Slashdot Mirror
The Sun's Odd Behavior
gyrogeerloose writes "Most of us know about the sun's eleven-year activity cycle. However, relatively few other than scientists (and amateur radio operators) are aware that the current solar minimum has lasted much longer than expected. The last solar cycle, Cycle 24, bottomed out in 2008, and Cycle 25 should be well on its way towards maximum by now, but the sun has remained unusually quiescent with very few sunspots. While solar physicists agree that this is odd, the explanation remains elusive."
because Sun was acquired by Oracle.
Gee, I bet nobody predicted this joke.
some (many) pro-agw people have been saying for a couple of years that man-made co2 has caused temps to increase but the lack of solar activity has negated the increase so we don't see an increase in measured temps.
Pity that statement is, itself, simply false. This was the warmest decade on record, period.
The geologic record shows the vast majority of earth history has been warmer than it is now. We're at what... 14, 15 degrees C for global mean temp? 22 is not unusual for this planet. I don't know what records you're talking about, but you're wrong.
The geologic record shows the vast majority of earth history has been warmer than it is now
Quit being a pedantic jackass. I think it's clear I meant "on human record", as in, during the period which the human species has existed.
Well, there you have it; Don't present facts to a climate change cultist, or you're a pedantic jackass. Got it loud and clear!
Clearly the earth itself has been warmer in the past. Hell, the surface was molten at one point. But it certainly wasn't hospitable to human life at the time...
Nice straw man you have there. I could point out more scientific facts, but I guess that would just make me more of a pedantic jackass. I see you have no need for factual information. Clearly you just make it up as you go along (^_^)
"So, alas, apparently I *once again* need to point out: Local temperature != global temperature. Seriously, people, how many times does this have to be repeated before you start to actually get it?"
Of course local temperature = global temperature. The science is settled on this one.
Deniers can say all they want about this, but this was proved by Michael Mann and colleagues in MBH98, and their studies have been replicated many times by independent researchers. You will recall, or perhaps people need to be informed, that in that seminal groundbreaking article, which was accepted by the IPCC as reflecting the mass of the evidence, and indeed in subsequent publications, a couple of bristle cone pines in the US and a few cedars in the Gaspe Peninsula turned out to represent the climate of the whole planet. You had to use a sophisticated method of PCA analysis to get to the truth of the matter, so sophisticated and so ground breaking that the full method was too valuable to reveal in its entirety, but once you did this, bingo, you had it.
It was an excellent thing that we had these bristle cone pines and Gaspe cedars, because otherwise we'd have had no way of measuring global temperatures for that period. Fortunately however, these trees showed local temperatures which were also global temperatures.
It was similarly proved, I think by UEA researchers, that one or two trees in Yamal, or someplace in Northern Russia, maybe it was Tornetrask, could accurately represent temperatures there, and that these temperatures were those of the entire planet.
So it is a filthy lie to say that local temperatures are different from global ones. People who say this are denialists funded by the fossil fuel lobby. They probably do not believe in evolution either, they are right wing neo conservative fundamentalists, and many of them used to campaign against the connection between tobacco smoking and cancer. Dreadful people. The consensus is that Exxon and Dick Cheney are behind this well funded campaign of disinformation.
Anyway, the science is settled, as long as you pick the right local temperatures, they are the same as the global ones!
Educate yourself:
Sea level:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/the-ipcc-sea-level-numbers/
Tree ring:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/09/hey-ya-mal/
'Decline':
http://www.realclimate.org/wiki/index.php?title=Global_temperatures_are_decreasing
Peer review:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/peer-review-a-necessary-but-not-sufficient-condition/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/peer-review-ii/
If it's in you sig, it's in your post.
Don't present irrelevant facts..
Plate tectonics, ocean currents, and solar output are the drivers of our planet's climate. I would hardly call the information irrelevant.