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Study Says Cosmic Rays Do Not Explain Global Warming

flock2000 writes "A new study conducted by Norweigan researchers finds (again) that changes in cosmic rays most likely do not contribute to climate change. Previously, other researchers have claimed to have found a link between cosmic rays and surface temperatures."

15 of 656 comments (clear)

  1. Global Warming Heretics by bizitch · · Score: 3, Informative

    Snowing today in Malibu, New Orleans and Vegas

    Then of course there are these heretics

    http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=2158072e-802a-23ad-45f0-274616db87e6

    "I am a skeptic Global warming has become a new religion." - Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever.

    "Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly..As a scientist I remain skeptical." - Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology and formerly of NASA who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called "among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years."

    Warming fears are the "worst scientific scandal in the history.When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists." - UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist.

    "The IPCC has actually become a closed circuit; it doesn't listen to others. It doesn't have open minds. I am really amazed that the Nobel Peace Prize has been given on scientifically incorrect conclusions by people who are not geologists," - Indian geologist Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia at Punjab University and a board member of the UN-supported International Year of the Planet.

    "The models and forecasts of the UN IPCC "are incorrect because they only are based on mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity." - Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico

    "It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don't buy into anthropogenic global warming." - U.S Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA.

    "Even doubling or tripling the amount of carbon dioxide will virtually have little impact, as water vapour and water condensed on particles as clouds dominate the worldwide scene and always will.". Geoffrey G. Duffy, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering of the University of Auckland, NZ.

    "After reading [UN IPCC chairman] Pachauri's asinine comment [comparing skeptics to] Flat Earthers, it's hard to remain quiet." - Climate statistician Dr. William M. Briggs, who specializes in the statistics of forecast evaluation, serves on the American Meteorological Society's Probability and Statistics Committee and is an Associate Editor of Monthly Weather Review.

    "For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming? For how many years must cooling go on?" - Geologist Dr. David Gee the chairman of the science committee of the 2008 International Geological Congress who has authored 130 plus peer reviewed papers, and is currently at Uppsala University in Sweden.

    "Gore prompted me to start delving into the science again and I quickly found myself solidly in the skeptic camp.Climate models can at best be useful for explaining climate changes after the fact." - Meteorologist Hajo Smit of Holland, who reversed his belief in man-made warming to become a skeptic, is a former member of the Dutch UN IPCC committee.

    "Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined." - Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh.

    "Creating an ideology pegged to carbon dioxide is a dangerous nonsense.The present alarm on climate change is an instrument of social control, a pretext for major businesses and political battle. It became an ideology, which is concerning." - Environmental Scientist Professor Delgado Domingos of P

    --
    ---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
  2. Re:So? by BlackSabbath · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelii/

    To quote from the linked article:
    "The model accounts for both the seasonal and diurnal solar cycles in its temperature calculations."

    But hey, why let facts get in the way of a complete fabrication?

  3. Re:What about a big ball of fire in the sky? by bunratty · · Score: 5, Informative

    Given that the change in global mean temperature is 0.7 degrees Celsius, 30% of that is about 0.2 degrees Celsius. That leaves about 70% or about 0.5 degrees Celsius due to anthropogenic global warming.

    Science never proves anything. Science can either refute or support a hypothesis. No one has been able to successfully refute the hypothesis of manmade global warming. On the contrary, there's lots of evidence to support it.

    --
    What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
  4. Re:The ostrich brigade is out in full force today. by buback · · Score: 3, Informative

    OK, The graph you link to has it's last data point at 1950. On the graph, CO2 never gets above 300 ppm going back 400,000 years. Your graph also shows a strong correlation between CO2 levels and global temperature.

    This graph has come current data: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
    It shows current CO2 levels at 385 ppm and rising.

    The implication is that global temperature will see an equivalent rise above the norm of the past 400,000 years.

    Your turn; ball's in your court.

  5. Re:Common Sense by bunratty · · Score: 4, Informative

    Most of your post sounds like a nonsensical rant. You do have one question that I can answer. You're asking why the sea levels are not rising, even though the glaciers are melting. Sea levels are rising, around 1.7 mm per year for the past century. This rise is due to both melting glaciers and the expansion of oceans as they warm. Sea levels may rise about another meter during this century. One meter may not sound like much, but that amount of rise could flood many urban coastal areas.

    --
    What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
  6. Re:So? by asynchronous13 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not surprisingly, the global climate is also in a cooling trend.

    Needs citation.
    Global Temperature Land Ocean Index? -- Increasing
    Global Temperature (meteorological stations)? -- Increasing.
    Annual Mean Temperature Change for Three Latitude Bands? -- Slight dip for low latitudes, but mostly increasing
    Annual Mean Temperature Change for Hemispheres? -- You guessed, it, increasing.
    Global Monthly Mean Surface Temperature Change? -- All positive (thus, increasing)
    Annual Mean Temperature Change in the United States? -- Shocking! - also increasing!
    Seasonal Mean Temperature Change? -- Don't let the dip fool you, just means it is warming less rapidly

    Perhaps you heard that 2008 is the coolest year since 2000? Well that's true. 2008 has the coolest temperatures of the past 8 years. But guess what? It's the 9th warmest year on record (since 1880). I'd wait for a few more data points before claiming a global cooling trend.

    Talk about inconvenient...

    Indeed.

  7. Re:So? by bunratty · · Score: 3, Informative

    You may be referring to the abnormally warm year of 1998, which was caused by a strong El Nino. The fact is that the mean global temperature is continuing to rise, at an increasingly faster pace. This is why the Arctic ice is melting.

    --
    What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
  8. Re:Common Sense by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 3, Informative

    Melting glaciers won't cause a sea level rise unless they're sitting on land.. think archimedes.

  9. Re:So? by Jerry · · Score: 3, Informative

    Science isn't making shit up...

    Don't think so? GW "data" is laced with examples of manipulation. The most recent is the July 2008 CO2 readings from Mauna Loa. It seems that the folks "maintaining" the Mauna Loa CO2 data has been caught "Hansenizing" it all the way back to 1974 to ELIMINATE a CO2 reversal. The GW folks are all about using "adjusted" data to support their agenda, Thankfully, the military doesn't buy into their schemes and use REAL temperature data in their guidance equations, otherwise their accuracy might falter from being able to hit a 1 sq meter target to missing by a mile. Here is the data showing the CO2 manipulation, from the posting by Dee Norris.

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/08/04/mauna-loa-co2-january-to-july-trend-goes-negative-first-time-in-history/

    Dee Norris (19:08:01) :

    it would seem, contrary to earlier claims that NOAA only adjusted the recent year, that the dataset back to mid-1974 has been adjusted. I will resist using the term Hansenized until I hear back from Dr Tans.

    Here is a comparison of the new and old mean values:

    Mauna Loa CO2 Adjustments on Aug 4th 2008
    # decimal new old
    Year Month date mean mean Change
    1958 3 1958.208 315.71 315.71 0
    1958 4 1958.292 317.45 317.45 0 .... snipped for brevity ... .... check URL for total listing ...
    2008 6 2008.458 387.87 387.99 0.12
    2008 7 2008.542 385.6 384.93 -0.67

    Dee Norris (20:05:35) :

    I did a quick plot of the differences between the old and new means.

              http://tinyurl.com/6qb3sg

    Other than July 2008, the change seems to radiate out from 1994, each oscillation growing larger as time progresses in either direction.

    I look forward to NOAA explaining the justification for this sort of adjustment.

    This is just one of many examples of data cooking by GW believers. With their GW as a hammer they see everything else as a nail. Earth warming? Proof of GW! Earth cooling? Proof of GW! Drought? Proof of GW. Unusual rain and floods? Proof of GW.

    To the GW Faithful EVERY change "proves" GW. This attitude moves them from the area of science to that of Faith. When you can't falsify your hypothesis then your hypothesis is a Faith.

    --

    Running with Linux for over 20 years!

  10. Re:Common Sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Sort the average global temperatures for any decade and there'll be a hottest and a coldest. But being the coldest year in the hottest decade doesn't mean it's getting colder.

  11. Re:Common Sense by immcintosh · · Score: 4, Informative

    The problem is you seem to be avoiding the simple point that global temperatures HAVE been rising. I'm sorry, but it's a recorded fact. The problem is you're setting up the classic straw man this argument alaways suffers from, namely, confusing the fact of a global rise in temperature with the theory of what is causing it or whether it is outside the realm of natural cycle.

    All models are wrong, but some are useful.

    That quote leaves out the fact that they're also necessary. The models may be bad, but until we get better ones we have to work with the ones we have now.

    it indicates that the connection between CO2 and Global average temperature may be correlational and not causational. Effect does not, under normal circumstances, preceed cause.

    Actually, the currently scientific thinking is more complex than either side really wants to talk about. Historically, there is very strong evidence to suggest that large changes in Earth's temperature are actually caused by slight changes in its orbit. But, that being said, those changes can't account for the increase in CO2 by themselves. Generally, the thinking goes that the changes in orbit trigger a small initial change, which triggers CO2 buildup and temperature change in a feedback loop. In other words, current understanding of the evidence doesn't provide strong support for either side of this debate. (search around if you want to find evidence supporting this explanation--it's easy to find)

    So, I would say you got right, one sorta right, and one dangerously wrong.

    Is global climate change a concern? YES!
    Has it been shown that it is definitely happening? Indisputably. If you don't like the temperature fact, try the size of the ice cover over the north pole.
    Is it the fault of humanity? Conclusively, we can't really say until it's all over of course. Currently accepted science, however, suggests it is.

    And a fourth that nobody ever seems to ask:

    If it's not the fault of humanity, is it a historically precedented change, or is there some other causal factor we aren't aware of?

  12. Re:Common Sense by MrHanky · · Score: 3, Informative

    The link between CO2 and temperature is causational, and this is experimentally proven: it absorbs more infrared light than the dominant gasses in the atmosphere, directly heating it. The earth's climate is of course dependent on many other factors, and the CO2 level in the atmosphere likewise depends on other factors than humans burning fossil fuel, and your sorry attempt at criticism just isn't valid.

  13. Re:Common Sense by TapeCutter · · Score: 5, Informative

    Rather than demanding simplistic answers that fit their politcs, scientists put error bars on things that are uncertain such as clouds. Clouds are not ignored they are simply not well understood, the affect of cosmic rays on clouds is even LESS well understood and like the Hadley center, I fail to see how a lack of an observable trend in cosmic rays results in an observable trend in clouds. Also kind of strange how the climate does not cycle over 11yrs in tune with the cosmic rays from sunspots.

    Mis-informative would be a better tag for your post, if the evidence was based soley on extrapolation of tempratures then you might have cause to dissmiss it as speculation. As it stands your post is just another lame political troll using the same tired old arguments that have been debunked to death.

    BTW: The phrase "climate change" was coined by SKEPTICS in the early 90's, they pointed out that the term "global warming" implied a certain conclusion - both terms are literally correct.

    --
    And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
  14. Re:Common Sense by CorSci81 · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's because most of the world's population lives very near to the coast, and a great deal of developed coastal land is less than 2m above sea level. Moving that much infrastructure "three feet uphill" would cost a lot compared to the cost of addressing the problem in the first place. It also means places like Manhattan become much more prone to flooding and the effects of storm surges. One meter could be the difference between a strong winter storm being a nuisance versus flooding the subways. Sea level rise is most talked about because it's one of the most tangible effects and one whose economic costs are easiest to calculate. If you can frame global warming as an economic argument many more people who might otherwise say "so what?" start to listen. Convincing them to pony up now to avoid a catastrophic economic cost later is a different matter, given how short sighted some people seem to be. Unfortunately short term greed frequently wins over long term prudence, especially if you don't expect to be around to suffer the consequences of your actions.

  15. Re:But carbon emissions have gone up every year by bunratty · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yes, the other variable is the ever-changing weather. Global warming is a long-term trend in addition to the continuing short-term warming and cooling trends. Winters are cold. Summers are warm. El Nino and La Nina cause temperature variations also. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is not the only cause of changing temperatures, and no one ever said it was.

    --
    What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.