Suggesting that the sun affects the temperature of the earth is sheer heresy. CO2 is the only heat source. It generates so much heat that we could probably run our cars off a hybrid CO2/Al Gore hot air car.

During the 17th century Maunder Minimum, when sunspots were rare, it was also the period of time when the earth's northern hemisphere was sent into what scientists call the "Little Ice Age."

Just a coincidence, nothing to see here, folks. Move along.

This is obviously caused by a decrease in the number of cattle and horses (or Republican members of Congress).

/sarc off

Now, Mr. Bllom. Tell us why changes in solar activity can't possibly effect climate.

Imagine, a scientist that says the Sun warms the earth. What a concept!

since the sun is the drive behind the water cycle and water vapor controls out climate either being rain snow ,dry ,warm,and cold .sounds a lot not to influence climate at all. it has too in some way.

I think the solution is simple.......
Let's sell carbon credits to reduce CO2 on the sun! In fact CO2 is probably the reason why the sun is soooooooooo hot!
We can not only make an international disaster fund but also an inter-planetary fund which we will graciously control and play god with ......errrr I mean dish out as we see fit .......errrr I mean distribute to offset everyones carbon footprint. This way we can help even the people on the dark side of mars re-locate because its suddenly/always too cold or something.
Have we found a way yet to associate earthquakes/volcanoes to AGW? It would be useful to round out the cash grab to include everything!

Fascinating - solar activity may drive Earth's climate!

And real science as well. I have infinitely more confidence in physicists that I do climate scientists.

"...that may counteract man-made greenhouse temperature increases..."

Or, since these may have little or no effect, may be the main driver. Imagine that!

Ever heard of Piers Corbyn, a (in)famous sunspot fanatic over here in the UK? He claims to forecast the weather far in advance by forecasting sunspot activity and correlating this to observed weather patterns.

My limited experience of his forecasts is that they are accurate. He correctly forecast a major North Seas storm on the weekend of November 11, and he also forecast gales last weekend about 6 weeks in advance, which he linked to a solar flare.

He won't submit his techniques to peer review, however, (fair enough - he's got to earn a living I say), and he's often cited in sensationalist weather related headlines, so he gets pilloried as a self publicising fraud, even though his customers are blue chip. Personaly i find it ironic that credible scientists who say we're 50 years from desertifying the planet accuse him of sensationalism, but there we go.....

One thing I do know - if we returned to the weather of the 16th/ 17th century (when crops failed, the Thames often froze, lying snow once fell in London in May and a temperature of -29C was once recorded in Marylebone), we'll find our concern about global warming slightly, erm, ironic....

Do you think we'll ever stop beating around the bush and tell the truth for once? The sun is chiefly responsible for changes in earth's temperatures, not human activity. But of course there's no money to be made, if you accept this truth!

Thanks for the interesting pointer, Brett. A while back, I applied some basic time series modeling techniques to station temperature data, basically for fun. A complete amateur on knowledge about climate, I was still amused to find that at least two time periods corresponding to known weather cycles emerged, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and the ENSO cycle. There was also a cycle with the same period as the sunspot cycle which appeared to influence temperature. This information is another data point that the sunspot cycle effects on temperature may not have been an artifact. Of course, the predictions are presented for entertainment purposes only!

Great, and our PEABRAINED congressmen are busy signing our life away in congress because of their belief in this farse called global warming. Lets see, solar activity had an 8000 year peak at the end of the 20 th century and there is not correlation to warmer than usual temperatures we saw.... or so Gore and his magicians would like you to believe. What a crock.

Well, go to go shove more wood in my exceptionally inefficient wood boiler.

Later

This is encouraging. Then again, sunspots were at record highs around 1960 and the Earth was going through a cooling phase. Solar science is filled with charlatans. Cycle 24 was supposed to be the strongest ever, and now they're saying it won't be.

Our contrarians once again prop up strawmen so that they can heroically knock them down.

Nobody has claimed that the sun doesn't affect the the temperature of the earth. The confirmed theory is that anthropogenic atmospheric CO2 adds to whatever other changes are taking place.

If a change in solar activity causes the earth's temperature to increase, our currently-elevated levels of atmospheric CO2 will amplify that increase. If a change in solar activity causes the earth's temperature to decrease, our currently-elevated levels of atmospheric CO2 will cause the resulting temperature to be warmer than it would otherwise be.

If Whitehouse turns out to be correct, and if it turns out that solar changes delay the impact of our elevated CO2 levels, then I will celebrate the opportunity to take advantage of the extra time to develop and deploy effective long-term solutions to the AGW problem.

As Whitehouse observes in his piece:
It's something we must take seriously because what happened in the 17th century is bound to happen again some time.

Indeed. If a period of solar-induced cooling is "bound to happen again some time", so too is the subsequent period of warming.

We are left with the reality that whatever factor the sun plays, anthropogenic atmospheric CO2 levels amplify the warming effects of the sun. Nothing in this paper challenges that reality.

Sooner or later, humanity must address our impact on our global climate.

The Bali Climate Declaration is out. It has been signed by about 200 scientists. Seven of whom claim to be "climate scientists" in their self-description.
http://www.climate.unsw.edu.au/bali/

30% of the scientists invited to sign, refused.
http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/

Too bad they didn't have the conference in Canada or Antarctica. According to the seven climate scientists who signed up, those regions are supposed to be hit hardest by global warming. Are they afraid to face the bitter cold?

Hot Air Emitted by Climate Summit Equals 20,000 Cars
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601170&refer=home&sid=aPbfclqokwcw

Those who will choose to cling to the silly AGW religon in the coming cooling years will no doubt use the suns low activity as an excuse for the world not burning up with all of the increased CO2. This article already sets them up for that, here we go again with yet another CYA. The rest of the cultist will switch back to the global cooling theory as history has shown us time and again.

Hi Guys,

WOW its not CO2? Why could it be the sun its soooo faarrr away. Will shoot and I was waiting for Bush and Gore to create their Death Star and take over the Third World. Bet you Mark and BT will say its holding off the inevitable warming. What we really need to watch out for is a drastic cooling like the Little Ice Age, you want starvation and devistation, rivers freezing over and not summer. I have been posting this information for months and even noted the lack of sun spots over a month ago and said that if this trend continues it will wipe out the AGW theory that CO2 is the problem. No wonder that the UN and the Ecothiests are pushing to get the Cap and Trade Scam moving and the socialist to tie up the US(The Great Evil). Here is a good piece by Steve Milloy of Junkscience.com

http://www.junkscience.com/ByTheJunkman/20071129.html
http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/Cosmic_rays_and_climate.html

Great post Brett!

Could Solar Inactivity counteract Global Warming?

Ahhh...you think? Thermal absorption is stored internally, in our BIOSPHERE. This is why our planet is warm.

Can you see the water and the earth? Yes. Well then obviously water and earth are absorbing, reflecting and scattering the suns light/color/heat. Can you see a burnt PARTICLE of carbon in our atmosphere? No. What about .0375 burnt particles of carbon in our atmosphere? Nope, I still cant see the particles, even though they are surrounding me. (Microscopic) .0375 carbon has insignificant thermal properties.

Here is the nail in the coffin to carbon causing global warming. Any significant build up of carbon (a cloud or visible layer of carbon) in our atmosphere, would have a COOLING effect on our biosphere. Volcanos spewing CARBON PARTICLES into the atmosphere. A meteor slamming into our biosphere, causing PARTICLES to become airborn and reducing (partially absorbing, reflecting and scattering) the suns energy before it reaches our biosphere. These ATMOSPHERIC PARTICLES is what lead to the Ice Ages to begin with. This is not to say that an increase of .011 atmospheric carbon is going to lead us into another ice age. MICROSCOPIC!

The GW debate is over folks.

The best part of the story if the title "Ray of hope: Can the sun save us from global warming?". Everyone is in such a mindset that CO2 is the culprit, that we ignore the big ball of fire that heats our planet. The sun is the cause of global warming.

If the author is correct, then CO2 caused global warming may save us from a disastrous cold spell.

Also interesting that despite the overwhelming evidence that a lack of sunspots has caused very cold periods in the past, the IPCC consistently underplays their importance in future calculations.

Lots of early snow in the Swiss Alps. Last year people were saying that it would never snow again.

Interesting prediction. How, if the TSI is only about 0.1% lower at sunspot maxima than at minima, will this result in a 1.5degC cooling? Even during grand minima the global average temp anomaly was only about 0.5degC cooler compared to grand maxima and these fluctuations occurred over a period of many decades. There is no doubt that solar fluctuations are a forcing in the Earth's climate and nobody disputes this, but such predictions as "1.5degC cooling by 2020" are based on no known mechanism. It would be more informative to offer the assumptions, models, and scenarios used in these predictions, but Abdusamatov at the RAS has never made his model for predicting climate variation from sunspot activity public.
And as usual, Paul and Patrick misunderstand everything about the attribution of climate change to various forcings.

You should know better
The sun has no effect on climate
http://www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/Conf2007/Archibald2007.pdf
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.jpg

Patrick - did you miss this statement about why some of the 30% refused to sign? "According to Andrew Pitman, a climate scientist also at the University of New South Wales, Australia, some authors didn�t sign because they felt the emissions cuts called for were simply not tough enough." Or did you just ignore it?

Hi Pete,

You are making the argument that TSI fluctuation is too small to have much of an impact on climate.

So please enlighten us as to what caused the LIA, which coincidentally corresponded to a sunspot minimum.

Are you looking forward to those sub -80F temperatures forecast for Greenland this Sunday? And BTW - worldwide sea ice is back to the 30 year mean. Everyone listening to Gore & Hansen knows that the polar ice caps are "melting at an unprecedented rate."
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=72.58000183,-38.45000076

Pete Desanto,

Because there is a lot more to the sun than TSI. Why don't you do some research smart guy. Read papers by Arcibald, Svensmaark, Haigh, Scafetta, West, Fairbridge, Labitzke and Shindell, just to name a few off the top of my head.

And for papers which show CO2 has already caused all the warming it can for the present ppm, and doubling current levels will only contribute, perhaps, another 1 K, refer to papers by Schwartz, Evans and Archibald.

BT - "We are left with the reality that whatever factor the sun plays, anthropogenic atmospheric CO2 levels amplify the warming effects of the sun. Nothing in this paper challenges that reality. Sooner or later, humanity must address our impact on our global climate."

Take special note of the CO2 papers (authors) referenced.

Sorry to both of you - I don't have time to find you links to the specifics, but you both seem to have plenty of time on your hands, and I'm sure you're quite capable of finding them on your own. . . Assuming you're willing to be enlightened.

By the way BT, this is a big switch for you, all we've ever heard from you to date is that the sun has already been debunked as a GW cause; TSI, Milankovitch cycles, cosmic rays - all "proven" to be non-factors in present day Global Warming, but now you're willing to concede that there could be a cooling, and if there is a cooling it will buy us some time to address CO2. How interesting of you...........

The fact of the matter is that IF there is a big drop in SC24 & 25, AND there is a significant cooling coincident with the less active sun - It will be incontrovertible proof that the 20th century warming was indeed the result of the most active solar cycles in the past 8000 years, and proof that there was no CO2 induced warming or none that was in any way significant. It will be Case Closed !

now, lets just see if this story gets any national press like every little blurb saying the world is going to end from AGW.

just for fun, lets apply the AGW type hysteria to potential global cooling:

-global cooling will cause mass starvation due to a shortening of the growing season worldwide

-northern deer populations in danger from increasing polar bear predation

-first world countries should give trillions to third world nations to subsidize programs to protect them from the coming environmental devastations due to global cooling

-falling global sea level will alter fish populations, devastating the fishing industry

-millionaire's homes will no longer be on the beach, they will be (gasp) farther inland!

thus is the ridiculousness of the AGW hysteria. the earth changes, and not every little alteration, real or artificial, will be catastrophic.

OK, Let's go with this. When the sun spots come back it's going to get colder on earth. That means longer winters and colder weather. That means more oil and gas to heat the homes in the north, speeding the down slope of peak oil and adding CO2 to the atmosphere. And longer, colder winters mean a shorter growing season, which means more pressure on food supplies as the population grows. Hmmm, yeah I guess there is really nothing to worry about; I'm sure you'll have it covered!

sunspots were at record highs around 1960 and the Earth was going through a cooling phase. Solar science is filled with charlatans.

Mark - It's not sunspots or the lack of them that directly determine warming or cooling, respectively. It's the associated faculae, i.e., bright/hot spots that are harder to count than sunspots. But when sunspots are virtually totally absent, as in the Maunder Minimum, then so are faculae, and it gets downright cold. But that requires a solar effect to be added to negative feedbacks.

Cycle 24 was supposed to be the strongest ever, and now they're saying it won't be.

Some people realize they need to revise their theories, admit it, and then do so. A good lesson, that.

On a different train of thought, I again celebrate the possibility that certain theories will have their day. Not only those of the solar physicists, but also theories of negative feedback playing off of reduced solar activity. I specifically have in mind Svensmark's proposal that lower solar magnetic activity (if it happens) allows more cosmic rays to reach the lower atmosphere, resulting in muon secondary particles that catalyze cloud nucleation. Svensmark theorizes a cascade of negative feedbacks including more cloud cover at lower altitudes, and lower water vapor concentration from cloud formation + increased precipitation, resulting in less sunlight reaching the surface, and less of a water vapor greenhouse effect. Of course, if there's more snow and/or more days of snow cover then the negative feedback of higher albedo would also occur. Svensmark's next set of CLOUD experiments at CERN in 2010(?) may be perfect timing.

On a different subject, the package idea that any upcoming cold phase will be the sum of a decreased solar effect + negative feedbacks + AGW is a real stretch. A real stretch. Not only does the sun actually have to do what is speculated, and the negative feedbacks function as advertised, but AGW has to actually show up. As yet there is no definitive evidence that distinguishes what alarmists say is AGW from what can happen naturally. Stated another way, natural explanations have not been disproven, while major AGW fingerprints have been disproven (e.g., Antarctic warming, substantial delta between surface and lower tropospheric heating). AGW may show up at significantly higher CO2, but physical evidence indicates we're not there yet. Meanwhile, let's be grateful for all the agricultural benefits that give us greater hope of feeding a hungry world.

"Studies show that by the end of the 20th century the Sun's activity may have been at its highest for more than 8,000 years."

Curious that this fact isn't prominently highlighted on the front page of the IPCC report.

Hi Guys,

These are the people who want to save us. And you wonder why I'm a skeptic.

I quote them;
"Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring that about?" -- Maurice Strong, head of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and Executive Officer for Reform in the Office of the Secretary General of the United Nations.

�A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States. De-development means bringing our economic system (especially patterns of consumption) into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation.� -- Paul Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich, �Population, Resources, Environment� (W.H. Freeman, San Francisco, 1970, 323)

"If you ask me, it'd be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy because of what we would do with it. We ought to be looking for energy sources that are adequate for our needs, but that won't give us the excesses of concentrated energy with which we could do mischief to the earth or to each other." -- Amory Lovins, The Mother Earth - Plowboy Interview, Nov/Dec 1977, p. 22

"Giving society cheap, abundant energy ... would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun." -- Paul Ehrlich, "An Ecologist's Perspective on Nuclear Power", May/June 1978 issue of Federation of American Scientists Public Issue Report

"We can't let other countries have the same number of cars, the same industrialization, we have in the U.S. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are." -- Michael Oppenheimer. Michael Oppenheimer, Princeton University. He joined the Princeton faculty after more than two decades with Environmental Defense, is a long-time participant in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), serving most recently as a lead author of the IPCC�s Fourth Assessment Report.

"We've already had too much economic growth in the US. Economic growth in rich countries like ours is the disease, not the cure." -- Ehrlich again.

"The planet is about to break out with fever, indeed it may already have, and we [human beings] are the disease. We should be at war with ourselves and our lifestyles." -- Thomas Lovejoy, assistant secretary to the Smithsonian Institution.

"The only real good technology is no technology at all. Technology is taxation without representation, imposed by our elitist species (man) upon the rest of the natural world." -- John Shuttleworth, FoE manual writer.

"People are the cause of all the problems; we have too many of them; we need to get rid of some of them, and this (ban of DDT) is as good a way as any." Charles Wurster, Environmental Defense Fund.

"We can and should seize upon the energy crisis as a good excuse and great opportunity for making some very fundamental changes that we should be making anyhow for other reasons." -- Russell Train (EPA Administrator at the time, and soon thereafter became head of the World Wildlife Fund), Science 184 p. 1050, 7 June 1974

The world has a cancer, and that cancer is man. -- Alan Gregg, former longtime official of the Rockerfeller Foundation

Man is always and everywhere a blight on the landscape. -- John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club

Phasing out the human race will solve every problem on earth, social and environmental. -- Dave Forman, Earth First! and Sierra Club director (1995-1997)

Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs. -- John Davis, editor of Earth First! journal

It's interesting to note that the author never doubts AGW; in fact, he is hopeful that a weak sun will bide us more time to prepare for the effects of GW.

Anonymous,

Did you notice that Andrew Pitman was guessing 30%, and that he didn't mention the reasons why the rest refused to sign. Suppose it was actually 40% or 50% who refused to sign?

While it would be very interesting to have some actual statistics - this is a typical case of AGW FUD. The key thing is that a significant portion of the scientists "refused to sign." Many of which undoubtedly disagreed with the scientific claims.

You might want to read Dr. Chris Landsea, Dr. John Christy or Dr. Vincent Gray about the misinformation being intentionally propagated by the IPCC.

So perhaps you should turn off your computer and figure out how cut back your CO2 emissions by 80%. And remember that at least 20% of your CO2 output is from breathing, so you will have to eliminate all other sources of CO2. Sell the car, turn off the heat and electricity, and don't eat.

That is the commitment which Hillary and Obama are ready to make for you.

Brett, Thanks for this story! REALLY! This is one topic that I really enjoy to read about :)

It is really funny that they said this because Lake Musconetcong here in NW Jersey is one the largest lakes in the state and it is frozen over completely. (That doesn't happen till January 1st-15th) Never do I remember it freezing over completely so early (froze over Nov. 23rd) . Also the average high for this month so far is 31.0 and the low is 18.4! It has also snowed everyday this week so far and more expected tomorrow. The season total snowfall so far is 9.25 inches and some places north of me have had a foot of snow so far. I am not crying out ICE AGE, but I think the solar minimum is influencing all this. Maybe Joe's winter outlook will be off because of it? It is all theory of course but it should be an interesting winter.

"Also the average high for this month so far is 31.0 and the low is 18.4!" - by Darren M. December has just started. Those temperatures are no surprise to me: 6 days of December, 6 days of cold weather, may be 6 days of a cold spell? That average says nothing.

And about the Sun.
I totally agree with Brookline Tom: no one is saying the Sun doesn't play a role on Earth's climate; instead, I think it's one of the many players and that CO2 makes it even warmer.
I don't know what to think about this... it could be good in the short-term, as it would delay GW effects. In the long-term, however, once the Sun's activity is back to normal, no one would support the AGW Theory, arguing that "the last 20 years have been cold". It would be a reverse to ecologist if the world starts cooling down (not because what they say is not true; but because there will be highly unusual low activity in the Sun and that may lead people to think "GW has vanished", when that's not true)

and now compare this....
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/s_plot.html
(last data point is november 2007?)
with this..... (note November 2007 trace)
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.south.jpg
and lets remember this
http://mikelm.blogspot.com/2007/09/left-image-was-downloaded-from.html
last may have been a genuine mistake. However...
bad news = better than no news (explains the whole AGW fiasco)
BTW australia is being flooded at the moment (we were told AGW = prolongued drought)

The confirmed theory is that anthropogenic atmospheric CO2 adds to whatever other changes are taking place.

Confirmed? Who confirmed it, bt? You? The consensus scientists? Where are those links?

If I take this argument at face value, are you telling me that anthropogenic CO2 adds to both warming and cooling? Well, now, that's a grand CYA maneuver.

The premise that the sun is strong enough to undo AGW but not strong enough to cause warming in the first place is simply ridiculous. I wonder if people even know what they're saying.

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/jgr07/M&M.JGR07-background.pdf

http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/12/rss-msu-november-2007-was-coldest-month.html

http://denerding.blogspot.com/2007/12/global-warming-earth-cooled-005c-in.html

http://my.telegraph.co.uk/reasonmclucus/december_2007/ipcc_falsifies_sea_level_data.htm

LIES and MANIPULATION by Hansen and his ilk.

They claim the climate is as warm now as it has ever been based on "ADJUSTMENTS" to surface temperature measurements to "COMPENSATE" for urbanization and poor instrument siting.

Meanwhile HARD GENUINE DATA measurements of the lower troposphere, an area where the AGW signal should be even more pronounced, shows a COOLING TREND !!!

Hansen should be FIRED and arrested for FRAUD !!!

And so should the LIARS of the IPCC; admitted LIARS in fact, stating that "if they didn't MANIPULATE the data, they wouldn't have a trend !"

Check out the links and have a nice day................

One sad thing is that since this is the oppiste of what they have told us not much will come out of it ebcause it is evidence that global warming is a sham,what a shame.

Solar activity 'not the cause of global warming'
Published: 11 July 2007

Scientists have delivered the final blow to the theory that recent global warming can be explained by variations in the natural cycles of the Sun

http://environment.independent.co.uk/climate_change/article2753395.ece

1. Form clique of friends
2. Announce new 'ground-breaking paper' to the press. Announce 'result' in soundbite form.
3. Get papers published peer reviewed by friends
4. Go to United Nations and declare “the science is settled”
5. Denigrate other scientists who disagree with you as 'Deniers' and in league with [insert scary corporation here]
6. Praise other 'independent' scientific papers written by your friends which miraculously support your hypothesis.
7. Repeat the above two processes so that you and your friends get lions share of grant money while your opponents are starved of funding and attention.
8. Hide data/methodology so as to prevent replication. Make sure only copy of data is on a floppy disk and never, ever backed up like normal people.
9. Start weblog.
10. When cornered, declare that 'science has moved on'

http://solarscience.auditblogs.com/

Well, well, well, up until recently David Whitehouse was arguing that the sun was blazing away, warming up the world. Now, all of a sudden, the big chill is on. Well not in Texas. It has been a warm fall here. This weekend it is suppose to get up to 81. Diminished solar output? Does that mean I have to find my overcoat? I put it somewhere a few years ago.

latest hadcrut november 2007
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadsst2sh.txt
those stubborn temps just dont wanna go up anymore.....

This is a very serious allegation
http://my.telegraph.co.uk/reasonmclucus/december_2007/ipcc_falsifies_sea_level_data.htm
any comments?

Sorry everyone.

Realcliamte has delcared this article to be "debunked".
Appearently the author drives a car on occaision.
That clearly put him under the influence of big oil. The theory is obviously a lie.

It was nice while it lasted.

Now here is a cuase I could get behind;

cut form article on Icecap.us:

PROMISE: carbon scammers will need to hang on to their ill-gotten gains because JunkScience.com is investigating ways of suing the �global warming� and carbon reduction industry collectively and individually for crop losses, hunger, storm damage, disease and loss of life in a cooler world. From offsetters to junket bunnies, we intend to nail all the frauds� hides to the wall�but not until we�ve made sure they haven�t kept one thin dime extracted from politicians and a frightened public through this absurd scare.

Vincent,

Since you're interested, here's the RSS LT data updated through November. Obviously November has continued the year-long trend of cooling temperatures.

http://www.remss.com/pub/msu/monthly_time_series/RSS_Monthly_MSU_AMSU_Channel_TLT_Anomalies_Land_and_Ocean_v03_0.txt

The question is, it this a sign of a return to 1970-1980s temperatures or is it the byproduct of the moderate La Nina event in the Pacific? We know La Nina and El Nino are part of the natural climate cycle.

How likely is this temperature trend to continue beyond the end of next year? I figure I already know the answers of all the regular contributors to this blog, but answer if you feel like it.

For the record, I think temperatures will rise again after this La Nina runs its course within the next eight months, though where they will go after that I can't say with any degree of certainty.

And the real reason for the Bali meeting:

Any successor to Kyoto will be rooted in hobbling rich economies, increasing the poor world's resentment, unleashing environmental trade warfare, and blanketing the globe with rules and regulations that benefit only rulers and regulators. Bali is not about climate; it symbolizes the continued assault on freedom by those who seek -- or pander to -- political power under the guise of concern for humanity.

http://www.financialpost.com/analysis/story.html?id=eec03f41-5fa7-41b9-b179-614151eaf15e&k=87348

Hi Steve Bloom,

A couple of days ago you were bragging about the drought in Australia as evidence of global warming. Another one bites the dust!

THE drought-breaking La Nina weather pattern has finally kicked in, bringing flooding rains along the eastern coast and filling the tributaries that feed into the dying Murray-Darling river system.

The wettest conditions in a decade in western Queensland

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22883977-11949,00.html

What's your bet? Will Greenland break it's coldest ever temperature record this weekend?
http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=72.58000183,-38.45000076

the climate will do what it wants when it wants and there is nothing you can do but complain about it and try to figure it out and by that time things will change again. And that and the Bali Climate conference has produced greenhouse gases. What a joke they are doing exactly what they are telling everyone not to do.

Anonymous - re: "Because there is a lot more to the sun than TSI. Why don't you do some research smart guy. Read papers by Arcibald, Svensmaark, Haigh, Scafetta, West, Fairbridge, Labitzke and Shindell, just to name a few off the top of my head."

Archibald correlates temperature data from 5 US cities with the solar cycles 22 and 23 to arrive at his "-1.5degC by 2020" prediction. How reliable do you think it is to use a small subset of regional data to predict the climate response to anything for the entire Earth?

Haigh finds that decreasing UV with decreased solar irradiance (during periods of lower solar activity) diminishes O3 in the stratosphere and cools the upper stratosphere by up to 1.1degC. So how does that explain warming in the troposphere concurrent with a cooling stratosphere as observed over the past 30 years?

Scaffetta and West is an exercise in curve fitting (they looked at the data and choose the curve fitting method that gave the best fit) instead of using a physical model. They ignore other factors in climate forcing (volcanic and manmade aerosols, GHG, land use), other climate feedbacks (albedo changes, water vapor, clouds, etc.) with known physical mechanisms. Furthermore, they postulate no physical mechanism that can explain cooling stratosphere/warming troposphere.

At least Svensmaark proposes (a yet unconfirmed or proven significant) physical process for GCR effects on climate. Although he relies on reduced solar activity to increase GCR for more cloud formation and cooler temps. However, combined with Haigh's work, this means cooler stratospheric temps as well. So still no explanation of the cooling stratosphere/warming troposphere.

Labitzke's work blosters the case for GHG forced warming as well as the cooling effects of ozone loss and CO2 increases in the stratosphere (http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/~gth/netscape/2001/vr0101.pdf). They even reference Hansen approving of his modeling of stratospheric temps by inclucing ozone changes!

There is a trend here in all of your references (other than Labitzkse'sm, which uses a real physical model!). They attribute recent climate change to some solar feature with no mechanism that can explain the current changes in the observed state of the atmospheric and climate.

Patrick - I'm arguing that the temperature records from which these predictions are taken never show a 1.5degC drop in the span of 13 years with a concurrent drop in TSI of only 0.1%. The difference between the MWP and the LIA is about 0.5degC, which is only realized after several centuries. As for the causes of the LIA...decreased TSI and increased volcanic aerosols reproduce the LIA pretty well. It helps if you look for these answers on your own Patrick. So why don't you find where there is ample evidence to support the notion that such a large cooling can occur from a reduction in sunspot activity in the temperature/sunspot record?

Also, I was the Anonymous (sorry about that) that posted about your link to the Bali press releases. FYI - Matt England (not Andrew Pittman) made the comment about "at least 70%". Pittman was responsible for the quote that I attributed to him. Maybe reading carefully would help prevent you from consistently making so many mistakes!

The difference between the MWP and the LIA is about 0.5degC

Pete,

Wow! Only half a degree froze the entire population of Greenland to death. Those Vikings were wimps.

The incestuous AGW world is now contaminated by generations of GCM inbreeding, where GCM results get fed into other research which gets fed back into the GCM's. It is now GIGO squared or GIGO cubed.

You seem to bite hook line and sinker into the IPCC bait. Do you honestly believe that your quote above is accurate?

Pete,

Why do you keep citing "cooling stratosphere/warming troposphere ?"

According to satellite data the troposphere's been cooling for the past several years - see below ? Please explain........

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/jgr07/M&M.JGR07-background.pdf

http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/12/rss-msu-november-2007-was-coldest-month.html

http://denerding.blogspot.com/2007/12/global-warming-earth-cooled-005c-in.html

This is a very serious allegation
http://my.telegraph.co.uk/reasonmclucus/december_2007/ipcc_falsifies_sea_level_data.htm
any comments?

VINCENT: As a GW independent, I believe I can offer an unbiased and effective remedy from Scottish history for those who force the science to tell the story they want (and this applies to skeptics as well as alarmists).

During the upheaval immediately following the Industrial Revolution, dishonest Scottish merchants became a plague on society. How to punish, and how to warn the populace were pressing social questions. So they placed the guilty ones on a box next to a wooden wall, nailed their ear to the wall, and kicked the box out from under them. Thus, the dishonest merchants were "earmarked" for all to see, and could never again prey on the unwary public.

Do I hear a second on the motion?

ANONYMOUS (12/6 5:55 pm):

If we take the 0.05 deg C cooling since 1997 at face value, http://denerding.blogspot.com/2007/12/global-warming-earth-cooled-005c-in.html then our language has to change accordingly, because the truth must permeate the perspectives we create with language. Consistent with the cooling trend, we should be saying "200y is the x th COOLEST year this century." Am I wrong about this? Alarmists, what do you think?

Patrick - 0.5degC was the temp change averaged over the entire Earth (or at least parts of the Northern Hemisphere). That does not exclude larger temperature excursions in regions such as Greenland. Based on the evidence available, the statement I made is accurate. Please show me evidence otherwise.

I don't need the IPCC to tell me what to think. I am perfectly capable of reading and understanding the scientific literature on my own. Please also present evidence of the propagation of error from GCM to GCM that you believe exists. That means you probably have to read and understand the literature a little more deeply than you have to date.

Hi Guys,

Here is a paper by DR Roger Pielke Sr. on proper metric in determining heat content. He also dissects the Bali Accord.

http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2007/12/07/out-on-a-limb-the-2007-bali-climate-declaration-by-scientists/

Anonymous (12/7 3:02) - McKitrick also claims that the satellite data show a statistically insignificant warming over the past few years as well, while that is consistent with a cooling troposphere it does not tell the whole story. While the increase in radiative forcing due to GHG accumulates and persists over many years (due to long GHG lifetimes and lag from heat uptake in the oceans), the processes by which the troposphere and stratosphere heat and cool on a monthly or a yearly scale operate and persist for much shorter times. This is evident from the opposite effects of voclanic eruptions on the tropospheric and stratospheric temperatures as seen in the RSS (and UAH) satellite analysis. Furthermore, short term cooling from the current stengthening La Nina phase of the ENSO is showing up in the tropospheric, but not the stratospheric, data. No surprises there as this is the case throughout the satellite data. When you speak about temperature changes due to radiative forcing (i.e. GHG) remember that these are long term and persistent and cannot be proven/disproven by short term trends.

There are two massive furnaces at play, heating the earth.

Imagine, there is the Sun out there, with a surface temperature of around 10,000 degrees, throwing massive coronal ejections our way.

Then imagine, that the underside of the Earth's crust, only 3 to 12 miles away from the soles of our feet in most places, is 1600 degrees.

Just the average heat loss through the crust and oceans into the atmosphere, is estimated at 3 times the energy that humans generate.

Now realize that both furnaces are constantly moving and changing, above our heads and below our feet.

How can anyone predict which way the climate will go, when there are such profound heat factors at play, that we have absolutely no control over?

How totally absurd and naiive to think that we, as a minute species, scurrying over the crust of the Earth, can invent a thermostat to control the heating or cooling of the atmosphere, when the furnaces that heat it, operate at whatever temperature they wish and have not been taken seriously into account by the modellers.

I can't believe how many intelligent people have been taken in by CO2 and have closed their minds to all other incredibly massive, natural factors affecting this planet. They have been brainwashed by a small environmental lobby to focus on human heat and pollution sources and how bad we humans are for the planet.

Grow a pair and stop blaming people for your insecurities and start enjoying life instead of finding fault with everything humans do.

We had a very interesting conversation about the sun's effect on current warming on this site several months ago. I was surprised by how alarmists seemed determined to discount the sun as an obvious cause of warming. I was directed to a number of fascinating papers which went to great length to persuade the reader that the sun had no influence, and therefore man must be the cause of warming.

One point which was made in a number of papers was that the level of solar irradience has been stable since 1950, and therefore irradience can't account for warming. Charts were provided. I looked at the charts. One thing I noted was that in 1950 irradience shot up to unprecidented levels, where the low points in the sunspot cycle were far higher than the high points of former times. It has remained at those unprecidented levels ever since.

OK. Analogy time. Suppose the earth's oceans are represented by a very large pot of water. Suppose the sun, 93 million miles away, is represented by a very small burner. Suppose the burner is set on low. The water in the pot is warmed to a certain degree, where it reaches equalibrium. As much heat is lost to the surounding "space" as is added by the burner.

Then suppose you turn the burner up to medium. Does the temperature of the water immediately shoot up to a new equilibrium? No. It takes time for the water to warm up.

It seems to me the sun turned up the heat in 1950, and the earth has been slowly warming towards a new equalibrium ever since.

This is a very simple explaination, I know, but often the most simple and obvious explaination, in nature, turns out to be more valid than very complex and intellectual ones.

This explanation doesn't even take into account the fascinating cloud-forming effects of cosmic rays, which also might have an effect on whether the climate warms or cools.

In any case, I have not been persuaded by the arguements of alarmists that the sun isn't behind the warming of the past half century. Nor am I certain we can rely on the sun to continue the warming. It seems to have a mind of its own, and to have very little regard for poor, mortal forecasters on earth. Just when they have all the data programed into their computors, the sun changes and all the programed data instantly is rendered obsolete.

Claude,

The Scottish story is exactly what is happening now. Scientists who don't tow the AGW line are punished and "earmarked" as (holocaust equivalent) "deniers." That is why most are afraid to speak out, or at a minimum feel forced to qualify their research with inane comments like "Could Solar Inactivity counteract Global Warming?" The author of this paper obviously believes that solar influence is much stronger than CO2, yet in order to get published he throws in the mandatory AGW lip service.

The punishment is there and the judge, jury, and executioner are people like Heidi Cullen and Margaret Beckett - the former British Foreign Secretary who wants to criminalize AGW skepticism.

"Some members of the Russian Academy of Sciences say we may be at the start of a period like that seen between 1790 and 1820, a minor decline in solar activity called the Dalton Minimum. They estimate that the Sun's reduced activity may cause a global temperature drop of 1.5C by 2020. This is larger than most sensible predictions of man-made global warming over this period."

Talk about alarmism! This prediction is well outside of the mainstream. Svalgaard predicts a solar cycle about the intensity of the 1901 cycle--not exactly an ice age. And NASA has put together a prediction that solar cycles will stay about the same:

http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/predict1.JPG

If 24 starts in March it will be just about an average start time, so predictions of a Maunder minimum are quite strange. And why would it cause a cooling of 1.5oC, far more than the "little ice age," especially with CO2 forcing on the rise? Sounds like nonsense to me.

And let's not forget that there has been no net increase in TSI since 1950. Some tend to forget or deny this fact.

Caleb:
Your Analogy is simple but absolutely spot on.
Any physisist would see this immediately. Climate Scientests seem to have a hard time with reality so they use computer models to project whatever scenario suits their agenda.
The other thing that facinated me with this article was how broadly it was accepted even by the alarmists.
I suggest the reason was that it was written in a way that did not completely negate the AGW theories.
IE: the sun is the primary driver and since it is cooling us down now, it may help avert the impending disaster, yada yada yada.

Again, as long as a paper has some gratuitus links to AGW, it is seen as plausable.

But there is no Bias!

"How totally absurd and naiive to think that we, as a minute species, scurrying over the crust of the Earth, can invent a thermostat to control the heating or cooling of the atmosphere"

How totally ignorant and naive to think that we, as the most dominant species in the history of the Earth, have absolutely no affect on the Earth's climate. How ignorant is it to think that emitting what amounts to 600 million years worth of sequestered CO2 in one nanosecond -- on Earth's timescale -- has no effect?

Your beliefs resemble religion and not science, John.

Hey Mark;
" How ignorant is it to think that emitting what amounts to 600 million years worth of sequestered CO2 "

Just exactly what percentage of the total CO2 is that?
Somthing like .0013% or so?
Wow. What an impact!

Somone else put it in perspective in an interesting way.
All the people of planet earth could stand together on the big island of Hawaii at the same time.
We just aren't that signifigant. I know that thought hurts but it true.

Mark,

600 million years worth of sequestered CO2 in one nanosecond

600,000,000 years * 365 days * 24 hours * 60 minutes * 60 seconds = 18921600000000000 seconds. Now divide that by 1 nanosecond and you get 18921600000000000000000000.

That is a big number. One of the largest ever used in science. I think you should publish a paper in the Journal of Gaia Rubbish.

Oh by the way - about 99.9% of the world's carbon is sequestered in limestone, not coal or oil. But that isn't important and wouldn't stop you from a successful peer review in this lame excuse for a science, where any garbage which supports global warming gets published.

Ah...Mark,

You should read everything carefully, three or four times before you try to formulate opinions that really have no impact or substance.

Here's a few questions for you to ponder and please, try to read them carefully and understand them fully, before retorting, which I sincerely hope you do.

How can you sleep at night with that much stress and anger?

How many times a day do you formulate arguments in your mind, to prop up and justify your fanatical belief in the teachings of the Gore.

Where did I say "CO2 has no effect"?

Where did I say that humans have "absolutely no effect on the Earth's climate"?

How can you possibly interpret what I said, as "religious"?

Where do you get those numbers?

Does the belief system you belong to, not have an open mind towards other avenues of thought?

Are you becoming frustrated because you don't have real answers to justify a grossly inflated, scare them at the box office scenario?

And again: What percentage has man added to global warming in comparison to all other forces involved, and I do mean all other forces?

More hysteria. Geez, lets find some more non-sensical data and blame it on global warming. Have any of you green whackos investigated the possibility that human flatulence may be depleting the ozone. Al Gore is human flatulence and you gave him and Oscar. Get a life.

John,

Please remember that Mark is the keeper of the truth on this matter and that all who dare question his belief system are obviously under the influence of religion of some sort. Keepers to the AGW ideology are informed and intelligent. All others are Neanderthal, flat-earthers. How did I do, Mark??

um.. mark, i hate to burst your bubble, but the most dominant species status in earth's history should be given to algae. i mean, i happen to enjoy the 19% oxygen atmosphere they gave us, not to mention being the nutritional source for every species of animal in the ocean and the evolutionary source for all life.

also, the vast majority of carbon sequestered in the last 600 million years remains sequestered in carbonate rocks (limestones, dolomites, etc.). the amount of carbon released through the burning of hydrocarbons is negligible compared to what remains sequestered in the subsurface. Also, no oil or coal on this planet is 600 million years old. At that time, the conditions for hydrocarbon formation did not even exist!

Gary-

Just to continue with your analogies. I read a year or two ago that if the grand canyon was filled with a giant appartment complex, every individual person could have a 5600 square foot appartment. (since I couldn't find a link to the article, I just calculated it out and it's right). Imagine, for a family of four that's 20k square feet. Hell, I could have a basketball court in my house. Not much yard but, a pretty nice source of water, and potentially electricity (hydroelectric).

Regards, Elliot

Buzz-

You forgot we're pawns of the evil oil industry also.

Regards, Elliot

"Just exactly what percentage of the total CO2 is that?
Somthing like .0013% or so?"

Atmospheric CO2 has increased about 30%.

"Oh by the way - about 99.9% of the world's carbon is sequestered in limestone."

Thanks for the irrelevant statistic. You've got a whole bushel of those.

"the amount of carbon released through the burning of hydrocarbons is negligible compared to what remains sequestered in the subsurface."

Redundant irrelevancy.

The "humans are too small to have an effect" argument is weak, weak, weak.

One volcano produces more CO2 then everyone on earth combined when it erupts.

If I take this argument at face value, are you telling me that anthropogenic CO2 adds to both warming and cooling? Well, now, that's a grand CYA maneuver.

Atmospheric CO2 reflects IR back towards the surface, and in so doing warms the atmosphere. The anthropogenic component of atmospheric CO2 adds to this effect. Yes, this adds a positive bias to whatever warming or cooling is taking place from other sources. The mechanism has nothing to do with "CYA", it simply is the mechanism.

At least half a dozen people, including me, have attempted to explain this mechanism to you, to no avail. This fact notwithstanding, the mechanism is nevertheless as described.

Hi Boris:
Thanks for that.
It seems then that CO2 has increased from totally irrelevent to almost totally irrelevant.
Thats scarry indeed.

How can you sleep at night with that much stress and anger?

reply: I sleep pretty well at night, especially considering that, according to the neocons, I'm supposed to be terrified about Iran and Iraq starting a nuclear holocaust. Oh yeah, and I'm supposed to be worried about the impending worldwide depression which will result from regulating CO2. Yeah, I think I sleep well all things considered, right John?

How many times a day do you formulate arguments in your mind, to prop up and justify your fanatical belief in the teachings of the Gore.

Reply: I really don't have to formulate anything. It's very easy to argue against illogical lunacy -- in other words, what deniers used to justify their fanatical beliefs.

Where did I say "CO2 has no effect"?

Reply: I'm glad you agree that it has an effect.

Where did I say that humans have "absolutely no effect on the Earth's climate"?

How can you possibly interpret what I said, as "religious"?

Reply: Because the belief that man has no effect or no control over our environment is a religious belief. It's not a scientific one.

Where do you get those numbers?

Reply: I got them from Exxon Mobil.

Does the belief system you belong to, not have an open mind towards other avenues of thought?

Reply: My belief system is science. Not a political ideology, such as yours.

Are you becoming frustrated because you don't have real answers to justify a grossly inflated, scare them at the box office scenario?

Reply: Are you talking about AGW or Iran?

And again: What percentage has man added to global warming in comparison to all other forces involved, and I do mean all other forces?

Reply: You didn't answer my question. Let's take a guy who has a family history of heart disease but also eats unhealthily. He has a heart attack. What percentage did his genetics play a role and what percentage did his lifestyle?

When you can succesfully answer that question, then I can answer yours.

I don't think anyone hopes for global cold, but if we get it there's a potential silver lining to this cloud that would be an unprecedented scientific opportunity.

Let's say that the end of solar cycle 23 is much delayed, even longer than March 2008, and that SC24 is much weaker than expected as a result. Add that to the widespread expectation that SC25 will be weak. IF all that happens - a big IF at this point - the world will get significantly colder, i.e., global colding.

As a matter of necessity and an issue of credibility, the GCM-meisters will HAVE to work accurate solar effects and negative feedbacks into their models, and they will HAVE to accurately model the 1997-present lull in warming plus the cooling resulting from the SC23-24-25 antics of the sun. And they will then HAVE to forecast future climate USING THE SAME BASIS SET INPUTS.

The hoped for and possible result? A much more accurate and nuanced calculation of the actual effect of manmade CO2 on warming. Now that's something to get excited about. Let's hope they succeed, because we're all interested in the truth. But if they fail, we can never ever take a GCM forecast seriously again until specific validation criteria are developed, and a consensus reached that the criteria are indeed valid, complete, and have been fully met. That would only be fair, honest and wise.

You can run, O slithery CO2, but you can't hide. May your degrees of freedom diminish.

Brief but interesting article about how the sun sends out such blasts of solar wind whose strength is inconsistent with its relatively low surface temp. Could play into the Fries-Christiansen/Svensmark correlation that strong solar wind blocks more cosmic rays which in turn reduces lower cloud formation, resulting in more heating than would result from higher solar activity alone.

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/85/i50/8550notw5.html

The sun's corona�a hazy plasma that makes up the outermost portion of the sun's atmosphere and is filled with exotic ions such as iron(XIV)�should, by rights, be cooler than the fiery surface. Yet the corona's temperatures reach more than 1 million oC, whereas the sun's surface is only about 6,000 oC.

Researchers analyzing data from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's spacecraft Hinode (Sunrise), which has been orbiting the sun since last year, have found conclusive evidence for one explanation for this temperature mystery: "Alfv�n waves," which are energy-transporting oscillations that can heat the corona to fantastic temperatures as they ripple along the lines of magnetic fields spreading out from the sun.

These subtle waves were predicted more than 50 years ago by Swedish Nobelist Hannes Alfv�n and have been difficult to detect, although some evidence for their existence has been reported (Science 2007, 317, 1192).

In 10 articles on the Hinode mission results, international research teams report the observation of these oscillations in thin streams of matter that jet out from the sun (Science 2007, 318, 1572, 1574, 1577, 1580, 1582, 1585, 1588, 1591, 1594, and 1597). The researchers also report that these waves are strong enough to accelerate the blast of high-energy plasma, known as the solar wind, that bathes the solar system.

University of Sheffield solar physicists Robertus Erd�lyi and Viktor Fedun note in an accompanying commentary that "these pioneering results have serious consequences for solar and stellar coronal heating theories."

Mark:We're still waiting for an answer to John D's last question.Could it be that the figure is so small that in essence we have no effect on the climate? Yes of course solar inactivity can affect the climate since without the sun we wouldn't even be here for people to blame.

Atmospheric CO2 reflects IR back towards the surface, and in so doing warms the atmosphere.

Just for old time's sake, how about you and and the other five tell me how, based on the statement above, it contributes to global cooling?

And, in the meantime, enjoy your CO2 induced cooling this week.

Mark,

You say your belief system is science and yet you constantly bring up political arguments in your responses. You have the MoveOn.org playbook memorized. I hate to break this to you, but the AGW argument crosses party lines. Believe it or not, there are Democrats who are non-believers and Republicans who are believers. I happen to be the former. You might be better able to stick to the topic knowing that your not fighting for your party at every turn.

Paul,

Richmond, VA was 80 degrees today. The southeast is basking in record warmth and will continue to do so for much of this week. I expect this kind of cherry picking from Patrick Henry, but you should know better.

It's just too easy to get you talking in circles, Mark. You get so flustered that you answer questions with questions and throw out old shots that never even came up in the initial discussion, like "neocon", "nuclear holocost", "Exxon Mobil", "political ideology", "Iran", "Iraq". That's known as futile arguing, which is most common in grade school, only without the big words.

All I need to know from you, is the answer to my last question, because that's what this discussion is all about. There's no shame in coming right out and saying you don't have a clue, but we'll all understand if you still want to argue a blue streak.

Now, about the fella with the bad heart, well, we know there is a history of heart disease or, like the Earth, natural fluctuations in the climate, plate tectonics, asteroids and cosmic storms over millions of years.

He also has an unhealthy diet that he obviously brought on himself, sort of like Earth, flipping itself over ever once and a while when it relocates the magnetic poles, or decides to burst it's seams to let out a belch because it let the pressure build up a little too much.

Now let's look at the outside influences, or a few of the "all other factors", on our unfortunate friend.

What was he exposed to in his lifetime?

Did he work in a chemically caustic environment?

Did he have traumatic experiences in his life?

Was he raised on the city streets where hundreds of cars an hour drove by, filling his lungs with invisible and cumulative Carbon Monoxide over the years?

Did he live near a mine smelter, a steel mill, a refinery or a cement plant?

Was he ever a chimney sweep or mechanic?

Did he have a nagging wife and know-it-all kids that helped to deteriorate his health?

Was he in any accidents?

Was he ever exposed to electric shock?

Did he ever live in any houses or apartments with asbestos or urea formaldahyde?

Did he smoke big cigars?

We will never be able to make a proper assessment to determine the single or cumulative reasons which led to his demise, unless we can look into every factor involved in his life.

Like the Earth, Mark, there are a lot of factors to consider before formulating an absolute judgement. Something the IPCC had conveniently and politically overlooked in their flawed assessments, that are now becoming public from some of their own ranks.

If the IPCC was to answer your question, they would say, "We made up a model, input that he came from a family with a history of heart problems, his diet was not the best either, so, our consensus, without a doubt or argument from all doctors on the planet, that he ate too much spicy food, which in turn caused his body to go into a human induced fever of 3 to 10 degrees over the norm, causing the water in his kidneys and bladder to rise 100 times more than normal and his blood flow to reverse, placing undue and added stress on his heart and causing a massive coronary, all within 50 years.

Yet, if he would have paid the doctors a spicy food tax, he could have eaten as much as he wanted, because of the obvious counter-acting ability of the tax on injested spice, and would have saved him from a horrible death.

Now, I have answered yours, fairly civilly, and now it's your turn. Do us proud!

Who cares about a global ice age?! Let it come for all I care! That's gonna be hella fun! I'm definitely planning to move north once that happens... ;)

Just for old time's sake, how about you and and the other five tell me how, based on the statement above, it contributes to global cooling?

Paul seems to again misunderstand what I wrote. Here is the full text of what I wrote:

Atmospheric CO2 reflects IR back towards the surface, and in so doing warms the atmosphere. The anthropogenic component of atmospheric CO2 adds to this effect. Yes, this adds a positive bias to whatever warming or cooling is taking place from other sources. The mechanism has nothing to do with "CYA", it simply is the mechanism.

The topic of this thread is a suggestion that a decrease in the number of sunspots might lead to period of solar-forced global cooling. I wrote that in that scenario, the effect of atmospheric CO2 will be to moderate that effect, so as to make the global temperature warmer than it would be in the absence of atmospheric CO2.

Steve P - The answer to John D.'s last question is here:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/

These forcings and can also be found in the 2007 IPCC report. Nobody says solar activity/inactivity does not affect climate. The real debate is by what mechanism. If it is via the total amount of energy emitted to Earth, then the variability is low and the change in forcing is low. If it is through some other mechanism (e.g. effects on GCR and cloud formation), then it may be larger. As it stands, there is little evidence for the latter and overwhelming evidence for the former.

if I recall my science our atmosphere naturally has CO2 in it.

the effect of atmospheric CO2 will be to moderate that effect, so as to make the global temperature warmer than it would be in the absence of atmospheric CO2.

That's interesting. According to Al Gore and the Church of Global Warming, "...in accepting the prize he shared with the U.N. climate panel, the former vice president said humanity risks sliding down a path of "mutually assured destruction."

"It is time to make peace with the planet," Gore said in his acceptance speech that evoked Churchill, Gandhi and the Bible. "We must quickly mobilize our civilization with the urgency and resolve that has previously been seen only when nations mobilized for war." (AP)

Al seems to think that only humans can remediate this mess we've supposedly gotten ourselves in to. Now your suggesting that CO2 will dampen climatic changes that are the result of changes in the activity of the sun. How can that be when CO2 (anthropogenic, at that) is the cause of global warming? Make up your mind, bt. You're contradicting yourself, once again.

Pete, Thanks for the NASA link. I hadn't seen that before.

What bugs me is that the page says: "The following figure shows changes in climate "forcings" or factors that have contributed to climate change since 1750."

In other words, here's the model inputs that we declare will give us models which will fit (roughly) with what we've seen since 1750.

The problem is that the period 1750-present is preceeeded by a big dip in temps just prior to the period in question and before that the Midieval Warm Period warmed stuff up more than now.

I suspect it was chosen thusly because it makes the models cleaner and the curve fits nicer.

So let's see, I take a pattern for the last 250 years, which, by the way, I've roughed up some guesses as to what I THINK should be the forcing functions and their inter-relation as opposed to experimentally rigorously verifying it and then I declare that my model explains all of history- except for the outliers, which are..um outliers..so we ignore them, and OH!....my goodness...CO2 is the prime forcing function and changes climate the most and warms things up!

I personally agree with the earlier post that stated that when the temps get cooler, the IPCC will be forced to change their model and rerun it backwards and forwards and then they'll find they were in concensus in their wrongness. ;-)

Relax..two more years to see the experiment come to fruition isn't that long and won't hurt the environment anymore as long as we stay focused on not polluting with real pollutants...

plish - the climate forcings are relative to 1750 because that is well before the onset of the Industrial Age (when human activity started to impose some forcing on the climate system) and provides a "natural" baseline. There is also fairly good paleoclimatic data from then so there is less uncertainty than in data from periods prior to that. No suspect reasons needed.

The magnitude of natural climate forcings (e.g. solar variability) are constrained or determined from paleoclimatic data from periods prior to about 1850. In fact, the Maunder Minimum is commonly used to determine solar forcing. You can see a comparison of the results of an ensemble of GCM runs modeling temperature anomalies in the Northern Hemisphere from 1550 - 1800 here http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2004/2004_Schmidt_etal_3.pdf . Of course, using longer time periods in the paleoclimatic record would be better, but higher quality proxies are needed to reduce uncertainty and extend spatial coverage. This is a vastly different process from the one you described in your post!

What are these outliers that you think that climate modellers ignore? What evidence do you have to support your "personal" agreement an earlier post?

Pete, thanks for the well thought out post and for the Schmidt paper.

The outliers are first and foremost the medieval warm period. Even going back to 1550, while interesting, the general agreed upon trend is essentially up from 1550 on. Other outliers are those eras of warmer temps with more CO2, or cooling when CO2 hasn't come down yet, the lack of tipping points in the historical record even when CO2 soared, to name a few.

If we can't model back, we have no business modelling forward.

Pete,

"Furthermore, short term cooling from the current stengthening La Nina phase of the ENSO is showing up in the tropospheric, but not the stratospheric, data. No surprises there as this is the case throughout the satellite data. When you speak about temperature changes due to radiative forcing (i.e. GHG) remember that these are long term and persistent and cannot be proven/disproven by short term trends."

This argument holds no water for two reasons; the La Nina only began this summer, far shorter than the several years of cooling. Second, the current LaNina, infact the ENSO-affected region is at most 100 Deg wide out of 360 and is only a narrow band of lattitude. In other words it is a tiny region of the globe, and is thus not responsible for the many years of decline.

Please check out the latest blog by Harvard physicist Dr. Lubos Motl, regarding the failure of the atmosphere to warm as predicted by all the GCM's.

http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/12/douglass-christy-pearson-singer.html

See if you can come up with a better explanation than your previous one.

Good link and i think the UN should look at this too wait hey never will,it's againt what they are saying so it's forbidden to bring up.

Anonymous - I did not mean to imply that the current La Nina was responsible for the temperature variations of the past several years (which it obviously can't), only that the temp anomaly in the stratosphere would not be signficantly affected in contrast with variations due to GHG driven variation or volcanic activity. This was meant to clarify the fingerprint of GHG driven variability in the satellite data.

It's not a great idea to extract long term climate trends from only 10 years of data (that goes for ice anomalies and anything else!) And it is even a worse idea to determine a 10 year trend starting in a strong El Nino year and ending in a year when a La Nina phase is beginning and imply that it says something about the forcing effect of GHG in GCMs.

If the decrease in solar activity is upon we should stronger thunderstorms and tornados

The last post predicted "stronger thunderstorms and tornados" due to the decrease in solar activity.
It turns out this season is way above normal in that respect, right?
Are there records for past years to see what the correlation is?

NOAA has lots of data on severe weather. This page has a very nice plot showing the trend in tornadoes over the year for 2005 to 2008. 2008 is clearly higher than the 10 year average.
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/torn/monthlytornstats.html