I know, that doesn’t sound right to me either. Whatchoo talkin’ about, Science?
A study from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland looking at climate data over the past century has concluded that solar variation has made a significant impact on the Earth’s climate. The report concludes that evidence for climate changes based on solar radiation can be traced back as far as the Industrial Revolution.
Past research has shown that the sun goes through eleven year cycles. At the cycle’s peak, solar activity occurring near sunspots is particularly intense, basking the Earth in solar heat. According to Robert Cahalan, a climatologist at the Goddard Space Flight Center, “Right now, we are in between major ice ages, in a period that has been called the Holocene.”
Thomas Woods, solar scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder concludes, “The fluctuations in the solar cycle impacts Earth’s global temperature by about 0.1 degree Celsius, slightly hotter during solar maximum and cooler during solar minimum. The sun is currently at its minimum, and the next solar maximum is expected in 2012.”
I don’t want to get too technical, but what they seem to be saying is that the more solar activity there is, the warmer the Earth gets. Um, how counterintuitive can you get?
As Al Gore and other people who stand to make a lot of money from global warming scare tactics will tell you, “the science is settled.” Unless you drive a hybrid, stumble around in the dark at night, and only eat things you find in your yard, you’re killing the planet. So I don’t see what a big fat ball of hot gas way up in the sky has to do with anything. But enough about Gore in his private jet.
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Doesn’t Al look like he just got offered a Double Whopper with Cheese? But it’s in a plastic wrapper. Talk about hard choices!
@Swede: HA! “Fish or cut bait…fish or cut bait…”
Correct me if I’m wrong–and I KNOW someone will–but isn’t that a misuse of the word “basking” up there? I thought the verb “to bask” was intransitive. You bask in the glow of the sun, but the sun doesn’t bask you. Maybe “bathing” was the word they were looking for, and if the environmentalists I’ve met are any indication, I can see why they were unfamiliar with the verb “to bathe”.
If you watch the science channel regularly, they have been saying the same thing for over a year now.
In addition they have been mentioning the global cooling – Ice Age anyone – and then the warming and the evidence that is starting show these things happen more often than just the once.
Beige, English major or nun’s for teachers?
This reminded me of an article I read on Cracked online recently.
http://www.cracked.com/article_17084_5-ways-people-are-trying-save-world-that-dont-work.html
The sun theory was kind of the thesis of a BBC documentary I watched a long time ago called “The Great Global Warming Swindle.” I highly recommend this one! It’s so good that the science-is-settled crowd wouldn’t even let it air in the USA. I found it in pieces on YouTube and made my sister watch it after they forced her to watch “An Inconvenient Truth” in school.
According to a lot of studies, the “warming” we’re going through right now is actually just a return to average temperatures after a little ice age a few decades ago.
Your move, Al.
It’s not the activity that makes the Sun warmer at solar max, it’s the extra sunspots. Although they are cooler than the surrounding surface, they are themselves surrounded by a ring of hotter material called faculae. These more than make up for the darker spot, and at solar max add about 0.1% to the Sun’s brightness. This has been known for a long time, but according to what I have read this does NOT account for global warming. This is cyclic, every 11 years, and the warming trend is an ever-increasing one.
So there’s your science lesson for the day.
Two words……….Chicken Little. I’ll become more “green” the day Al quits using his plane to travel around telling other people how to live.
I don’t see it happening anytime soon.
“According to a lot of studies, the “warming” we’re going through right now is actually just a return to average temperatures after a little ice age a few decades ago.”
Exactly! And archaeological evidence backs up the science in this respect almost completely (SEE Mom! A degree in Ancient Mediterranean History ISN’T entirely worthless!). During the height of the Roman Empire, there were vast grape vineyards almost as far north as modern day Scotland, in areas that would be no where near temperate enough to cultivate them today. Put simply, it was warmer back then than the warmest period we’ve had in recent history, and it’s pretty conclusively true.
That climate didn’t fade until the coming of the little ice age that helped (in part) to spur on the Dark Ages. It’s not just the fall of the Roman Empire that destroyed crop yields in Europe for hundreds of years, the climate also had a lot to do with it.
In a lot of ways, I’ve become convinced that we’re not so much entering an era of unseasonable warmth, as we are coming out of an era of unseasonably cold weather. I would say that the geological and archaeological evidence backs that up pretty conclusively too.
The shiny finish on the new Al Gore is starting to look more and more like a Madame Tussaud’s wax sculpture. I hope they get the key in his back right.
Yep, you are right, the sun’s activity is a huge deal. And how did the Mayans know that it would peak again in 2012?! :-O
Good article. “The science is settled,” indeed. When the freeze comes, I hope that his phony Nobel Prize gets taken away from him.
I like asking people how much bigger the sun is than the earth. You get a surprising range of answers– amazing how there is a throbbing ball of thermonuclear gas that is one million times the size of the earth hanging up there in the sky 12 hours a day, and the enviro-wackos hate CO2.
LN, political science/media studies/business. When it comes to grammar/spelling, I’m not infallible, but I do tend to be so anal that I suck up the furniture.
Koka–EXACTLY.
Jannah: Methinks the Mayans possibly were better at math than a lot of people today, especially given the sad state of our public schools.
So NASA is making this stuff up.
If it is global warming, yet again Michigan is the last to get the benefits. If it a return to what it was….please tell me Michigan’s base temps are higher than they are now.
The more the envirofascists stomp and whinge about climate change and how bad people are for the planet, the more I wonder why they don’t contribute to the solution by drinking some bleach or something. It’s not like they’re not biodegradable.
I’m baack!
Ah. I’m just going to enjoy the post. I have nothing to comment right now. Just glad to be back.
YAY! Glad you’re back.
Just watched the first 2 of 8 installments of “The Great Global Warming Swindle” It is ab fab.
Glad you’re watching it, LN! Make sure you watch part 3, it’s brilliant.
What, you didn’t appreciate all four frost warnings last week?
Simon Scowl says “So NASA is making this stuff up.”. No, if you click past the spin from the blogger you linked you’ll find out what NASA actually says:
It’s odd that that bit did not make it into your post. How come?
Shhhh, it’s all part of the conspiracy.
It was 56 degrees here yesterday in Chicago. In June. Downright cold by even Midwest standards for this time of year. If global warming hippies can point to the occasional 56 degree day in January as proof of global warming, I can point to a 56 degree day in June as proof the world isn’t getting warmer.
Take that Global Warming Hippies! (I hope you all die)
I’ve blogged about your misrepresentation of what the NASA scientists discovered here.
Congratulations!
Michael Andrews and you are both blatant, not-at-all-skillful liars, and this is not a particularly well-done lie, even for you. You’re not quoting Science and neither is he. If Andrews were even QUOTING the actual article Andrews linked to, Science Daily website (which is not at all Science magazine), you’d have probably quoted the very first paragraph after the article summary blurb – that is, the start*:
For the last 20 to 30 years, we believe greenhouse gases have been the dominant influence on recent climate change,” said Robert Cahalan, climatologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
So, anyone who reads this very aptly-titled web-site … What does this say about you? Couldn’t you use the time better actually learning a little science?
*The summary/abstract says exactly the same thing, but is wordier.
Tim Lambert,
Actually, no. Simon did, in fact, not misrepresent what the NASA scientists discovered at all. If you had perhaps spent as much time examining his post here as the article in question, maybe you would have noticed that Simon never once said or even truly hinted that the sun is the entire cause of all global warming; merely that it was found to be a causative factor. No matter what Simon’s own opinions may be, they weren’t thrust out into the open with this post. True, there are many who may say that the sun is the only cause, but there are also many who say that the greenhouse gases are the only cause and I believe this post was directed at them. Perhaps most importantly is that you say the ‘discovery’ by NASA scientist was misrepresented by Simon. If you’ll recall, what was ‘discovered’ in the article was that the sun has an impact on Earth’s temperature. Regardless of what individual scientist on the group ‘believe’ is irrelevant compared to the findings of the article, because what they ‘believe’ weren’t examined in the same article. To suggest otherwise, as you have, is to imply that a personal belief added into a research paper even without the focus of the paper being on the same subject should be included as a legitimate finding in its conclusion. All in all, despite your fanaticism, the libelous claim that Simon is trying to deliberately mislead the public by cutting out the beliefs of the scientists and sticking to only what was actually discovered in the one article is still unjustified.
I thought that NASA recently revealed that their greenhouse gases model and statistics, that “confirmed” global warming, was a miscalculation and that it took them a while to admit it. ???? Must go search for that on nasawatch.com.
P.S. Perhaps that’s why they are now officially calling it “Climate Change” instead of “Global Warming” Pasta. That would allow for a lot of leeway in either direction without EVER being wrong.
FWIW, a some searching turned up this tidbit on Jim Hensen, of “NASA’s primary climate monitoring agency…Goddard Institute of Space Studies”, and the alleged error in the computer global warming model (9/26/07):
“A report revealed just this week, shows the ‘Open Society Institute’ funded Hansen to the tune of $720,000, carefully orchestrating his entire media campaign. OSI…is funded by billionaire George Soros, the largest backer of Kerry’s 2004 Presidential Campaign. Soros, who once declared that “removing Bush from office was the “central focus” of his life, has also given tens of millions of dollars to MoveOn.Org and other political action groups.”
“Hansen received an earlier $250,000 grant from the Heinz Foundation, an organization run by Kerry’s wife, which he followed by publicly endorsing Kerry. Hansen also acted as a paid consultant to Gore during the making of his global-warming film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” and even personally promoted the film during an NYC.”
“After the the GISS data error was revealed, Hansen finally agreed to make public the method he uses to generate “official” temperature records from the actual readings. That process has been revealed to be thousands of lines of source code, containing hundreds of arbitrary “bias” adjustments to individual sites, tossing out many readings entirely, and raising (or lowering) the actual values for others, sometimes by several degrees.”
Something seems rather fishy here. Source site:
http://www.dailytech.com/NASA+James+Hansen+and+the+Politicization+of+Science/article9061.htm
I have seena 8 of the “Great Global Warming Swindle” and I must say to you all…Watch it! If nothing else is accomplished, you might learn a new little tidbit.
Did you know Volcano’s put out more “green house” gasses than all humans, every year? Did you know CO2 is less than 1% of the green house gasses? Water is a green house gas. I just love being a “nerd”.
Tim Lambert – This is not a science blog site but is rather a site dedicated to the hyporcites of the world and the climate change groups are the biggest hypocrites of them all.
If they truly believed in what they are pitching every single home they own, car they drive or plane they fly would be using the greenest technology available. They would push for laws that would dictate any new home be built with grid tie inverters (http://www.atensolar.com/65.html – they are only abour $3,000 – $5,000) so alternative power sources could be added later and any home valued at over a million would require they produce 25% (maybe more) of the energy they consume from solar panels, wind turbines and/or solar water heaters.
These people don’t do this, instead they push for larger government spending, taxation and oversite. Plus (my personal favorite) carbon credits, because I surely will trust that Al Gore would spend the money I give his group on planting tree’s rather then flying all over the world in a G5 and give meaningless speechless while his limo outside idles, sending more of the terrible CO2 into the air.
“For the last 20 to 30 years, we believe greenhouse gases have been the dominant influence on recent climate change,” said Robert Cahalan, climatologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
….which brings us right back to the sun. As LN (having now watched the “Great Global Warming Swindle”) and I know, water vapor is the greenhouse gas that has the biggest effect on climate change; and the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere is affected by the activity of the sun and solar winds. So, yeah, Mr. Cahalan could say that greenhouse gases have been the dominant influence, but he should also then mention that the sun influences the amount of greenhouse gases.
Who is Michael Andrews? Who is Marion Talking too? What about? I’ve read that post a dozen times and I can’t figure it out.
This whole “global warming” shtick has basically become another religion. You have individuals who have invested so much emotionally into it that they can’t see themselves as possibly wrong, and others (e.g., animal-rights nutjobs) who find it convenient to hitch their causes to it, as it is a system focused more on guilt than on practical solutions. And then at the top you have the Gore Papacy and others who purvey said guilt and profit from it (e.g., buying “carbon credits”, “hybrids”, etc).
That was also brought up in the Swindle. The ecconomic cost of ending the lie of global warming would be tremendous. Thousands of people are employed because of this lie….Oh and did I mention that the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere increase AFTER the temperature increases? And when the world had it’s greatest unchecked industrial serge – with the most polutants being released – THE TEMPERATURE FELL!
Good point Shikatehead, selling carbon credits for pollution “sins” is like selling indulgences for absolution!
Hopefully a climate-science reformation is coming soon.
D—, just because this is not a science blog, it does not mean it is OK for Scowl to deceive his readers about what the scientists found. Here it is again:
Note that he has not corrected his post, so it’s clear that the deception is deliberate.
I live in Ann Arbor MI and our temperatures right now don’t exceed 75 on a lucky day. Back when I was in High School ( like 7 years ago..) Each year in May it was HOT like mid to high eighties. I was wearing shorts to school. Today I wore sweat pants and a hoodie…so yea maybe everywhere else is gettin this “global warming” thing except Michigan lol…
Hey Danni, don’t they throw you out of Ann Arbor if you doubt Al Gore? I’d swear I was the only one not voting socialist when I lived there
I will say that personal observation over a single lifetime is too small a sample to judge climate trends. As a child, I can remember unmelted snow on Easter was standard in Michigan, yet my children have hunted eggs on our kinda-green lawn for the last 8 or 9 years (except this year, back to snow again).
But you’re absolutely right, our little corner of Michigan is unseasonably cold and wet this year. Corn is going to be very late coming-in this year.
Oh, and LN, now that you’re caught up on Swindle go check out Cool It by Bjorn Lomborg. The library may not have it, mine didn’t. It’s a great read. Lomborg believes in anthropogenic climate change but he argues against doing anything about it based on cost/benefit analysis. He outlines the gigantic problems with current proposed solutions, shows how little change even the most drastic measures will produce, and suggests intelligent ways to improve life for everyone on the planet with far less money (like controlling HIV/AIDS, irradicating Malaria, or bringing potable water to famine stricken areas).
Unless you drive a hybrid, stumble around in the dark at night, and only eat things you find in your yard, you’re killing the planet.
Well, I do drive a Prius and stumble around in the dark at night, but the only things I eat from my yard are yummy steaks and burgers off my patio grill.
Minnow, I’ve read about Lomborg’s ideas, which are really interesting. It looks like the Gates Foundation is barking up that tree too.
Tim Lambert,
“Note that he has not corrected his post, so it’s clear that the deception is deliberate”
I wonder why you went to D–’s post and seem to have skipped over my earlier one. D– is right enough that on this particular blog the whole post isn’t necessary to maintain the spirit of the blog. However, as I noted earlier, adding the section you seem to be oh so interested in wouldn’t even need to be added into a science blog either unless it was a stickler for full text. No further information is presented by having one guy say “…we BELIEVE greenhouse gases have been the dominant influence on recent climate change.”
But then again, I suppose if you’re going to call what whoever believes as being a scientific discovery, then I guess as long as you believe hard enough that Simon is deliberately deceiving people, it must be true. Now I’m going to go out and buy a lottery ticket, because I believe that the numbers I’ll get are scientifically guaranteed to be winners. If they aren’t, maybe I’ll blog about how corrupt the system is for not letting me win when I believe I should.
Funny thing happened today at work – I mentioned the “Great Global Warming Swindle” and you would have thought I said the earth was flat. One class participant got very upset that I would doubt anything as important as the fact that we are causing global warming. As a general warning, don’t mention the other opinion if you want to keep your participants.
I wish I had absolutely no other problems, and could spend all of the rest of my 20 to 40 years left on Earth worrying whether or not the temperature was going to rise 1-2 degrees Celsius one or 200 years after I’m dead. I suppose if I was an upper middle class tool with 24 hours to fill, and plenty of money…
Oh look I lost interest again.
LN: That doesn’t surprise me. You offended their deeply-held religious beliefs.
Minnow, I will admit I did start to believe the hype ( but had never seen An Inconvienant (sp?) Truth lol). Then I realized for the atleast the past two years it has been really mild in June here…they almost got me!! But then I got into my gas guzzler and remembered it’s a moot point anyway lol…
In direct contradiction to the evidence they just presented.
As one Antarctic scientist put it….the south pole is far below zero that 5-10 degree’s is not going to make a difference. And if the Earth heats up that much there would be greater evaporation, more water vapor, more rain and in the poles that equals more snow. Because at either -22F or -12F water still freezes (-22F is a heat wave down there, the annual average is about -50F)
We’re supposed to believe the NASA guy’s conclusion while ignoring the very evidence NASA produces to the contrary. It’s the “created or saved” mentality.
That’s it. I’m buying an SUV and setting a tree on fire.
The evidence that NASA produces supports their conclusion. It does not contradict it. They measured the influence of the sun and found that, yes, it does influence climate, but that in the past 20-30 years greenhouse gases have been the dominant influence.
What makes you think you know more about climate science than NASA?
You did a really good job with this, Tim. Come on, I want everybody to tell Tim what a good job he did.
Yaaaaaaaayyyyy, Tim! What a big boy!
What I especially love is how Global Warmists hold up NASA as the be-all-end-all of scientific expertise.
Yes, NASA employs some climatologists, but that’s not really their main focus. Let me humbly remind everyone that their primary directive is aeronautics and the gathering/analysis of extraterrestrial samples (not aliens, you sillies, but space dirt and remote data collection).
Oddly, we have a large governmental group focused climate and weather, who don’t get nearly the press that James Hansen at NASA does. Does anyone even remember NOAA?
NASA shoots NOAA satellites up to gather atmospheric information, but NASA is not a cohesive group of wise minded climate experts. Heck, most of NASA is contract employees, which means they’re a very fluid assemblage of short term staff with expertise limited to specific short term missions, not lifetimers like Dr. Hansen.
It should also be noted that Hansen’s lab exists at its current size to draw money for NASA; money which ulitmately is used to further less profitable but more important missions. No dangerous climate change, no further contracts to study said dangerous climate change, and suddenly NASA is grubbing money from taxpayers for space station toilet plungers.
Personally, I think that NASA needs more funding to begin with…but as you say, Minnow…NASA does not exist to deal with climate issues. Nor are they the ones flying airplanes into the middle of giant hurricanes to tell us when we need to run out and buy generators and gasoline.
It seems that most people HAVE completely lost sight of why NASA exists, which is sad because there is so much more they could be doing if they had public support at the same level that they had previously. Then again, I also think they might as well do a reality show about hot astronauts because apparently reality television is all people care about nowadays. So let’s get some hot astronauts and some liquor and a hot tub and make spaceflight interesting to the lowest common denominator again.
I can’t believe how all these research dollars are being thrown around like condoms at a Boyzone show, and nobody’s asking the REAL hard question: Why does Al Gore look more and more like Tippy Turtle with each passing day?