood was one of the first researchers to show that the Sun's activity has been gradually decreasing since 1985, yet overall global temperatures have continued to rise.
"If you look carefully at the observations, it's pretty clear that the underlying level of the Sun peaked at about 1985 and what we are seeing is a continuation of a downward trend (in solar activity) that's been going on for a couple of decades.
"If the Sun's dimming were to have a cooling effect, we'd have seen it by now."

Err... has anyone ever heard of the suns activity decreasing since 1985, it certainly flies in the face of Dr Hathaway.

I wonder if he is known to Leif or have the BBC wheeled him out of some broom cupboard to back up their view point?

[glc]

Does anyone know who this bloke is?

Mike Lockwood wrote a paper with Claus Frohlich arguing that recent solar climate forcings have been heading in the wrong direction since 1985. A copy of his paper is here

www.warwickhughes.com/agri/lockwood2007.pdf

I'm not sure he's right about 1985, but he does have a point when he says that evidence for a strong solar influence should be evident long before now. And he's almost certainly right when he implies that those who are expecting an imminent sharp downturn in temperatures due to a "dimming sun" are going to be seriously disappointed.

and - yes - he is known to Leif.

Update: If you read Lockwood's other comments you'll notice he implies that any climate cooling due to the sun won't become apparent for hunred(s) of years. That's exactly my thoughts on it. It's not that the sun doesn't drive climate - it's that it doesn't drive climate changes on timescales that are relevant to the AGW discussion. Stick with the oceans - that's your best bet.

[byz]

Well if (and that is a BIG IF) we do get a grand solar minimum then we'll find out how quickly it will impact the earth.

So much of our environmental science is very new and so most of it is a hypothesis (as is our understanding of the Sun) so very little is fact most is opinion or what some model output (garbage in garbage out).

Also many measurements of the past 1000 years are based on proxies not actual temperature measurements.

I know a grand minimum could be a real disaster if it occurred (based on hypothesis and proxies from past minima), however the scientist part of my mind is curious to see what happens. If the earth cooled dramatically AGW will be a false hypothesis whilst solar forcing will be true, if it cools only slightly or not at all then the AGW hypothesis will true and solar forcing false. It would be great science ;D

I know Dr Hathaway has been pillared recently (I am also guilty of this) but his models did predict a grand minima in Cycle 25-26. So it would be better to have one now so that we could find out which hypothesis is correct so we don't waste trillions of pounds/dollars/euros on bad science.

My concern is that we spend so much on CO2 research yet we carry on allowing the rain forests and natural habitats to be destroyed. We also allow various pesticides to be used and yet there are people saying that CO2 (a natural and organic by product) is a pollutant and yet pesticides and plastics dumped in the environment are ok

[icefisher]

Apr 21, 2009 9:02:17 GMT glc said:

I'm not sure he's right about 1985, but he does have a point when he says that evidence for a strong solar influence should be evident long before now. And he's almost certainly right when he implies that those who are expecting an imminent sharp downturn in temperatures due to a "dimming sun" are going to be seriously disappointed.

Huh? Could you run through that again? I was thinking folks would be perfectly happy if it doesn't get much warmer.

Who are these people are they converts?

[magellan]

Nir Shaviv had much to say about L&F 2007.

It happened to get published just in time before an important U.N. climate meeting, with Lockwood doing a press conference calling his paper "another nail in the coffin for climate skeptics" (or something to that effect). Isn't that a coincidence?

It was a crappy paper, much like Santer 2008 and Dessler 2008. Being pro-AGW however, it had no problem getting through RMS unscathed.

I recall reading a blog at about the same time L&F came out with a heated argument ensuing between Richard Wilson and Judith Lean. Wilson made no bones about accusing Lean and others of being lap dogs for the IPCC, and said the PMOD data was fatally flawed. Hence, he has now published about it:

Scafetta and Wilson
www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2008GL036307.shtml

and

Shaviv (posted in an earlier thread)
www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2007JA012989.shtml
In his blog discussion:

First, it means that the IPCC cannot ignore anymore the fact that the sun has a large climatic effect on climate. Of course, there was plenty of evidence before, so I don't expect this result to make any difference!

Second, given the consistency between the energy going into the oceans and the estimated forcing by the solar cycle synchronized cloud cover variations, it is unlikely that the solar forcing is not associated with the cloud cover variation.

Note that the most reasonable explanation to the cloud variations is that of the cosmic ray cloud link. By now there are many independent lines of evidence showing its existence (e.g., for a not so recent summary take a look here). That is, the cloud cover variations are controlled by an external lever, which itself is affected by solar activity.

I liked his quote from Arthur C. Clark, so adopted it

Willie Soon has some harsh words for Lean and IPCC as well.
www.heartland.org/bin/media/newyork09/PowerPoint/Willie_Soon.ppt

Nail in the coffin my eye.

[glc]

It was a crappy paper, much like Santer 2008 and Dessler 2008. Being pro-AGW however, it had no problem getting through RMS unscathed.

In what way was it "crappy"?

[magellan]

Apr 22, 2009 8:17:19 GMT glc said:

It was a crappy paper, much like Santer 2008 and Dessler 2008. Being pro-AGW however, it had no problem getting through RMS unscathed.

In what way was it "crappy"?

You have three references and many others that link the sun to weather/climate. The rest is easy to find. L&F was the solar rendition of the hockey stick and clearly an advocacy of AGW.

L&F is a "crappy" paper.

Edit:
Doug Hoyt made some salient points on L&F at Warwick Hughes, whom I'm sure you're very familiar with, if you know what I mean, being an AGW skeptic and all
www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=131

[glc]

You have three references and many others that link the sun to weather/climate. The rest is easy to find. L&F was the solar rendition of the hockey stick and clearly an advocacy of AGW.

The main disagreement over L&F concerns the TSI reconstruction used. I sort of acknowledged this in an earlier post when I questioned 1985 as the L&F grand minimum. But whatever reconstruction, TSI cannot explain the post-1980 warming. Even Scafetta & West can only account for between 10% and 30% of the global surface temperature increase in the period 1980-2002. And, note that, unlike CO2 warming, solar warming should also cause the stratosphere to warm.

L&F is a "crappy" paper.

Then someone should come up with a similar study (using ACRIM rather than PMOD) that shows the 'correct' amount of increased solar warming and at what point solar activity dipped.

Edit:
Doug Hoyt made some salient points on L&F at Warwick Hughes, whom I'm sure you're very familiar with, if you know what I mean, being an AGW skeptic and all
www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=131

I am familiar with Doug Hoyt and have exchanged emails with him on a few occasions. I have great respect for Doug's opinion, but, although he has criticised L&F (and other studies), he's never stuck his neck out and made any climate predictions - presumably because he's aware of the uncertainties.

It's only the amateurs who are going out on a limb and predicting imminent cooling.

[nautonnier]

This is another reason why you should read Nir Shaviv's paper.

[glc]

This is another reason why you should read Nir Shaviv's paper

I assume this is for me and I assume it relates to the Shaviv paper on the solar "amplification factor". Let's assume that Shaviv is right and cloud variation (is this the paper?) is driven by solar activity. How do we validate these findings? Perhaps the next few years might reveal something - but what then? will it be cooler? or will we have to wait a few more years to note that the oceans really are cooling and the global temperatures are falling. This is not going to happen next week, next year or in the next 5 years. Shaviv's paper is interesting but has a long way to go before it gains general acceptance. Shaviv might be right but irrelevant in terms of AGW. That is, the timescales over which his theory operates might be of the order of centuries.

The oceans appear to drive the climate over multi-decadal periods (~30 year), but it's clear there is another factor which has produced an underlying warming trend over the last 50-100 years. The sun just might be that factor but at this point in time, CO2 must be considered the favourite.

[nautonnier]

Apr 23, 2009 10:09:26 GMT glc said:

This is another reason why you should read Nir Shaviv's paper

I assume this is for me and I assume it relates to the Shaviv paper on the solar "amplification factor". Let's assume that Shaviv is right and cloud variation (is this the paper?) is driven by solar activity. How do we validate these findings? Perhaps the next few years might reveal something - but what then? will it be cooler? or will we have to wait a few more years to note that the oceans really are cooling and the global temperatures are falling. This is not going to happen next week, next year or in the next 5 years. Shaviv's paper is interesting but has a long way to go before it gains general acceptance. Shaviv might be right but irrelevant in terms of AGW. That is, the timescales over which his theory operates might be of the order of centuries.

The oceans appear to drive the climate over multi-decadal periods (~30 year), but it's clear there is another factor which has produced an underlying warming trend over the last 50-100 years. The sun just might be that factor but at this point in time, CO2 must be considered the favourite.

The actual paper showed that ocean heat flux variations were correlated to but many more times what would be expected from variance in TSI.

There was then a commentary that looked at potential reasons for this but the main thrust of the paper was just the actual metric of ocean heat flux.

[icefisher]

Apr 23, 2009 10:09:26 GMT glc said:

This is another reason why you should read Nir Shaviv's paper

I assume this is for me and I assume it relates to the Shaviv paper on the solar "amplification factor". Let's assume that Shaviv is right and cloud variation (is this the paper?) is driven by solar activity. How do we validate these findings? Perhaps the next few years might reveal something - but what then? will it be cooler? or will we have to wait a few more years to note that the oceans really are cooling and the global temperatures are falling. This is not going to happen next week, next year or in the next 5 years. Shaviv's paper is interesting but has a long way to go before it gains general acceptance. Shaviv might be right but irrelevant in terms of AGW. That is, the timescales over which his theory operates might be of the order of centuries.

The oceans appear to drive the climate over multi-decadal periods (~30 year), but it's clear there is another factor which has produced an underlying warming trend over the last 50-100 years. The sun just might be that factor but at this point in time, CO2 must be considered the favourite.

Probably not!

The difficulty that needs to be addressed is the loss of the hockey stick.

Without the hockey stick recent changes in climate does not reflect the accelerating rate of CO2. The hockey stick filled in huge voids between labratory examination of CO2 band absorption and actual climate change.

But now that the hockey stick has been falsified (not to mention how it was built on poor science in the first place thanks to Steve McIntyre's work) recent warming does not reflect the same curve as CO2. . . .not even close!

Further despite solar providing some kind of fit magnitude wise with the climate change curve, including the grand warming cycle corresponding to the grand maximum; a lot of the objections to it have been falsified as well.

For example, we no longer need to produce evidence of sufficient irradiance to produce the hockey stick.

So the forces needed to come from solar are only one third of what was being demanded previously.

So perhaps rather than just dropping that concept of CO2 being the favorite on us without comment; how about a little support for the idea? And spare us prognostications of coming El Nino's and new solar maximums.

Those were missed so badly in the past its almost hilarious you are trying to use them as support for CO2 warming. I hear rumblings about aerosols and volcanos but lets see all that put into a mathematical framework. . . .ideally without bristlecone pines and red dogs. ;D

[poitsplace]

Apr 23, 2009 10:09:26 GMT glc said:

This is another reason why you should read Nir Shaviv's paper

I assume this is for me and I assume it relates to the Shaviv paper on the solar "amplification factor".

<snip>


The oceans appear to drive the climate over multi-decadal periods (~30 year), but it's clear there is another factor which has produced an underlying warming trend over the last 50-100 years. The sun just might be that factor but at this point in time, CO2 must be considered the favourite.

On the cloud forcings...I agree that it's basically too early to tell what the affect is and how pronounced it would be if it even worked.

WRT CO2, unfortunately I've had to deal with noticing things before others (including so-called "experts") for a long time. I'm by no means an authority on many of the subjects, but I learned long ago to give up on "established" thinking when I find gaping holes in the concepts. CO2 is NOT an insulating blanket that covers the earth. It's an insulating blanket that covers about 20-30% of the spectrum.

For those that are incapable of understanding the concept (no, I'm not talking about you GLC) that really translates to CO2 being the equivalent of an already thick strip of insulation covering 20-30% of the sky. As it stands most of the energy is pouring out around the CO2 insulation. CO2 forcing has to be lower than the straight math on CO2 absorption because the climate is already having to deal with CO2 blocking most of those wavelengths. Then taking negative forcings into account...there's almost no AGW affect left for CO2 to have.

I'm not even saying some of the warming can't have been caused by man...I'm just saying that they're looking at CO2 and that's the wrong thing to look at.