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Big Drop In Solar Activity Could Cool Earth
coondoggie writes "Scientists say the Sun, which roils with flares and electromagnetic energy every 11 years or so, could go into virtual hibernation after the current cycle of high activity, reducing temperatures on Earth. As the current sunspot cycle, Cycle 24, begins to ramp up toward maximum, scientists from the National Solar Observatory and the Air Force Research Laboratory independently found that the Sun's interior, visible surface, and corona indicate the next 11-year solar sunspot cycle, Cycle 25, will be greatly reduced or may not happen at all."
Does this mean that we should be polluting more to compensate?
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
I love this. You think the existing models don't take solar variation into account? You have reduced a complex, multi-factor system of equations to one independent variable. Congratulations on letting anything that sounds like it agrees with you at all prove all other ideas wrong even if there's nothing contradictory at all. Sun cycles are 10 year data cycles that don't explain 100 year trends in the slightest. If you look at the climate data since the invention of the thermometer, the waves produced are already quite visible. This was the same argument they made in the 70s, when global warming was first introduced as a theory(but it was far less understood then).
Instead of offering useless conjecture about what people are going to say, how about you give us a nice solid hypothesis about how much cooler it will be when, and how that relates to existing global warming projections. I dare you to actually make a meaningful falsible claim instead of putting words in the mouth of people you disagree with.
winter is coming?
Crisis is the rule, not the exception.
Humankind has indeed proven itself to be a vile species. The great pacific garbage patch for example, was surely not created by those who was overly concerned for their environment?
There are enough precedents to indicate that it is not an excess of concern for our environment that is the fundamental problem. I just don't understand why people see it necessary to vilify the few who are.
Decreased solar output will have an impact on global temperatures, but it will take time.
Greenhouse gasses (Water, CO2, CH4, etc) do not directly interact with incoming shortwave radiation from the sun. Rather, they interact with the longwave radiation coming from the surface of the Earth. With no greenhouse gasses, the Earth would radiate (based on its temperature) and this radiation would be lost to space. What greenhouse gasses do is absorb the emitted longwave which adds energy to the molecule absorbing it. The excited state either results in a temperature increase of the molecule, or the emission of radiation. Some of this re-emitted radiation is directed downward, toward the Earth. The net result is that some energy that would be lost to space is absorbed by molecules in the atmosphere, warming it, and some is redirected back to the Earth, increasing the net incoming radiation.
The effect can be directly observed. If you look at the measured longwave radiation emitted at the top of our atmosphere, the global average temperature you would calculate would not support life as we know it (much too cold). The difference from that and our directly observed average surface temperatures are due to the greenhouse effect (the energy based on those temperatures is not making it to the top of the atmosphere).
Decreasing solar input would change part of the energy budget, but the greenhouse effect will act as a buffer (from absorbing and re-emitting longwave radiation) that would cause a delayed response.
Note that I am not a climate scientist, just a regular meteorologist who has taken a few classes in radiative transfer.
Solar activity had nothing to do with "The Year Without a Summer". It was the eruption of Tambora that caused that.
It's freakin' 107.1F (41.7C) in North Texas... Come on sun, cool us off!
...hmmm why does that not sound right..
And they're going to be sorely disappointed when the warming continues despite reduced solar output.
Even if the Sun went into a new Maunder Minimum Global Warming will continue because the forcing from increased GHG's (primarily CO2) overwhelms the change in insolation. There is a peer reviewed paper on the subject here: On the Effect of a New Grand Minimum of Solar Activity on the Future Climate on Earth (Feulner & Rahmstorf 2010).
So what will the "naysayers" response be to continued warming despite reduced insolation?
Criticism usually includes putting forth an alternative model. Not just shouting "NO! NO! NO!". The basic forcing by CO2 is a simple physical fact - every 2nd semester student can do the math. The effect is measurable, just take a spectrum. Did that myself, ages ago in a physical chemistry lab session. Measuring the increase in atmospheric CO2 is trivial. Proving that the increase is anthropogenic is trivial - just look at the isotope ratio. Measuring solar input is trivial. These are the basic forcings. Now, the feedbacks and the amount of their contribution is open, I give you that - but the basic fact of warming due to CO2 is simply not open to debate any more.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
"More than fair. The problem is, there is a HUGE political wing that not only believes it understands the complexities of ecological change, but understands them well enough to want to impose corrective measures."
And that political wing's corrective measures are overwhelmingly "minimize how much we mess with complex systems we don't fully understand." Which is a pretty logical approach.
There _is_ a reasonably middle ground. It involves taking steps in my everyday life to being a better member of planet Earth. There is a false dichotomy in your head. I use electricity, but I use less. I contribute to polluting this planet, but I also actively work with an organization that has better ideas. It's not about stopping all polluting activity, that's only possible through extinction. It's about lessening the impact. It's a real path that many are already doing. You could participate too!
Your post and opinion is about 15 years, or more, old.
It's pretty simply to know the CO2 is increasing, now when it was release(in some cases where) and to look at the temperature.
When other cycles go into a 'cooling' cycle, the temperature stops going up, but it DOES NOT return to previous temperature; which is what would happen if it was only a cycle effect and not a non cycle effect, like man spewing billions of tons of CO2 into the air.
COULD there be another cause? well there isn't anything in the data to indicate any other cause; however in science we know that there could very well be some currently unknown for causing this, or anything. That is why nearly all studies on any subject are seldom 100%. It becomes more accurate with time and modification. Just like Germ Theory, Evolution or gravity.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You're absolutely right. If you're a sociopath, if you honestly give no fucks when other human being suffer because of the things you do and the things you fail to do, you have no reason to take any action that will benefit anyone other than yourself. I don't mean this as a personal attack; I want to believe that you actually are capable of doing good things without the threat of eternal damnation hanging over your head, but if you honestly cannot, you are broken.
I can't make you want to do good things, like save the Earth for people who aren't born yet. But, on a social level, there are still enough people who give a shit to put pressure on sociopaths to do good things. If you don't, we will use our laws to make you. If you break those laws, we will take your things and lock you up.
Why should we, as a society, make those laws? It is the only way that the "Society" system can outlast any given member. When we reach the point where we stop making and enforcing laws that benefit the long-term stability of society over the individuals currently in it, society will collapse as a system, and something more stable will take its place. Something with a lot fewer people in it, probably. Evolution will weed out the unfit and replace them with new systems able to deal with changes, the way it always has. That's how life operates.
More than fair. The problem is, there is a HUGE political wing that not only believes it understands the complexities of ecological change, but understands them well enough to want to impose corrective measures. Those corrective measures themselves invariably involve "messing with" markets, economies, and yes, ecologies, all at public expense.
And the other HUGE political wing believes...
With a list like that, I would start to wonder if they understood anything.
I am often confused by this attitude. Let's assume for just a moment that all research into climate change is completely bunk. There is no man made influence on the climate at all. I don't happen to think this is the case, but purely for argument's sake let's pretend that there is no argument at all. You are completely right. We can burn all the fossil fuels we want forever and it will never change the temperature of the planet by a single degree.
What does that really change about environmental policy? We still know that these chemicals are poisonous, and that burning them as freely as we do causes health issues both for ourselves and other animals. We still know that there are limited supplies of them, and if we don't find alternatives we'll eventually run out. We still know that burning them creates unpleasant things like smog and acid rain, which, even ignoring their health affects, are not nice to have around.
Ignoring completely the idea of climate change and the affect that we may or may not be having on the long term health of the ecosystem, shouldn't we be doing exactly what climate change research says we should be for all kinds of reasons besides climate change itself? Now add in the possibility, the very real possibility, that climate change theories are correct. It's really just one more reason on top of lots of others, not a sole driver of policy. Unless you believe that Jesus will return before the last drop of oil is burned, there's every reason to curb our dependence on fossil fuels and come up with viable and sustainable alternatives.
(Note: I'm not a peak oil nut. I have no idea whether we're going to start running out of oil in 20 years, 50 years, or 100 years; and yes, I have every confidence that the clever buggers in the oil industry will continue to figure out new ways to extract it. However, unless you believe that the Earth is some sort of oil factory that we can crank up at our convenience, you must know that eventually there won't be anymore. Even if the entire interior of the planet is a giant vat full of the stuff, that's still a finite amount.)
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
You mean, aside from the fact that the last forty or fifty years we were in a grand maximum of solar activity, the highest seen on earth since the very beginning of the Holocene? And that, given the unknowns and the egregious speculation that has occurred in lieu of actual research concerning the feedback, this is a confounding factor that has been more or less completely ignored by the AGW zealots?
Completely ignored? So responses like the three explanations listed here, as well as all of the discussion in the comment section, is "completely ignoring" the issue? Or how about this article, featuring Stanford University "completely ignoring" the impact of solar activity. New Scientist also "completely ignored" solar activity in this article as well.
For something that the "AGW zealots" have "completely ignored", Google seems to find a hell of a lot of sources discussing how solar activity has some effect on global warming, but is not the primary cause.
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein