Sun more active than for a millennium
- Thread starter charrison
- Start date
Try some critical reading:
To extend the data farther back in time, Usoskin's team used a physical model to calculate past sunspot numbers from levels of a radioactive isotope preserved in ice cores taken from Greenland and Antarctica.
Hayabusa Rider
Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
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So models that provide evidence for human modification of the Earth's climate are suspect but a model of solar activity is gospel? Predictably, the actual research team did NOT draw conclusions about climatological effects.
Dammit leave Clinton out of this . . .
There actually seems to be a much closer correlation between solar activity and temperatures than there is between CO2 levels and temperature. During the period from 1940 to 1970 solar activity dropped quite a bit, and temperatures followed suit. I have seen several articles pondering this connection.....
Hayabusa Rider
Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
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solar activity and climate
Now, we ought to be talking apples and apples. In the short term, CO2 seems to be the dominant factor for climate change, BUT the Sun may be a long period variable star. A great many stars vary output over time. It would only take a few percent change in output to affect climate to a significant degree. This is being seriously explored for the longer term oscillations in global temps along with other possibilities.
Now, we ought to be talking apples and apples. In the short term, CO2 seems to be the dominant factor for climate change, BUT the Sun may be a long period variable star. A great many stars vary output over time. It would only take a few percent change in output to affect climate to a significant degree. This is being seriously explored for the longer term oscillations in global temps along with other possibilities.
WS, how dare you post a link that defies conservative dogma. If it ain't the sun then I bet it's the moon that's altering global climate.
Hayabusa Rider
Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
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Well what you need is to focus on elite, peer-reviewed sources like the OpEd page of the WSJ. Who needs Nature or PNAS . . . the best source for global warming data is Karl Rove.
Speaking of models and their accuracy, this is an interesting article......
Time International, March 3, 2003 v161 i8 p61
Warming The Books? Two eminent economists challenge some of the building blocks used in climate-change forecasts. (Environment)(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change challenged) Elizabeth Feizkhah.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2003 Time, Inc.
Byline: Elizabeth Feizkhah
If the environment has an oracle, it's the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Its pronouncements on global warming affect everyone from farmers and car makers to insurance companies and Pacific islanders afraid of rising sea levels. They also underpinned the Kyoto Protocol, which set targets for cutting emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. So the IPCC's 2001 forecast, that average global temperature could rise by between 1.4 and 5.8[broken (vertical) bar]C this century, fell on the world like a cancer diagnosis.
Headline writers seized on the scary 5.8[broken (vertical) bar] figure, and governments committed vast sums to emissions-reduction programs. Some scientists say a 1-2[broken (vertical) bar] hike is far more likely and question whether efforts to avert it would be worth the staggering cost. Now economists have joined the fray. Ian Castles, former head of the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and David Henderson, a former chief economist of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, say the IPCC's report on emissions scenarios--one of the bases for its warming forecast--is flawed by suspect statistics and "fantastic assumptions" about poor nations' growth.
The pair recently wrote to IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri, arguing that "there is a good case for reviewing the whole scenario exercise." It's impossible to tell how that might affect the warming forecast, says Castles. But he guesses that if the economic flaws alone were corrected, it would "come down significantly at the top of the range and perhaps half a degree at the bottom."
Castles and Henderson (who live in Canberra and London, respectively) were invited to Amsterdam in January to put their concerns to an IPCC technical group. "The discussion was helpful," says Castles, but so far they've had "no substantive response." Feedback from outside the IPCC has been heartier. The pair "have done everybody an enormous service by providing a powerful critique of the economic basis of the IPCC report," says Aynsley Kellow, professor of government at the University of Tasmania and co-author of a book on international environmental policy and Kyoto. "Because no matter how good the climate models themselves are, it's pretty much a case of garbage in, garbage out."
To guesstimate future emissions, the IPCC team drew up a range of scenarios for global population and economic growth, then worked out how emissions levels might change if these visions came true. Most of their scenarios assume that by 2100, the developed world will be about as well off as the richest nations are now. That may seem utopian to some. But what got Castles' and Henderson's dander up was not the modelers' vision but their exaggeration of the growth rates--and emissions levels--poor nations would need to achieve it.
To compare economic activity in different countries, the IMF, the World Bank, the OECD and most U.N. agencies use an index based on local purchasing power. But the IPCC's modelers used a discredited method in which figures are converted to U.S. dollars. That approach, says Castles, portrays poor nations as more backward than they really are. In purchasing-power terms, average income in the richest bloc of nations is about four times that in the developing world; in the IPCC's terms, it's 16 times higher. To "help" poor countries close this outsize gap, the modelers had to assume they would grow very fast, says Castles--even in Africa, where poverty is increasing. In many scenarios, average incomes will soar 70-fold in developing Asia and almost 30-fold in the rest of the Third World. Yet in Japan, the all-time "economic miracle," they rose just 20-fold last century.
Such steroidal growth rates would see many of today's poor nations outstrip the world's richest. In many of the emissions scenarios, by 2100 half the world's people will live in countries with higher average incomes than Australia; those countries include Botswana, Fiji, North Korea, Papua New Guinea and Samoa. In some scenarios, says Castles, South Africa's "total output of goods and services in 2100...will be comparable to that of the entire world in 1990."
"If economic growth assumptions are too high," Castles argues, "emissions are also too high." Not so, says Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Geneva-based coordinator of the IPCC's emissions-scenario team. Using the purchasing-power yardstick that Castles and Henderson advocate, he says, "it is correct that the gap between rich and poor nations is not as big." But the link between economic output and emissions is not straightforward, and the complexity of the computer models makes it even less so. If the models are constructed and run correctly, says Nakicenovic, the way economic activity is measured "should make no difference to the emissions," so there's no reason to redo the exercise.
Castles and Henderson are sticking to their guns. Even if adjusting economic projections doesn't change the results, they say, the IPCC should on principle use the best input and most rigorous analysis possible. "It is important that policies be based on sound evidence," says Castles, who has a longstanding interest in "the use and abuse of statistics in public debates." The IPCC has achieved a great deal, Henderson says, "but it would be wrong to draw the conclusion that its status, ways of thinking and procedures should now go unchallenged." After all, if an oracle isn't kept on its toes, how far ahead can it see?
Time International, March 3, 2003 v161 i8 p61
Warming The Books? Two eminent economists challenge some of the building blocks used in climate-change forecasts. (Environment)(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change challenged) Elizabeth Feizkhah.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2003 Time, Inc.
Byline: Elizabeth Feizkhah
If the environment has an oracle, it's the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Its pronouncements on global warming affect everyone from farmers and car makers to insurance companies and Pacific islanders afraid of rising sea levels. They also underpinned the Kyoto Protocol, which set targets for cutting emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. So the IPCC's 2001 forecast, that average global temperature could rise by between 1.4 and 5.8[broken (vertical) bar]C this century, fell on the world like a cancer diagnosis.
Headline writers seized on the scary 5.8[broken (vertical) bar] figure, and governments committed vast sums to emissions-reduction programs. Some scientists say a 1-2[broken (vertical) bar] hike is far more likely and question whether efforts to avert it would be worth the staggering cost. Now economists have joined the fray. Ian Castles, former head of the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and David Henderson, a former chief economist of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, say the IPCC's report on emissions scenarios--one of the bases for its warming forecast--is flawed by suspect statistics and "fantastic assumptions" about poor nations' growth.
The pair recently wrote to IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri, arguing that "there is a good case for reviewing the whole scenario exercise." It's impossible to tell how that might affect the warming forecast, says Castles. But he guesses that if the economic flaws alone were corrected, it would "come down significantly at the top of the range and perhaps half a degree at the bottom."
Castles and Henderson (who live in Canberra and London, respectively) were invited to Amsterdam in January to put their concerns to an IPCC technical group. "The discussion was helpful," says Castles, but so far they've had "no substantive response." Feedback from outside the IPCC has been heartier. The pair "have done everybody an enormous service by providing a powerful critique of the economic basis of the IPCC report," says Aynsley Kellow, professor of government at the University of Tasmania and co-author of a book on international environmental policy and Kyoto. "Because no matter how good the climate models themselves are, it's pretty much a case of garbage in, garbage out."
To guesstimate future emissions, the IPCC team drew up a range of scenarios for global population and economic growth, then worked out how emissions levels might change if these visions came true. Most of their scenarios assume that by 2100, the developed world will be about as well off as the richest nations are now. That may seem utopian to some. But what got Castles' and Henderson's dander up was not the modelers' vision but their exaggeration of the growth rates--and emissions levels--poor nations would need to achieve it.
To compare economic activity in different countries, the IMF, the World Bank, the OECD and most U.N. agencies use an index based on local purchasing power. But the IPCC's modelers used a discredited method in which figures are converted to U.S. dollars. That approach, says Castles, portrays poor nations as more backward than they really are. In purchasing-power terms, average income in the richest bloc of nations is about four times that in the developing world; in the IPCC's terms, it's 16 times higher. To "help" poor countries close this outsize gap, the modelers had to assume they would grow very fast, says Castles--even in Africa, where poverty is increasing. In many scenarios, average incomes will soar 70-fold in developing Asia and almost 30-fold in the rest of the Third World. Yet in Japan, the all-time "economic miracle," they rose just 20-fold last century.
Such steroidal growth rates would see many of today's poor nations outstrip the world's richest. In many of the emissions scenarios, by 2100 half the world's people will live in countries with higher average incomes than Australia; those countries include Botswana, Fiji, North Korea, Papua New Guinea and Samoa. In some scenarios, says Castles, South Africa's "total output of goods and services in 2100...will be comparable to that of the entire world in 1990."
"If economic growth assumptions are too high," Castles argues, "emissions are also too high." Not so, says Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Geneva-based coordinator of the IPCC's emissions-scenario team. Using the purchasing-power yardstick that Castles and Henderson advocate, he says, "it is correct that the gap between rich and poor nations is not as big." But the link between economic output and emissions is not straightforward, and the complexity of the computer models makes it even less so. If the models are constructed and run correctly, says Nakicenovic, the way economic activity is measured "should make no difference to the emissions," so there's no reason to redo the exercise.
Castles and Henderson are sticking to their guns. Even if adjusting economic projections doesn't change the results, they say, the IPCC should on principle use the best input and most rigorous analysis possible. "It is important that policies be based on sound evidence," says Castles, who has a longstanding interest in "the use and abuse of statistics in public debates." The IPCC has achieved a great deal, Henderson says, "but it would be wrong to draw the conclusion that its status, ways of thinking and procedures should now go unchallenged." After all, if an oracle isn't kept on its toes, how far ahead can it see?
zephyrprime
Diamond Member
- Feb 18, 2001
- 7,512
- 2
- 81
Whenever I read stuff like this, I keep on thinking of this episode of "Head of the Class" where they said that sunspots don't affect weather.
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