Hi,
Sadly, the entire debate on "global warming" moved
from being a scientific one into being a political one, then
a partisan one. Now, it has gone beyond party politics, and is
becoming a kind of vague, popular, semi-religious dogma that cannot be
questioned.
There is a deluge of an unprecedented amount of bad science, more
ill-will between scientists, and more wrong-
headedness demonstrated by scientists (and others) than
in any scientific controversy in a century or more.
If you want a thorough history of "global warming" as
two centuries of scientific history, idea by idea, study by study,
data by datum, I suggest this website, hosted by the American
Institute of Physics: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/
250,000 words, very balanced, goes up to 1997-98. The
site has the very nice feature; you can download the entire site,
extensively hyperlinked, as a ZIP file and read it at your leisure.
It's a good starting point.
This same meteorite study was reported at Space.com:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060926_solar_activity.html
To see to what extent the dogma of CO2 primacy
has progressed toward unquestionability, you have only
to look at this quote from that article:
"The Sun's impact on climate has only recently been investigated.
Recent studies show that an increase in solar output can cause
short-term changes in Earth's climate, but there is no firm evidence
linking solar activity with long-term climate effects."
Excuse me, "no firm evidence linking solar activity with... climate
effects"? OK, fellow, I'm going to float
this 15,000 km mirror at the Earth-Sun L1 point, cutting
off all solar radiation from reaching the Earth, and you tell me if
you notice any change in YOUR climate, alright?
Apart from the Earth's original heat of formation and
the heat generated by the decay of radioactive elements,
the Earth has no other source of heat than the Sun. As for
the statement that "the Sun's impact on climate has only recently been
investigated," such studies were being conducted for almost a century
before the first monitoring of CO2 even began! (Granted those early
studies were crap,
but then the early studies of CO2 were crap, too. Most
early studies are.)
All energy supplied to the Earth comes from the Sun;
how it is distributed on the planet is another matter. The
thermal inertia of the oceans is the major factor. Ocean
currents are the major distributive mechanism, followed by
greenhouse gases, the major one of which is water vapor,
followed weakly by CO2 and methane. As a "system," the
mechanisms involved are horrendously complex and our
"models" are pitifully inadequate.
Interestingly, from the very first readings in the 1950's, the CO2
record shows a rigidly consistent "sawtooth" pattern with a two-year
cycle imposed on the curve. Yet, after fifty years of recording it, we
have absolutely no idea what mechanism produces it. In fact, I've
never heard an explanation even proposed. This very strong two-year
signal has no effect on climate records (alternating hot
and cold years?) whatsoever. So, when they compare
CO2 levels with temperature, they just substitute a nice
"smoothed" average and ignore the sawtooth, otherwise
you'd get no match at all! Certainly legitimate, but it would
bug me to use data I basically don't understand to "prove" something.
Continuous monitoring of CO2 began in the late 1950's,
so the record length has just reached 50 years. Its correlation
with mean surface temperatures is moderately good but not great:
Solar flux in visible light with Earth's temperature is better.
Solar flux in UV light with Earth's temperature is much better.
At one time, the correlation of the length of the sunspot cycle
with Earth's temperature was better still, yet in the late
1990's that correlation suddenly "departed" from its previous
pattern. Humans are so good at "seeing" patterns...
Solar Wind rates with Earth's temperature is better (so far).
Cosmic Ray flux with Earth's temperature is even better than that.
The best correlation: Neutron Flux with Earth's Temperature: 99.57%.
Now, you may be shaking your head and saying "Neutron flux? WTF is
that about?" It appears that neutron flux (from all
outside sources) is the controlling and dominant factor in the poorly
understood formation of low level clouds. The effect on climate of a
modest change in the number of low level clouds is an order of
magnitude stronger than, say, doubling CO2.
The major influence on the temperature of the Earth may be:
The Universe.
Solar theorists, however, have been unable to come up with
a consistent, testable mechanism, while the gas boys have. True,
it largely fails the test, but at least they've got one. Part of the
problem is the good old-fashioned belief in the constancy and
unchanging nature of the Sun. One is hard pressed to get a solar
astronomer to admit to the notion that "Our Sun" may vary its
output by as much as 1%.
Meanwhile, if you examine every nearby G0 star (same mass) of the
same age and similar composition, you find short term variations of 4%
to 5% in ALL of them. What are we, just lucky? Special? When this
paper is actually released instead of
just press-released, it will interesting to see what percentage
figure the language "increased strongly" actually means. 1%?
2%? 5%? 10%? The press release seems to suggest greater changes
than what is currently believed, as if to soften us up. It's
interesting, but it's meaningless without the numbers.
CO2 levels are one mechanism, not necessarily the dominant
mechanism at every time. From ice cores, it appears that changes
in climate PRECEDE changes in CO2 by a century or two, which hardly
suggests that CO2 drives the process. The full complexity
of the carbon cycle has not been pinned down with any great precision,
despite decades of modeling. At a time 135-140 million years ago, the
Earth's climate was very similar to today's, but the CO2 levels were
3900 ppm (as opposed to 380 ppm today). Model that.
The USA (granted, one continent, not the world) has long
temperature records (125 years) taken at many stationary points with
standardized thermometers. They show two cooling cycles and two
warming cycles (of similar length). The US climate in
1995 was just about the same as it was in 1895.
The measurement of atmospheric temperatures from space
is unaffected by changes in measuring environments (heat islands
around cities and so forth) and is far more accurate than ground
measurement. Thirty years of such measurements show no net warming.
The changes they do show are on the order of 0.01
degree or less. Actually, the records show net cooling. This was
so unacceptable that a complete revision of the data was performed and
a net warming of 0.0017 degree (over 30 years) was extracted. Wow!
Because of the fact that only our modern temperature
records are accurate, we have to somehow correlate older, very much
less accurate measurements of temperature with
them. The technique is a purely mathematical one, finding the
dominant trend in a welter of data points. The widely publicized
result is called the "Hockey Stick" because it shows a very flat
and shallow curve that bends up to near verticality in this century
and validates the worst (best?) view of global warmists. It is the
"star" of the Global Warming Show (Al Gore's movie), the
mainstay of the dogma, the proof positive that cannot be controverted.
The only problem with this is that the Hockey Stick curve is Hooey,
pure crap, totally flawed and compromised, utterly worthless. Even if
you feed the modeling program with randomly generated data, it
produces the Hockey Stick. No matter what data you feed it, it
produces the Hockey Stick. Worthless. And is being clung to by the
True Believers like
the Old Rugged Cross.
The really sad part about this is that any mathematician
who ventures to demonstrate this worthlessness of the Hockey Stick is
playing Russian Roulette with his career, becomes inexplicably
unpublishable, has his character smeared, and ends up with no friends
except FoxNews, coal-burners, and a clutch of rightwing whacky
websites, and as for the blogo-
sphere, you'd get better treatment if you just confessed to being a
member of Al Quidah.
Paradoxically, there are also many political figures who do not
worry about whether the science is shaky or not, because the goals
warmism would push us toward are good ones, in their estimation, at
least. Truth is not the business of politics, in case we ever needed
reminding of that...
If I go on, I'll start talking about the ice core gas data, and
hey! nobody wants that... Scientifically, it's fundamentally
a mess, which is now complicated by doubt with respect to
the reliability of ANY study. What can you believe? To me, this is a
unfamiliar question to apply to science: who's lying?
There are lots of scientists who understand just how shaky global
warmism is. They understand equally well how
risky it is to stick a meddling hand into the five billion dollar per
year machinery of global warmism while it's running.
There are lots of scientists being counted as global warmists
who really don't pay much more than lip service to the idea
because by playing ball they get more money to fund their
own useful but non-glamorous research in a year than they would have
gotten in a lifetime without the global warmism "industry."
Global warmism seems destined to become a universal
doctrine. Perhaps a small amount of real research will continue
until we understand things better. On the other hand, perhaps we will
have completely implemented our adjustment to the Greenhouse Future
just in time to greet the next Great Solar Minimum?
Sterling K. Webb
-------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message ----- From: "Matson, Robert"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Meteorite Mailing List" <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2006 4:25 PM
Subject: RE: [meteorite-list] Meteorites Used To Study Solar Activity
Hi All,
Who'da thunk that global warming could become an on-topic
subject for the meteorite list?! --Rob
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ron
Baalke
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2006 2:15 PM
To: Meteorite Mailing List
Subject: [meteorite-list] Meteorites Used To Study Solar Activity
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060926-015940-3936r
Meteorites used to study solar activity
UPI
September 26, 2006
OULU, Finland (UPI) -- A Finnish-led international team has used
meteorites to investigate the sun's solar activity of past centuries.
Ilya Usoskin at Finland's Sodankyla Geophysical Observatory and
colleagues compared the amount of Titanium 44 in 19 meteorites that have
fallen to the Earth the past 240 years. They said their findings confirm
that solar activity increased strongly during the 20th century. They
also find the sun has been particularly active during the past few
decades.
The scientists say studying the sun's activity is one of the oldest
astrophysical projects, as astronomers began recording the number of
sunspots to trace the sun's magnetic activity 400 years ago.
The team examined a set of 19 meteorites whose dates of fall are
precisely known, measuring the amount of radioactive isotope Titanium 44
in each meteorite. Titanium 44 is produced by the cosmic rays in the
meteorites while they are outside the Earth's atmosphere. After the
meteorite has fallen, it stops producing the isotope.
By measuring the Titanium 44 in the meteorites, the scientists
determined the level of solar activity at the time the meteorite fell.
The study appears in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics Letters.
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