Hi Craig and other vortexers.
I would like to respond to several of your comments. First on the
issue of Solar Irradiance or the solar forcing as it's described in the
computer models. it is certainly the main contributing factor to heat of
the atmosphere. No doubt about it. Sometimes it easy to neglect the
primary driver of the earths dynamics, that being the sun. Solar
Irradiance is effected by solar weather and sun spots and magnetic storms.
The total solar irradiance does change with the 11 year solar cycle, but
it's not by that much. It's about ~1.1 W/m^2 for a total irradiance of
1366 to 1368 W/m^2. Sunspot darkening can easily equal or exceed the
1.1W/m^2 variance in the 11 year solar cycle. But like all of the climate
change forces, it's data is scattered and noisy too. Here is one of the
classic papers on Solar Irradiance impact on Climate Change from 1995. See
Figure 1, in that paper. It explains better than I can the variation of
Solar Irradiance with respect to the solar cycle.
http://www.geo.umass.edu/faculty/bradley/lean1995.pdf
By the way, it even shows your facular brightening. There is no doubt
about how technical all of the science aspects are. It comes down to,
do the equations balance, does the input equal the output? or is one side
of the equation having more of an effect than the other.
On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 7:57 AM, Craig <[email protected]> wrote:
> <--->
> It's well documented that sunspot number correlates directly with total
> solar irradiance. The easiest source is Wikipedia:
>
> "The net effect during periods of enhanced solar magnetic activity is
> increased radiant output of the sun because faculae
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faculae> are larger and persist longer
> than sunspots <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunspots>. Conversely,
> periods of lower solar magnetic activity and fewer sunspots (such as the
> Maunder Minimum) may correlate with times of lower terrestrial
> irradiance from the sun.^[25]
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_variation#cite_note-25>"
>
> This group reconstructed historical solar irradiance levels from using
> sunspot data:
>
> http://lasp.colorado.edu/lisird/tsi/historical_tsi.html
>
> If this is a sticking point, we can certainly find more information on
> this.
> -----
> >
> > Craig; the only conclusion you can deductively come to is that the
> > average global temperature increase over the past 68 years is caused
> > by human activity and based on the scale, it's human industrial scale
> > activity creating CO2 as a byproduct.
>
> But this is a big leap. Sorry. It may be correct, but it's not obvious
> to me.
>
>
So this is where I just don't understand the AGW deniers. When add
900 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere (a well understood green house
gas) and you don't think that will have an effect? Do you think that CO2
is going to magically loose it's green house qualities? Also, lets look
at it from another angle; If the solar irradiance (sun cycles or what ever
you think is increasing the solar input), if that was the cause you would
certainly not want to temp faith by loading your atmosphere with as much
CO2 as you could dig out of the ground! I think even the deniers will
agree that no one wants a scorched earth. Craig, get a window seat the
next time your on a plane and when your 30,000ft up I hope you notice how
incredibly thin the atmosphere really is. If we foul our own nest, shame
on us.
What I want to do is dig deeper into how the models are being
> constructed which recreate the historical temperature record. I don't
> know when I can get to this, but that's the next step. I'll also look
> into finding the objections by those on the AGW side against the
> correlations with total solar irradiance.
>
> > Craig, what convinced be about global warming wasn't all the numbers
> > facts and figures, It was looking up in the sky and seeing all of
> > these very high altitude clouds. Water vapor lofted up to the
> > stratosphere by additional thermal energy dumped in the oceans from
> > global warming. I encourage everyone to look for the really high
> > vapor clouds.
> >
> Are you suggesting that we have more cirrus clouds than we used to have?
>
> The convincing arguments should not be something you see in the sky, but
> rather something you can demonstrate that goes back centuries. For
> instance, if CO2 directly correlated with increases in temperature on an
> annual basis, and could explain, by itself, all the peaks and valleys of
> the temperature record for the past couple of centuries, and if there
> was not an alternative hypothesis, then it would be hard to deny the
> correlation with the CO2 record and global temperature anomalies.
> However, with an alternative hypothesis present, which may better
> explain the temperature record with all of its fluctuations, doubt will
> always remain with any explanation based on correlations for the simple
> reason that it's not possible to prove cause with correlations.
>
> One side will 'win' this argument, (if it's possible to 'win' in
> science), when one correlation or the other diverges significantly from
> its expected result. Solar output has been decreasing these past 10
> years. Now global warming has stalled. It continues to look like solar
> output will continue to decrease for the next couple of decades. If this
> happens and global temperatures fall, then more credence will be given
> to the impact of solar irradiance. If global warming continues, however,
> diverging from the models based on the alternative hypothesis, then the
> issue will be effectively resolved, as well, in favor of the CO2
> correlation.
>
> Craig
>
I mentioned the clouds but it's the very high strato-nimbus that didn't
used to be nearly as prevalent as today. At least that is my recall. It
from the additional water vapor lofted even higher are global temperatures
have increased. It's an effect just like the melting of the polar ice
caps, or the ice fields of Greenland, or the disappearance of just about
every glacier on earth! Melting like that has never happened, untill we
go back several millions of years. Then there is the whole correlation
with the extreme weather events of the past few years. In the middle of
this past January dandelions were blooming in my yard, a site I've never
seen! The number of environmental effects from the global warming has
filled books.
Anyway, I see what your arguing Craig, but I think your missing half of the
equation. There certainly are enough technical details in atmospheric
theory (and solar weather) that naive concepts could be off. I really
doubt it though.
Best Regards,
Chuck
