New Global Warming Research

The truth about global warming - it's the Sun that's to blame
By Michael Leidig and Roya Nikkhah
Last Updated: 11:15pm BST 17/07/2004Global 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."News: Breaking stories & updates - The Telegraph

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

Sunspots? That's a pretty indirect way to measure insolation, isn't it? Why wouldn't they choose a more direct form of measurement?Oh, right - because then they'd see that solar output has actually been decreasing over the past few decades. Gotta love science reporting. Not even the article itself supports this conclusion. Which part of this does David Bellamy think needs to be taken on faith? That humans burn fossil fuels?Maybe he's just never seen an automobile?

Man, I'm glad someone else noticed that. I thought there was something wrong with my reading comprehension skills.

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If it's truly good and powerful, it deserves to engender a thousand misunderstandings. -- Ben Ratcliffe

A lot of science journalism sucks, and is based in hyperbolic commentary. I agree with your general statements here.However, I just wanted to point out an inaccuracy on your part. Their claim was that the sun has been at its most intense in the last 60 years. Your chart does not include data back far enough to refute their claim.Also, the only scientists to mention a timeframe your chart can address, describe an increase over the last 20 years, which it does show.This is part of the problem of saying "increase" or "decrease", it usually requires someone picking an arbitrary point. The scientists of the stated study may be right that we've been at a high (for 60 years), you are correct that from 1979 its decreased a bit (~30yrs), and the other scientists are right in that it has been increasing (~20yrs).I think it is unfair of you to pick on the scientists in question, like they are being deceitful... even if they end up being wrong over the long haul. Climate science is not perfect, and there are many people researching indirect means to determine factors, especially so that we can make comparisons from before we had direct observation.If anyone deserves to be skewered here, it is the journalists.

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h
"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing." - Robert E. Howard

I'm not disputing that claim; it may very well be true. But the past 30 years is the bulk of the warming, so it's not clear why the Earth would be warming the most over the time that the sun is heating the least, or even cooling; outside of the explanation of greenhouse gases. David Bellamy is being deceitful. And to the extent that these researchers don't justify their choice of using sunspots, instead of direct measurement, they're being deceitful, too.

Why are you citing an article more than 3 years old as "new" research ?

Relative. 3/60

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present is forever consuming the eternal future and extending the infinite past.

Yes it is relative. To the rate at which the field is developing. In this case three years old is NOT new.

Now that's an embarrassing question. I was told there was new research out. I googled around ad assumed it was this article. I never even thought to look at the date. I apologize.Still, it does give another side to the debate. For the layperson it is hard to know what or who to believe.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

In the end, much of that doesn't really matter.We currently do not have the technology to control the suns output although we do have the technology to control the amount of sunlight that reaches the earth.Regardless of the actual causes of Global Warming, we do know that some things which we can control do contribute.The only effects we could possible exert are in the areas of things we can control.Even if the final results are totally out of our control, there is no good reason not to be doing those things we can do to minimize any negative effects that might result.

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Immigration has been a problem Since 1607!

It gets worse. More recent studies seem to show that sunspots are not really relevant. See here

That isn't the whole picture either because here is a quote from the end of the article you cited.

quote:

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Sun Not Off the Hook for Warming

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The authors and other experts are quick to point out that more complicated solar mechanisms could possibly be driving climate change in ways we don't yet understand.

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Climate change carries such high stakes that even more unlikely possibilities may capture scientific attention.

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"There are numerous studies that find a correlation [between solar variation and Earth climate]," said Sami Solanki of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Lindau, Germany.

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"These authors have looked at the simplest mechanism, and they find that this mechanism does not produce the same level of change that has been observed," he continued.

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"This could be suggesting that there are other mechanisms acting for the way that the sun influences climate."

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Solar ultraviolet (UV) rays are one possibility, though that theory creates its own challenges.

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"UV is only a small fraction of total solar output, so you'd need a strong amplification mechanism in the Earth's atmosphere," study co-author Spruit said.

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Magnetized plasma flares known as solar wind could also impact Earth's climate. Solar wind influences galactic rays and may in turn affect atmospheric phenomena on Earth, such as cloud cover.

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Such complex interactions are poorly understood but could be crucial to unlocking Earth's climatic puzzle.

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"I think the main question," the Max Planck Institute's Solanki said, "is, How does the sun [in general] act on climate? What are the processes that are going on in the Earth's atmosphere?"

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

I don't think anybody could coherently assert that the Earth lights and heats itself with no help from the Sun. So clearly the Sun has an impact on the Earth's climate.The question is - is the Sun responsible for the anomalous warming? Since the Sun's output has remained at essentially the exact same level as before the warming - and has even decreased during the warming period - it seems pretty reasonable to conclude that no, it's not. A cooling Sun can't, on its own, raise the temperature of the Earth. How could it?The obvious culprit is the many billions of tons of greenhouse gas that human industry produces. Why wouldn't it be? We know it's being produced. Where else would it go except the atmosphere? What else could it do there besides warm the climate? These are questions climate deniers never seem to address.

There are lots of reasons to conclude 'no' but just because it decreased during the recent warming is not all that strong. There can be a lag between the input from one process and the effect appearing elsewhere.I can start supplying heat and see no change in temp for a period of time. I can stop supplying heat and see a raise still occurring.One has to look at the bloody numbers for this kind of thing. IIRC the changes in solar inputs are small compared to the trapped heat due to greenhouse gases which puts the whole thing to bed even if there was actually in increase from the sun (which it appears there is not). But, as usual, I don't remember for sure.

Today I read that the Greenland Ice summer packs are possibly going to be melted in 12 years.