The cognitive dissonance of AGW

There is a large cognitive dissonance required to be a true AGW believer, hence the comparison to religious beliefs. Take, for instance, the ability to simultaneously acknowledge that CO2 levels have been 10 to 20 times higher than the present during multiple periods of Earth's history without causing a 'tipping point' of no return, while retaining the belief that CO2 levels 10 to 20 times less are causing a 'tipping point' now. In fact, an entire ice age came and went with CO2 levels about 11 times higher than the present throughout the Ordovician period shown in the graphic below. The latest eco-scare-alert notes that Antarctica abruptly transitioned from a warm, subtropical hothouse to the present solid ice sheet during a period when CO2 levels exceeded those of today by 10 times.


September 14, 2010
EcoAlert: Ice Sheets Act as Giant Solar Mirrors Controlling Future Climate Change

Recent Antarctica research may provide critical clues to understanding one of the most dramatic periods of climatic change in Earth's history - and a glimpse into what might lie far ahead in the planet's climate’s future.

The giant ice sheets of Antarctica behave like mirrors, reflecting the sun's energy and moderating the world's temperatures. The waxing and waning of these ice sheets contribute to changes in sea level and affect ocean circulation, which regulates our climate by transporting heat around the planet.

Despite their present-day frigid temperatures, the poles were not always covered with ice. New climate records recovered from Antarctica during the recent Integrated Ocean Drilling Program "Wilkes Land Glacial History" Expedition show that approximately 53 million years ago, Antarctica was a warm, sub-tropical environment. During this same period, known as the "greenhouse" or "hothouse" world, atmospheric CO2 levels exceeded those of today by ten times.

Then suddenly, Antarctica's lush environment transitioned into its modern icy realm. In only 400,000 years concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide decreased. Global temperatures dropped. Ice sheets developed and Antarctica became ice-bound.

Scientist: There is no observational evidence for influence of CO2 on present or past climate

Dr. Ir. Noor van Andel, former head of research at Akzo Nobel, recently presented a talk at the Dutch Meteorological Institute KNMI, concluding there is

• No observational evidence for influence of CO2 on past or present climate

• Rising Outgoing Long-wave radiation with more than 3.7 W/m^2 per ºC SST cannot be the effect of rising CO2 or of the increase of other “greenhouse” gases. Rising OLR/SST with 8.6 W/m^2K means that the atmosphere has become more transparent to IR radiation in the past 60 years. The “greenhouse effect” has become less.

• Solar constant and the properties of water determine our climate

• Rising surface temperature is tightly controlled by increasing wet convection and concomitant upper tropospheric drying

• Strong observational correlation of solar magnetic activity with climate temperatures, presumably via cloud condensation nucleation and albedo [the cosmic ray theory of Svensmark et al]

A few slides from the highly recommended presentation:

 

h/t via climategate.nl

More proof of natural glacier retreat over the past 5000 years

before industrialization, and no proof that it is due to man

Q: how did a 3,400 year old shoe get under a glacier?

JUVFONNA, Norway, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Climate change is exposing reindeer hunting gear used by the Vikings' ancestors faster than archaeologists can collect it from ice thawing in northern Europe's highest mountains.

"It's like a time machine...the ice has not been this small for many, many centuries," said Lars Piloe, a Danish scientist heading a team of "snow patch archaeologists" on newly bare ground 1,850 metres (6,070 ft) above sea level in mid-Norway.

Specialised hunting sticks, bows and arrows and even a 3,400-year-old leather shoe have been among finds since 2006 from a melt in the Jotunheimen mountains, the home of the "Ice Giants" of Norse mythology.

As water streams off the Juvfonna ice field, Piloe and two other archaeologists -- working in a science opening up due to climate change -- collect "scare sticks" they reckon were set up 1,500 years ago in rows to drive reindeer towards archers.

But time is short as the Ice Giants' stronghold shrinks.

The heating & cooling of Greenland over the past 8000 years

"Our main focus is the rescue part," Piloe said on newly exposed rocks by the ice. "There are many ice patches. We can only cover a few...We know we are losing artefacts everywhere."

Freed from an ancient freeze, wood rots in a few years. And rarer feathers used on arrows, wool or leather crumble to dust in days unless taken to a laboratory and stored in a freezer.

Jotunheimen is unusual because so many finds are turning up at the same time -- 600 artefacts at Juvfonna alone.

Other finds have been made in glaciers or permafrost from Alaska to Siberia. Italy's iceman "Otzi", killed by an arrow wound 5,000 years ago, was found in an Alpine glacier in 1991. "Ice Mummies" have been discovered in the Andes.

Global Warming Theory Falsified by Ocean Cooling

Climate scientist Roger Pielke Sr. has an important post today by meteorologist William DiPuccio on the recent lack of ocean heat accumulation, which concludes, "It is evident that the AGW hypothesis, as it now stands, is either false or fundamentally inadequate. One may argue that projections for global warming are measured in decades rather than months or years, so not enough time has elapsed to falsify this hypothesis. This would be true if it were not for the enormous deficit of heat we have observed. In other words, no matter how much time has elapsed, if a projection misses its target by such a large magnitude (6x to 8x), we can safely assume that it is either false or seriously flawed."

"The current lapse in heat accumulation demonstrates a complete failure of the AGW hypothesis to account for natural climate variability, especially as it relates to ocean cycles (PDO, AMO, etc.). If anthropogenic forcing from GHG can be overwhelmed by natural fluctuations (which themselves are not fully understood), or even by other types of anthropogenic forcing, then it is not unreasonable to conclude that the IPCC models have little or no skill in projecting global and regional climate change on a multi-decadal scale. Dire warnings about “runaway warming” and climate “tipping points” cannot be taken seriously. A complete rejection of the hypothesis, in its current form, would certainly be warranted if the ocean continues to cool (or fails to warm) for the next few years."

"Open and honest debate has been marginalized by appeals to consensus. But as history has often shown, consensus is the last refuge of poor science."

For the physical reasons why only the Sun [& oceanic volcanos] and not greenhouse gases can heat the oceans, see the post Why greenhouse gases won't heat the oceans.

Paper: Global Warming analogous to many prior False Alarms

A paper in process examines the global warming alarmist movement and finds 26 other analogous false alarms that were endorsed by scientists, politicians, and the media. In each case, the analogous alarms were presented as “scientific,” but none were based on scientific forecasting procedures. Every alarming forecast proved to be false; the predicted adverse effects either did not occur or were minor. However, costly government policies remained in place long after the predicted disasters failed to materialize. The authors find the current global warming alarm is simply the latest example of a common social phenomenon: an alarm based on unscientific forecasts of a calamity. They conclude that the global warming alarm will fade, but not before much additional harm is done by governments and individuals making inferior decisions on the basis of unscientific forecasts.


Effects and outcomes of the global warming alarm: A forecasting project using the structured analogies method
Kesten C. Green
International Graduate School of Business, University of South Australia
J. Scott Armstrong
The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
  
ABSTRACT: We summarize evidence showing that the global warming alarm movement has more of the character of a political movement than that of a scientific controversy. We then make forecasts of the effects and outcomes of this movement using a structured analysis of analogous situations—a method that has been shown to produce accurate forecasts for conflict situations. This paper summarizes the current status of this “structured analogies project.”
        We searched the literature and asked diverse experts to identify phenomena that could be characterized as alarms warning of future disasters that were endorsed by scientists, politicians, and the media, and that were accompanied by calls for strong action. The search yielded 71 possible analogies. We examined objective accounts to screen the possible analogies and found that 26 met all criteria. We coded each for forecasting procedures used, the accuracy of the forecasts, the types of actions called for, and the effects of actions implemented.
        Our preliminary findings are that analogous alarms were presented as “scientific,” but none were based on scientific forecasting procedures. Every alarming forecast proved to be false; the predicted adverse effects either did not occur or were minor. Costly government policies remained in place long after the predicted disasters failed to materialize. The government policies failed to prevent ill effects.
        The findings appear to be insensitive to which analogies are included. The structured analogies approach suggests that the current global warming alarm is simply the latest example of a common social phenomenon: an alarm based on unscientific forecasts of a calamity. We conclude that the global warming alarm will fade, but not before much additional harm is done by governments and individuals making inferior decisions on the basis of unscientific forecasts.

Exhibit 1: Analogies to the alarm over dangerous manmade global warming

Analogy & Year

1 Population growth and famine (Malthus) 1798

2 Timber famine economic threat 1865

3 Uncontrolled reproduction and degeneration (Eugenics) 1883

4 Lead in petrol and brain and organ damage 1928

5 Soil erosion agricultural production threat 1934

6 Asbestos and lung disease 1939

7 Fluoride in drinking water health effects 1945

8 DDT and cancer 1962

9 Population growth and famine (Ehrlich) 1968

10 Global cooling; through to 1975 1970

11 Supersonic airliners, the ozone hole, and skin cancer, etc. 1970

More Model Failures of 'The Settled Science'

Published online 12 September 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2010.461

Ocean conveyor-belt model stirred up

Analysis of temperature and salinity shakes view of global water flow.

A better understanding of how vast tracts of water move through the oceans could improve climate models.

The Ocean conveyor belt model
questioned

The accepted picture of how a massive oceanic conveyor belt of water turns has been complicated by findings published today in Nature Geoscience. The results could help to boost the precision of climate-change models.

As tropical water from the Equator flows north in the Atlantic Ocean, it becomes cooler and denser. Evaporation along the way makes it saltier and further increases its density. In the frigid Arctic, the water sinks into the depths and then moves southward; returning to the surface once it has warmed up again.

But this simplified picture of what is known as meridional overturning circulation (MOC) has been brought into question by a paper suggesting that, in the past 50 years, ocean circulation closer to the Equator has grown weaker, whereas the northern waters have flowed more strongly.

"The more we look, the more complicated the ocean is," says Susan Lozier, an oceanographer at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and lead author of the study.

When the conveyor-belt model was conceptualized in the 1980s, researchers understood only a rough outline of overall marine currents, she says. Because it is difficult to take measurements in the depths of the ocean, MOC models couldn't reflect the intricacy of all the factors involved.

The idea that Oceanic water turns over like a conveyor belt has been questioned.

The 97% 'Consensus' plummets to 34.7%

Another essay by James Nash, a climate scientist for an environmental organization specializing in carbon offsets. Does he still have a job?

Global Warming: Silencing The Critics

A recent poll of 530 climatologists in 27 countries showed 34.7 percent of interviewees endorsed the notion that a substantial part of the current global warming trend – which might see temperatures rise by a degree or two, on average, by century’s end – is caused by man’s industrial activities: driving cars and the like.

More than a fifth – 20.5 percent – rejected this “anthropogenic hypothesis.” Half were undecided. The skeptics now include the 85 climate experts who signed the 1995 Leipzig Declaration; the 4,000 scientists from around the world (including 70 Nobel laureates) who signed the Heidelberg Appeal, and the 17,000 American scientists who signed the Oregon Petition.

Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg, who bought the sky-is-falling scenario until he bothered to check some of the numbers, which led him to do his own research, at which point he wrote the book “The Skeptical Environmentalist” and became the Man The Greens Love to Hate, reminded the folks at Tech Central Station last November that most economists believe the projected level of warming would either have no effect or be beneficial.

Cold weather kills people, Lomborg reminded us. “It is estimated that climate change by about 2050 will mean about 800,000 fewer deaths.” And that’s before we even get around to increased food production. (If you want a real climate catastrophe, let’s talk about the next Ice Age, which is due relatively soon.)

What’s more, scientists at Ohio State University announced Feb. 12 that Antarctic “temperatures during the late 20th century did not climb as had been predicted by many global climate models.” In fact, they went down. So why would one get the sense from the daily barrage of electronic news that “all experts now agree” the earth is heating catastrophically, and that mankind’s use of fossil fuels is at fault?

Global Warming Solved: All we need is 14,600 additional nuclear power plants or 146,000,000 wind turbines



"Green" energy going down in flames


An editorial published in Science today, Farewell to Fossil Fuels?, offers "new insights into just how difficult it will be to say farewell to fossil fuels" to achieve the [unnecessary] reductions in CO2 emissions advocated by alarmists to meet the [fictitious & artificial] goal of less than 2 degrees global warming. That's putting it mildly, since as pointed out in an accompanying newspaper article, "The simple mathematics are that the world needs one nuclear-plant equivalent of carbon-free energy coming on line every day between now and midcentury to put global emissions on a trajectory that would meet the 2-degree goal." One new nuclear power plant coming online each and every single day until 2050 works out to about 14,600 give or take a few hundred. And nuclear is the only known, practical 'carbon free' energy source since,

"alternative energy sources, such as solar and wind electricity, are not adequate to achieve "massive market penetration," which requires utility-scale systems that can store intermittent supplies of power until they are needed. While Denmark and Norway have developed methods for this type of storage, these aren't "widely feasible in the United States, and other approaches to store power are expensive and need substantial research and testing"

Yahoo answers: How many square miles of Windmills equal 1 Nuclear power plant?
Or, how many square miles of Solar Panels?
Where are we going to put them?

A typical nuclear power plant produces 1,000 megwatts of electricity per hour.

At 25 megawatts to 1500 acres for a nice wind farm of 60 to 70 turbines, you would need 60,000 acres and 2400 to 2800 wind turbines to equal 1,000 megawatts. Of course, these wind turbines only produce that much power when the wind is blowing just right. That only happens about 25% of the time, so you really need four times as many wind turbines and four times as much space to produce, on average, 1,000 megawatts of electricity per hour. So that's, 240,000 acres and 9,600 to 11,200 turbines. 240,000 acres is 375 square miles.

At 5 acres of solar panels per megawatt, you need 5,000 acres of solar panels to equal 1,000 megawatts of electricity. Those solar panels only work at peak power levels during the sunny times, so, on average, they only put out about 25% of their rated capacity. That means you really need 20,000 acres of solar panels to generate 1,000 megwatts of electricity per hour, on average. 20,000 acres is 31.25 square miles.

We aren't going to put them anywhere. They are way too expensive and they don't provide a stable enough power supply to rely on. Anyplace with enough open spaces, enough wind or sun shine to be a good candidate is too far away from the east and west coasts where that power is needed most.

Doing the math, the wind turbine equivalent for 14,600 nuclear power plants would require ~5.475 million square miles containing ~146 million turbines. Or only 456,000 square miles of solar panels.

[size of USA: 3.5 million square miles]
 
Let's get started on those right away

Or maybe just build more natural gas or clean coal plants since they provide inexpensive energy, real unsubsidized jobs, more CO2 plant food, and cool the planet to boot
  Science 10 September 2010: Vol. 329. no. 5997, pp. 1292 - 1294

Farewell to Fossil Fuels?
Author: Martin I. Hoffert

Abstract: One concrete goal adopted by some policy-makers is to reduce the risks associated with climate change by preventing the mean global temperature from rising by more than 2°C above preindustrial levels (1). Climate models indicate that achieving this goal will require limiting atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations to less than 450 parts per million (ppm), a level that implies substantial reductions in emissions from burning fossil fuels (2, 3). So far, however, efforts to curb emissions through regulation and international agreement haven't worked (4); emissions are rising faster than ever, and programs to scale up "carbon neutral" energy sources are moving slowly at best (5). On page 1330 of this issue, Davis et al. (6) offer new insights into just how difficult it will be to say farewell to fossil fuels.

Inconvenient Truth: Sea Level Rise has Decelerated 44% since 2005

Despite alarmist claims to the contrary, the rate of sea level rise has been decelerating for the past 8000 years. The rate of sea level rise decreased in the latter half of the 20th century, despite an exponential increase in CO2 levels. A further 60% deceleration since 2005 was noted by a paper published in 2009 in Ocean Science and based on satellite data as of June 2008. I have updated the graph from this paper with the latest available data from the University of Colorado (seasonal signal removed, inverse barometer applied):

 

The data shows a global mean sea level rise of only 1.85 mm/year since January 2005, a deceleration of 44% from the prior rate of 3.3 mm/year. At this rate, sea levels will rise 7 inches over the next 100 years. [Note also the bump in 2009-2010 is due to the temporary El Nino conditions] Break out the life rafts!

Rising sea level fantasy

A new assessment of global mean sea level from altimeters highlights a reduction of global trend from 2005 to 2008

Ocean Sci. Discuss., 6, 31-56, doi:10.5194/osd-6-31-2009, 2009
Authors: M. Ablain, A. Cazenave, G. Valladeau, and S. Guinehut

Abstract. A new error budget assessment of the global Mean Sea Level (MSL) determined by TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason-1 altimeter satellites between January 1993 and June 2008 is presented. We discuss all potential errors affecting the calculation of the global MSL rate. We also compare altimetry-based sea level with tide gauge measurements over the altimetric period. This allows us to provide a realistic error budget of the MSL rise measured by satellite altimetry. These new calculations highlight a reduction in the rate of sea level rise since 2005, by ~2 mm/yr. This represents a 60% reduction compared to the 3.3 mm/yr sea level rise (glacial isostatic adjustment correction applied) measured between 1993 and 2005. Since November 2005, MSL is accurately measured by a single satellite, Jason-1. However the error analysis performed here indicates that the recent reduction in MSL rate is real.

Related:
Inconvenient Truth: Sea Level Rise is Decelerating
Sea Level Expert: Recent Sea Level Change Exaggerated
More ex-post "adjustments" to Satellite Sea-Level Altimetry
Global Sea Level Change Redux
Sea Level Change: The Last 120 Million Years
Sea Level Expert: "80% of us disagree with the IPCC"
FACTS AND FICTION ABOUT SEA LEVEL CHANGE

Study: A Dog or Cat Pollutes more than a SUV

Planet killers

From Italian News Agency AGI (Google translation + editing)

(AGI) - Rome, August 18 - How much pollution results from keeping a dog? More than a SUV. A paradox? Perhaps, but in terms of resource consumption, domestic animals have a high impact on the environment. This surprising information about our 4-legged friends is in the new issue of Focus, the monthly magazine directed by Sandro Boeri, on newsstands starting this week. Citing the results of New Zealand research which shows that to feed a dog of medium size requires 164 kg of meat and 95 kg of cereals per year when translated into an ecological footprint (the portion of land needed to produce food and dispose waste) equals 0.84 acres. The ecological footprint of a SUV, however, is equal to 0.41 hectares, an estimate that includes the energy needed to build it and drive it for 10,000 km a year. In short, man's best friend seems to have more of an impact on the environment than a highly polluting vehicle. Not only that, the ecological footprint of a dog even exceeds that of many nations: e.g. 0.8 hectares per capita average ecological footprint in Asia. Between diet and gadgets, then, a "Western" dog consumes more planetary resources 'than does much of humanity.' Not much better for cats, whose impact in terms of pollution (0.15 hectares) coincides with the footprint produced by small car. The reasons for such a waste of energy and resources are to be found in the industrial economy that revolves around pets: intensive farming of red meat for the big dogs, plants for the production of food for cats and other small animals , waste disposal (litter for cats, for example, not all biodegradable), the production of "unnecessary" items such as winter coats and plastic toys. The way out? For dogs, a diet free of red meat and for the cats a diet of fish waste. And for the bosses, a life more 'ecologically energy efficient.'

And they didn't even include the 'greenhouse' effects of all that methane & CO2 dogs and cats produce. Hello EPA- are you listening?!

'Kiwigate' Update

From the International Climate Science Coalition, September 7, 2010: Critical Pacific Ocean subset of UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) temperature data now to be examined by New Zealand High Court.

In what is believed to be the first case of its kind in the world, the newly formed New Zealand Climate Science Education Trust has taken legal action against the National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), a ‘Crown Research Institute’ contracted by the NZ Government to be its sole adviser on scientific issues relating to climate change. Instead of using the New Zealand Met Service temperature record that shows no warming during the last century, NIWA has adopted an “adjusted” record of seven surface stations that shows a 1 deg. C rise, almost 50% above the global average for that period.

Because there are very few long term temperature records in the Pacific Ocean, the NIWA record bears heavily disproportionate weight in determining multi-decadal trends in global average temperatures used by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. However, the basis for the NIWA temperature adjustments is unknown, the data and calculations that underlie the adjustment method lost, and the originator of the technique of adjustment summarily dismissed from his position at NIWA.



Read news release from ICSC affiliate, the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition (NZCSC), which has unsuccessfully sought access to the data and calculations behind the temperature adjustment since 2006.

Read November 2009 NZCSC paper on the scandal, “Are We Feeling Warmer Yet?”, by Barry Brill, OBE.

Read May 2010 response to NIWA attempts to whitewash the affair.

Due to the international significance of this case, ICSC will keep readers up to date as this legal action unfolds. Read more on the NZCSC Home page.

Climate Scientist: 'Skeptical Science' misleading and fails to understand physics

Climate scientist Roger Pielke Sr. skewers the [un]-'Skeptical Science' blog today for posting "misleading" information about the lack of ocean warming since 2004, and a failure to understand the physics. As Dr. Pielke notes,

• Upper ocean heat annual average did not increase from 2004-2009
• This means that global warming halted during this time period. 
• There is no other way to spin this data.
• The Skeptical Science site statement, "The most recent ocean measurements show consistent warming” is false
• The ocean heat content provides the most appropriate metric to diagnose global warming in recent and upcoming years
• The Skeptical Science statement, Claims that the ocean has been cooling are correct. Claims that global warming has stopped are not  "illustrates their lack of understanding of the physics. If ocean cooling does occur, it DOES mean global warming has stopped during that time period."

For a ready-reference to debunking other claims of the Skeptical Science site, see Lubos Motl's SPPI treatise and the I-Phone Our Climate app.

For a physical explanation why the oceans have not heated due to accumulating 'greenhouse gases' see Why greenhouse gases won't heat the oceans. Also see the recent NASA study stating “Our study concludes the long-term warming trend seen in the central Pacific is primarily due to more intense El Niños, rather than a general rise of background temperatures.” , Oceans are cooling according to NASA, and Recent cooling of the upper ocean.

Dr. Pielke's Critique of the IPCC and Politicization of Climate Science

German climate scientist Hans von Storch interviews Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. for the American Geophysical Union Atmospheric Sciences Newletter and finds that "he voices rather critical views, and likely not everybody will like his assertions. But being a Fellow of both the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in 2004, a former Chief Editor of the Monthly Weather Review and Co-Chief Editor of the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences he is undoubtedly a legitimate participant in the discussion among scientific experts." Excerpts below, emphasis added:

How do you weigh the role and the potentials of models?
Models are powerful tools with which to understand how the climate system works on multi-decadal time scale as long as there are observations to compare reality with the model simulations. However, when they are used for predictions of environmental and societal impacts decades from now in which there is no data to validate them, such as the IPCC predictions decades into the future, they present a level of forecast skill to policymakers that does not exist. These predictions are, in reality model sensitivity studies and as such this major limitation in their use as predictions needs to be emphasized. Unless accompanied by an adequate recognition of this large uncertainty they imply a confidence in the skill of the results that is not present.

You have become known for dissenting views in the present debate about the perspective of anthropogenic climate change. For example, you stress the role of land uses chances as another key driver in influencing our climate. Could you outline your position?
My perspective is summarized in a recent publication with 18 other Fellows of the American Geophysical Union in an EOS article titled "Climate change: The need to consider human forcings besides greenhouse gases" [Pielke Sr. et al., 2009]. We wrote "the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment did not sufficiently acknowledge the importance of these other human climate forcings in altering regional and global climate and their effects on predictability at the regional scale" and because "global climate models do not accurately simulate (or even include) several of these other first order human climate forcings, policymakers must be made aware of the inability of the current generation of models to accurately forecast regional climate risks to resources on multidecadal time scales."

If you were right, how would the range of options for response measures for limiting man-made climate change within certain bounds differ from what is commonly considered?
We need to recognize that the IPCC starts from an inappropriately narrow perspective that the human input greenhouse gases is the dominate environmental concern in the coming decades and then the IPCC presents policymakers with a resulting broad range of expected regional and local impacts. This is, however, at best a flawed significantly, incomplete approach.
The IPCC process should be inverted. In our 2009 EOS article that I referred to above, we recommend that the next assessment phase of the IPCC (and other such assessments) broaden its perspective to include all of the human climate forcings. It should also adopt a complementary and precautionary resource based assessment of the vulnerability of critical resources (those affecting water, food, energy, and human and ecosystem health) to environmental variability and change of all types. This should include, but not be limited to, the effects due to all of the natural and human caused climate variations and changes.

Is The Sun Causing Global Warming?

Remarkable essay by a climate scientist for an environmental organization specializing in carbon offsets! 

Recently, a documentary aired on the UK’s Channel 4, entitled ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle,' which challenged the prevailing political understanding that global warming is caused by man-made activity.

The movie argues that it is in fact the sun that is responsible for the current changes in the Earth's temperature and the film is riddled with the testimony of many scientists and climate experts, furthering a growing dissent to the man-made theory. After all, that’s all it is, a theory. As soon as people start to state that ‘the debate is over’, beware, because the fundamental basis of all sciences is that debate is never over, that questions must be asked and answered and issues raised in order for the science to be accurate.

So what exactly are the arguments behind the Sun being the main cause of global warming?

First off, it is very important to address the fact that Earth is not the only planet to be experiencing climate change in our solar system currently. In fact, many astronomers have announced that Pluto has been experiencing global warming, and suggested that it is a seasonal event, just like how Earth’s seasons change as the various hemispheres alter their inclination to the Sun. We must remember that it is the Sun that determines our seasons, and thusly has a greater impact upon the climate than we could ever even try to achieve.

In May of 2006, a report came forward revealing that a massive hurricane-like storm that occurred on Jupiter may be caused by climate change occurring on the planet, which is expected to raise its temperatures by 10 degrees. National Geographic News reported that a simultaneous rising in temperature on both Mars and Earth suggest that climate change is indeed a natural phenomenon as opposed to being man-made.

Sun-Earth Coupling

The GWPF Observatory, 9/1/10 by Dr. David Whitehouse

Our understanding of the influence of solar short-wavelength radiation on the Earth’s upper atmosphere is poorer than many realise. It is a significant area of research as some scientists believe that solar short-wave variations play a greater role in climatic variations than an initial analysis of the amplitude of those variations suggests, especially because of the fairly recent realisation that there are spectral variations as well as intensity variations in the short wavelength radiation coming from the sun.

At the very least it is commonly overlooked that just considering solar irradiance changes over the 11-year solar cycle when the cycle is rising and sunspot number increasing the climatic forcing effect of the slightly increased solar output is, over the 6-7 years of the cycle, the same as the climatic forcing effect of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations over the same period, and that is without any additional solar-terrestrial climatic coupling, such as the effects suggested below.

Ultra-Violet emission from the sun is modulated on an 11-year and 28-day period (solar rotation) with variability increasing as the wavelength decreases. In the Extreme UV the variation is between a factor of 2 – 10.

EUV is absorbed in the Earth’s Thermosphere at an altitude of between 90 – 500 km creating the ionosphere. In the thermosphere temperature increases with increasing altitude. At an attitude of 400 km the temperature is about 600K at solar minimum and about 1500K at solar maximum. The thermosphere at 400km also undergoes a fluctuation in density of a factor of 10 between solar min and max, this is important for the drag-limited lifetime of satellite orbits.

Collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet!

The headline is 125,000 years late, but nonetheless is being spun today as what might happen again (inferred to be due to man) to what is presently a huge ice sheet in West Antarctica. Scientists have found that tiny Bryozoan sea creatures were able to spread to disparate parts of Antarctica only by means of a trans-Antarctic seaway through what is now a 2 km solid layer of ice. They suggest also that this seaway opened up during a recent interglacial perhaps as recently as 125,000 years ago when temperatures were "at least 4C warmer." No mention in the alarmist article, of course, that climate changes being seen today may be the result of similar natural processes without any influence from mankind.

Bryozoans take many different forms, some shown here.

Tiny Antarctic creatures hint at sea level rise
Tue, Aug 31 2010 By Alister Doyle

OSLO (Reuters) - Tiny marine creatures found on the seabed on opposite sides of the vast West Antarctic ice sheet give a strong hint of the risks of sea level rise caused by climate change, scientists said Tuesday. The discovery of very similar colonies of bryozoans, animals that anchor themselves to the seabed, in both the Ross and Weddell Seas are a clue that the ice sheet once thawed and the seas were once linked, they said.
     West Antarctica holds enough ice to raise world sea levels by between 3.5 and 5 meters (11-16 ft) if the sheet collapsed. Some scientists believe it may have vanished during a natural warm period within the last few hundred thousand years.
        "It was a very big surprise," said David Barnes, lead author of the study at the British Antarctic Survey, of the find of similar bryozoans 2,400 km (1,500 miles) apart in seas on either side of the West Antarctic ice sheet, which is 2 km thick.
       "The most likely explanation of such similarity is that this ice sheet is much less stable than previously thought and has collapsed at some point in the recent past," he told Reuters.
        "And if the West Antarctic ice shelf has been lost in recent times we have to re-think the possibility of loss in future with climate change," he said.
        The bryozoans, sometimes called moss animals, are often microscopic as individuals but form colonies that can look like corals or some seaweeds. Those found were unlike others around the current coast of Antarctica.

WARM PAST
        In a brief warm period about 125,000 years ago, world sea levels were about five meters higher than today and temperatures probably at least 4 degrees Celsius (7.4 F) warmer. There have been several similar warm periods in the past million years.
        The U.N. panel of climate scientists said in a 2007 report that average world temperatures could rise by between 1.1 and 6.4 degrees C by 2100, mainly because of a build-up of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels.

Schematic of collapse of WAIS

        Reviews of the panel have endorsed its main findings [not true Reuters- didn't you read the statements in the IAC report stating there is "little evidence" supporting AGW claims?] despite errors such as an exaggeration of the thaw of the Himalayas. Experts Monday called for an overhaul of its management.
        The Antarctic study, in the journal Global Change Biology, said that bryozoans were largely static and that their larvae, dispersed by currents, are short-lived and quickly sink.
        With the huge ice sheet in the way, it was hard to explain how similar colonies could be in both the seas. But if the ice were destabilized it would open a passage through which currents might, over time, carry the larvae, Barnes said.

Related: Report: Antarctic Ice Growing, Not Shrinking 
http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/press/press_releases/press_release.php?id=1274

Arctic Sea Ice changes mainly due to Geography & not accelerating

A letter to the editor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel supporting an AGW-skeptical politician was signed by 8 prominent scientists including Harvard astrophysicist Willie Soon, and mentions a recent paper published in Geophysical Research Letters:

"For example, a paper published Aug. 19 in Geophysical Research Letters by a scientist from the California Institute of Technology shows that even the apparently drastic decrease of summer-autumn Arctic sea ice is not unprecedented but merely an effect of Arctic Ocean geography."

The paper, Geographic muting of changes in the Arctic sea ice cover, undermines the notion that AGW is a primary cause of decrease of Arctic sea ice in summer-autumn by showing that the actual mechanism is related to Arctic geography, which restricts the buildup of winter sea ice and thus shifts the semi-sinusoidal pattern of summer-autumn ice melt northward at a constant (not accelerating) rate of 8km/yr since the beginning of the satellite era in 1979. This explains why September Arctic sea ice extent has declined much more rapidly (1.1%/yr) than March sea ice extent (.26%/yr) since 1979.

March Arctic Sea Ice extent decreasing only 0.26%/yr

Over the past 3 years the summer-autumn Arctic sea ice extent has increased from the low in 2007:

The paper provides further evidence that changes in Arctic sea ice are part of natural patterns dependent upon Arctic winds, geography, solar variability, Milankovitch cycles, ocean oscillations, etc. rather than AGW. A prior post has also demonstrated that it is impossible for 'greenhouse warming' to melt the icecaps from below.

References:
Explanation of the paper (translated from Icelandic)
A paper by the same author finds we are nowhere near a "tipping point" regarding Arctic Sea Ice
Even Tamino thinks the paper is correct